When A Plan Comes Together.

"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence"

-Charles Bukowski

Still not a Revit cloud in my blue sky - and no BIM turds in my coffee.  I even managed to work the kinks out of my VESDA system design after a short phone conversation with an 'Aspire 2' guru (see: Another Software Package Sucks Dick).  Unbeknownst to me, you could actually override the sample point hole sizes to be any size you wanted.  The default had me going between 1/8" (too big) and 5/32" (too small), but 7/32" was just right.

He was impressed that (without any training) I had been able to wing it and design a complete system.  He recommended changing one other setting first, and then after updating the hole sizes (changing it once changed it globally - including adding holes to end caps where I didn't need them, but that only took a few seconds to fix) the system calculations came up perfectly (without any need for modifying the reports it spit out - which may have eventually run me into problems).

We discussed a few features that I thought were lacking in the software (which were apparently addressed in a later release), including not having an 'undo' button, and the inability to zoom in on a 3D Parametric (as the system gets larger, the view gets smaller - ironically still easier to see what is going on than in Revit).  We had a short conversation about Revit afterwards - which he considered, in his experience, to be 'in it's infancy', especially where it related to his industry.

Since I am waiting for CAD files on two separate projects (both of which I'm sure are going to become 'emergencies' despite nobody being bothered to give a fuck about getting me what I need to do them), I finished going through the last box of 'as-built' drawings that had been piling up prior to my starting at the firm, and with perfect timing, drawings of a truck maintenance facility popped up in my inbox.

It took me a few minutes to get it set up (and I'm still making some tweaks).  I'm not sure what software the background originated in - but apparently the engineering drawings were done in 'Bluebeam' (which I remember a SkullFuck commenter mentioning one time).  I haven't had any experience with this software, so I can't really comment on it, but the CAD file I received was more than a little fucked up.

I'm willing to give Bluebeam the benefit of the doubt - since you can't really control how people use your software (unless you are Autodesk, and you put your boot on the neck of designers and force them to do it 'The Revit Way (tm)").  The first thing I noticed was that everything was piled onto one plan in model space and then different layers turned on/off in various paperspace views).

It was also assembled from several blocks (possibly xrefs that got bound) for background, equipment, etc. - and after spending some time cleaning it up, and noticed that they even had stuff from different levels piled up on top of each other (i.e. devices that were on a mezzanine could be mistaken for being on the first floor unless you went and looked at the paperspace views).

Then I started to notice a number of items (devices at first, but then I started to notice furniture) that were rotated ever so slightly - and in many (if not most) cases they appeared to have just been slapped on the drawings wherever, but I had already decided to replace all of the device blocks with my standard ones (and use my template system that I developed to guarantee full coverage).


I was even seeing some walls with little jogs indicating that they were rotated a fraction of a degree - I was starting to worry that the whole stupid building was rotated a fraction of a degree (sometimes an indication that someone has imported a file incorrectly - or attempted to convert a .pdf to CAD), but they seemed to be a fairly limited and easy to fix.

Little stuff like those jogs always catch my eye - and make it hard for me to concentrate.  I almost envy people who can just ignore things like that, but the fact is, my attention to detail is a big part of what makes me a good designer.  More than once I have found issues while working a floor plan over, brought them to someone's attention, and damned if they didn't end up making a difference in the design.

When I was at my old firm and everyone was working in ACAD, it was always fairly simple to point out something that was inconsistent, have them acknowledge it, and fix it.  Most of the time they would even thank me for catching it (it was a team effort after all, anything that made their drawings better made them look better, the firm look better, and resulted in less revisions down the road).

Enter Revit, and motherfucker if I wouldn't do exactly the same thing (the fact that I was exporting their plans out to CAD and scrubbing the shit out of them meant I would see things they wouldn't), and their initial reaction was always to deny that anything was wrong.  Of course, I would always go back into Revit and double-check it before I brought it to their attention.

I'm sure some of this was due to them having battled the Revit monster, and not wanting to have to go back in and figure out what they (or it) had fucked up, and I obviously can't blame them for that, but I also wasn't the one touting it as 'the best shiznit in the history of shiznit'.  After I moved them past denial, their next defense mechanism was to claim that it was one of the quarter of a million settings that was making it 'appear' to be wrong.

After four hours of clicking on every button on the ribbon, every button on every context-sensitive ribbon, every button on every menu, changing every view range setting in every field in every menu, and involving six other Reviteers/Gurus/etc. - damn, look at that, the problem is that you've got a column running right through the middle of the door into the sprinkler room, there isn't enough room in the wall on either side of it to make it fit, and it's the only wall that it can go in.

Just like I told you.

Now, keep in mind, I wasn't (usually) being a dick about this, and would always preface my findings with verbage that indicated that I wasn't there to tell them how to do their job, or pretend like I knew more than they did - but after watching them do the Revit two-step buttfuck shuffle to try to prove me wrong (or get out of trying to fix something), I never hesitated to throw it in their face.

What's amusing is that none of what I do when it comes to tweaking these plans actually takes a noticeable amount of time.  As I dig into a new project, going through and cleaning up the plans doubles as a chance to get familiar with the project, often finding out that there are discrepancies in the scope (like if there is an elevator, but nobody took the necessary equipment for our systems to interface with it into account when they bid the job), sprinkler systems, fire pumps, etc.

My mind immediately starts to go to work calculating, figuring out how I am going to group equipment and run circuits (and keep those runs as short as possible), identify where additional equipment may be necessary to support those circuits (or where devices are missing - like in the case of the apartment complex I did a while back that was missing literally hundreds of devices due to a careless electrical designer/engineer not taking the time to review their typical plans).


When my software works with/for me instead of against me - then I can accomplish anything.  On it's best day, Revit had so much distracting bullshit pulling me out of my zone that I would literally just end up staring at it (not unlike many others that I would see just orbiting their model instead of working) or fucking off and doing something else.

It wasn't until I would say 'fuck this' and  kick it out into ACAD, and the process of cleaning it up would blend seamlessly into laying it out, solving all of the problems, and completing the project.

That, my friends, is the sweet spot.  One that most Revit users don't know exists, because if they did, they would tell Autodesk to go fuck itself.

Which, by the way, Autodesk can absolutely go fuck itself.  Revit can absolutely go fuck itself.  And anyone willfully using, selling, promoting, 'developing' or otherwise involved with Revit - can absolutely go fuck themselves.

And stay SkullFucked.

-S.F.

Next Time: I pick a random topic and go off.