Revit Architecture and Max

Recently, I rendered my first Revit model in Autodesk 3ds Max. While I had extensive previous experience with Autodesk Viz, I had only used AutoCAD models in the Viz environment. I have rendered many Revit models in Accurender within Revit and have been able to tweak the settings enough to get very decent models. On this rendering though, we wanted to create a nightime rendering and that was something that you can not create well in Accurender.I was thrilled at the easy transfer from Revit into Max. While you have to export to AutoCAD first, when you bring that file into Max it allows you to select items by object. This project had three buildings, thus three linked files, and by being able to select the similar objects of each building allowed me to go from Revit to finished renderings in one day. Mix the easy use of the Revit/Max combo with ArchVision's RPC objects (People, Trees and Cars) and you can go from simple to amazing.

I am soon at the end of the 30 day trial that they allow from the download at the Autodesk website but I will be highly recommending the purchase of this product for our company. I will also try a copy of Viz to see if the operability is the same and will report back to everyone once I have reviewed it.

Project North / True North

This has always puzzled me and wanted to find out if anyone else out there felt the same. When setting up a project you do not always know what project north will be on new construction project. The default orientation though for Revit is set to Project North.

So, basically to get things setup correctly from the beginning I have to put in the property coordinates from the surveyor, test out options to figure out the building orientation, rotate the entire project so that it lays out correctly on the sheets, set the view properties to True North and then finally go to Tools > Project Position / Orientation > Rotate True North.

Is it me or is this set backwards? Does anyone out there have a good reason why it is acceptable as it is currently set-up? Is this something that the Revit development team can fix? Kinda like the Ceiling misspelling on a tab that took them a few releases to fix.

Revit Wish List

AUGI has announced wish list voting on AutoCAD, Inventor, Civil 3D, and Revit Architecture. What is important to you in the continuing development of Revit? Click on the this link to voice your opinion. http://www.augi.com/revit/ballot.asp

USG Design Studio

It seems as though in the last month, USG has developed an amazing amount of information able to be downloaded for use in Revit. You can find it at http://www.usgdesignstudio.com

This includes Wall Types, Acoustic Ceiling Tile and their Specialty Ceilings. As you can see below they have a simple search tool for the wall types depending on the what you are looking for. You can choose by material, interior or exterior, fire rating, STC rating and the framing type.



After you have made your selections you can download a Revit file that includes multiple versions of the wall types fitting your search criteria. It shades the insulated walls in yellow and the non-insulated ones are white. You can change these to fit your standards but it makes it easy to distinguish between the types.


You can then create schedules utilizing the impressive amount of information provided if desired or just use it for your reference when creating partition type drawings or specifications. This information includes URL, Fire Rating, Fire Test #, USG Fire Test URL, STC, Sound Test #, UL URL and Specification URL.

Also, if you think this is impressive you should also check out the ceiling information. It is great that manufacturers are now focusing their efforts on Revit rather than just AutoCAD or dxf.

Revit Architecture & MEP as a Team

So we have just finished our bid/permit set for the project utilizing Revit Architecture and Revit MEP. While it has shown me that it has a lot of potential, it will have to be developed over more projects. This was the first project completed by this MEP/FP engineer in Revit MEP so they had to crib in a lot of typical details from AutoCAD in order to get the drawings done on time. Also, due to Revit crashes they had to finish the fire protection drawings in AutoCAD.

We plan to have a meeting in the next weeks to evaluate the process and I will share the information that we compile so that others may work more effectively. This is also very important since we received approval to proceed with two new buildings on the same site. We are going to push this project forward utilizing complete use of Revit Architecture, MEP, and Structure. Each of the consultants are on board so hopefully we can weed out some of the issues and have a very successful project.

No change in programs can ever go perfect so I will try to weed out the comments that are due to learning and those that are due to how we work together. More to come soon so check back often. I will also post the 3D renderings once they are done. The facade work as shown below includes brick, EIFS (stucco), metal panel and curtainwall system.