BIM Scrubbing

Greetings and Salutations from outside the Revitsphere!

It's another warm sunny day - with no Revit being forced into all of my orifices and ocular cavities.

I received another project consisting of laughable construction documents - and was especially amused to see that they had included several sheets dedicated to various 3D views. 

I had seen a number of firms include an overall 3D view on their cover sheet - but this was the first time I had seen one dedicate space to showing off their model.

It makes sense from their perspective (pun intended) since they have gone through the trouble of fully detailing out a model - which you almost wouldn't know if you just looked at the 2D plans and elevations (and then wondered to yourself why those plans and elevations looked like excrement). 

There are even cases where it might be helpful for a contractor to be able to see what something is intended to look like before finding out that the details are shown incorrectly because there wasn't enough time to check them thoroughly.

To an untrained eye, this seems much more helpful than it actually is - since 2D details (with accurate dimensions and other information)  are what a contractor will be looking at after they staple or clip the unnecessary sheets together so they aren't constantly having to flip through several extra pages of useless details.

I could see an owner or other person not directly involved with construction (that doesn't know how to read a set of plans) finding 3D views to be helpful in visualizing the finished project - but in reality it just pads out the set, meaning more sheets to keep up with (almost none of which are going to be of any use to the AHJ's reviewing and approving them).

Combine that with the fact that making changes in Revit often results in unexpected dumbfuckery - and now you have even more views you have to doublecheck to prevent sending out idiotic looking drawings (not that most Reviteers seem to give a fuck).

It's been two days since they sent us a more or less useless .PDF set and we requested CAD drawings (thank fucking god we don't have to request the massive clusterfuck of a Revit model), so I've been catching up on some 'As-Builts' - including a fairly decent sized library.

As soon as I opened the drawing I knew it had a background that originated in Revit, and whoever had set it up originally hadn't bothered to give it a thorough 'BIM Scrubbing' (my take on the derisive term 'BIM Washing'  that Reviteers use for anyone 'faking it' in Revit).

'BIM Scrubbing' starts with getting rid of the pointlessly elaborate 3D models that some moron got from a manufacturer or Revit circlejerk website.  What looks really slick in 3D (to cover up the fact that your design is shit) turns a 2D view into total garbage.

Obviously a 'properly' designed family should include both a 3D model AND a 2D symbol to allow you to keep it turned on (and even have options to have it show up differently based on how much detail you want in a given view) but this is lost on many users and content developers, and so I end up with an exported CAD drawing with chairs that have meticulously crafted casters, legs, seats, backs, brackets, adjustment levers (and in the case of some of the chairs on this project - adjustable cup holders and desk surfaces) that end up looking like black blobs and obscure anything nearby.

Some people just turn off furniture altogether - but then you run into problems with what you need to see to coordinate various systems with the way the space is intended to be used - so I start by tracing an outline (using arcs for what started off as hundreds of lines approximating a curve - often with several overlapping lines) to a final shape consisting of 2-3 dozen lines instead of quite literally tens of thousands of line segments (multiplied by how many instances there are in the drawing). 

Once the blobs of crap are cleaned up, I turn to cleaning up walls, doorways, etc. - which even the most skilled of Revit Gurus seem to have trouble convincing to show up correctly (much less the average Reviteer).

I'm obsessed with keeping doorways and other openings clean and devoid of unnecessary lines showing walls above - I've seen a number of Architectural CD's where designers failed to notice that various openings into rooms/corridors were completely obscured.

The clarity that a well-designed piece of software like ACAD gives you when zoomed in shows numerous flaws in Revit models that you would never notice - unintentional overlaps, door frames in wall sections too small to accomodate them, and equipment, racks, etc. that are going to require extensive field modification to fit in the spaces allotted.

These oversights often negate the major selling point of Revit - it's ability to do 'collision detection' between disciplines.  If there are major (or even minor) flaws in a model that claims to be the 'gospel'  you end up out in the field trying to pack an air handling unit, panel, etc. into a space that only looked sufficient because part of it extended through a wall.

Anyway, after thoroughly scrubbing the background (including exploding blocks, homogenizing layers, colors, line types, etc.), and eliminating any other unnecessary, redundant, or otherwise confusing linework, I have a file that is smaller, opens/saves faster, crashes almost never, and most importantly of all - looks fantastic, while clearly and accurately conveying the necessary information to construct the project.

Fortunately I had extensive experience at my last job cleaning up Revit nonsense.  The end result is a much clearer set of drawings that allow me to design without distraction, and eliminates any ambiguity as to how my systems are to be installed. At the end of the day, my drawings are (and always have been) partially schematical (with contractors/installers being tasked with 'means and methods'),  which allows me to convey information much more thoroughly.

I take a lot of pride in my work - and I'll be damned  if anyone (or anything) is going to stand between me and my ability to complete it to my exacting standards.

As always - fuck this stupid fucking Revit shit.  (And if you don't like it - fuck your stupid fucking  shit too).

-SKULLfuck.

Next time: I finally figure out wtf is wrong with that goddamned piece of software I had to circumvent! 

The Episode Where Skullfuck Runs Out Of Revit Shit To Bitch About

All right ladies and gents - as I've been alluding to, not using Revit (ever) has had an undeniable positive effect on my general well-being (most notably my knuckles not bleeding from punching brick walls on a daily basis).

Obviously my disgust with all things Revit will always remain - but not even the childish scribblings that I receive from architectural/engineering firms to use as backgrounds for my design work have been able to cause me nearly enough angst to perpetuate it.

So - without further ado, I'm going to bitch about the latest piece of hackneyed technology to foist itself, not just on the design industry, but indeed - on the public at large, and that is the 'Autopilot' feature of some new cars.

I was just reading this morning about the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S - which is an absolute marvel of modern technology (up to, and including the 'Autopilot' feature), and with no disrespect to the individual who was killed in this wreck, HOW IN THE FUCK DO YOU LET YOUR FUCKING CAR DRIVE ITSELF INTO A GODDAMNED SEMI-TRACTOR TRAILER?!?!?!


Apparently this guy had made several videos showing him allowing his car to drive 'hands off' - including one where the car actually did avoid a close call - that he could've most likely avoided himself if he had been driving the car instead of making a video.

I don't know what he was doing when the wreck occurred (although if we're going to have people engaging autopilot so they can get fully immersed in the cell-phone experience during their morning commute instead of having to glance up every once in a while to avoid hitting other cars/people/immovable object - we might want to consider requiring that a 'black box' and camera system be installed in every car with this feature so that after a wreck we can see exactly how distracted they were when they trusted a computer to do their driving for them), but it wouldn't surprise me if he had been filming another video.

The car supposedly didn't see a white trailer against a white background (and the height of the trailer prevented it from seeing it with it's radar - although it seems like you would want to calibrate that shit to make it see anything that might hit the car - not just something you might hit with the bumper).  I've heard some bullshit claims that a person wouldn't have been able to see it either - forgetting that people have the ability to see motion and not just differentiate between the sky and MASSIVE FUCKING TRUCKS.

In Tesla's defense - this feature requires the user to press 'accept' on a message warning them that they are still supposed to keep their hands on the wheel when engaging it, but like most messages, people just accept without reading (thus, the proliferation of malware, viruses, etc. on computers).  Despite this warning, it's obvious that people are going to push the envelope of how much they trust the car to take over 'for just a second', which will quickly end up being 'a few more seconds', then 'interminable amount of time since I was actually engaged in the act of driving'.

Oh - and for just a second let me touch on all of the fucking shit car manufacturers have been loading up car dashboards with.  It's fucking awesome that a modern car's dashboard can look like the 'Starship Fucking Enterprise', but I hold that there is 100% too much shit to distract 'drivers' (using that word in the loosest possible terms since most people can barely steer a car, much less drive one - which might sound like an argument for self-driving cars, but should be taken as 'some people should be required to take driving classes or not be allowed on the road').

It's fucking amazing that you can even see out of one of these cars at night with all of the glowing screens, LED's, etc. - and I've watched people fucking with touchscreens (like the massive one on the Tesla) and be so distracted that they might as well have been texting on their phone.

Anyway - in my humble opinion the dream of a self-driving car is still a long ways off.  Instead of waxing poetic about the day when they can drink their latte, text, and masturbate during their commute, they need to be learning how the fuck to drive - oh, and get the fuck out of the fast lane if you are just going to drive the same speed as the car next to you moron.

-Skullfucked And Out Of Ideas.

Next Time: I continue to bitch about random shit unless someone has something Revit related they want me to address.

Another Software Package Sucks The Dick

Well, it's finally happening - due to not using Revit, I'm running out of shit to bitch about in regards to it.

What's awesome is that one of the projects I've been working on has a team of people working on it in Revit (I'll give you a hint - it's not one of the ones that was completed so that I could issue my drawings).  It's a government project too - so besides Revit being an absolute 'must have', it's also being reviewed by dozens of people who are trying to justify their part in the bureacracy (and who, despite all working in the same department - only seem to be capable of communicating with each other via the 3rd parties that are doing the design work (us included).

You can literally watch conversations go back and forth in the drawing markups.  One guy will recommend that we put equipment on the East wall, then decide later that the West wall is better (no problem, because we were just starting out).  Then another guy says 'We should put it on the East wall to leave more clearance', only to be countered by the first guy.  You know what guys?  Go talk it out, then send me one fucking set of markups instead of 3-4 conflicting ones.

The funniest part is, that for all means and purposes, it's just one rectangular room inside of an existing building (roughly 10,000 s.f.) that is being converted into a massive server room - but there is one metric fuckton of stuff being crammed into it.  Over 250 data racks, 16 HVAC units, sprinkler system, lights, and of course - my equipment, which consists of piping and other equipment for a 'Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus' or 'VESDA' system.

I had some limited experience designing this kind of system before - and knew how to run the necessary calculations, however (because this is a government job) they required a set of calculations generated by a piece of 3rd party (manufacturer developed) software called 'Aspire2'.  In theory, this software is pretty awesome, because it allows you to build the system, and it will generate a 3d 'parametric', run calcs, and spit out reports.

With no training, and no resources (except for one guy who had used it before, but who admitted that he didn't really know what he was doing either), I dove into it and started doing a layout.  The first thing I noticed in the software (besides the fact that the interface looked like it was made by some first year programming student) was the lack of an 'undo' function.  Once you did something, your only choice was to manually backtrack - and due to other bugs in the software, this wasn't always easy (or possible).

I got into a habit of changing one thing, saving, changing the next, saving, and thank god - because on several occasions the thing would just go tits up.  At least once it corrupted the file (fortunately I had a backup), and even once I finally got all of the information entered (which, due to it's inability to import anything, required manually measuring and entering data from my drawings) the calculations wouldn't work out correctly.

I fought it for a while - and even pondered going in and making some tweaks to the code of the program to make it spit out what I wanted (one parameter had an arbitrary maximum), before finally deciding to just let it do whatever and I would doctor the reports as necessary.  It was extremely close to being correct (and by the time they tweak it out in the field, it will definitely work), so I wasn't too worried about it.

They had been shuffling HVAC equipment locations around (and sending me very unhelpful .pdfs of the new layouts - complete with no idea which way the airflow of the units was going), and I had asked one of the reviewers (the guy who had sketched the original layout - which was part of the problem) how he wanted to go about tweaking the system to prevent the units from affecting our system.

I got back a hilarious answer - he said that because the HVAC units were STILL getting moved around, to basically ignore them, lay the system out as if they weren't there, and then they would make tweaks in the field as necessary.  Fortunately, because I didn't have to worry about my layout clashing with anything in their stupid fucking Revit model, I was able to put together a comprehensive set of drawings, but was still running up against the limitations of the calculation software.

I still wasn't sure how I would go about doctoring the reports when I exported the first set of calculations.  For some reason the developer only gave it the ability to export to HTML (an odd choice - although it does allow them to be opened by anyone with a web browser).  I was getting ready to print them to .pdf when it hit me.  I opened the HTML file it generated in wordpad, made the necessary tweaks (just one per system - although one was WAY out of tolerance), saved the file, and 'voila', it looked EXACTLY the way I needed it to.

I had been meaning to write the developer a scathing critique of their software (and still wrote them a fairly terse review) but because I was able to figure out a 10 second workaround I decided to make it more productive - presenting them with suggestions for how they could make the software better (of course, some of the 'suggestions' were barely disguised insults).  I even told them how I circumvented the built-in limitations of the softare (I'll be curious if I hear back from them).


I'm pretty sure I haven't heard the end of this project.  Previous ones from the same client have apparently drug on for months - even years as they change their minds, change them back, realize they forgot some extremely important design criteria, attempt to blame my firm, get smacked down hard, before finally relenting and paying us so we can move on.  The Reviteers involved will be stuck dicking with their model long after I am done - because while any 'as-built' drawings that come back to me will take minutes to change, theirs could take days or weeks.

Since I've submitted 3d parametric drawings (intelligent ones at that), my end of the bargain is held up without ever having to set foot inside of Revit.   Meanwhile, some poor Revit junkie will have to figure out how to get them to show up (or model them), but as I said, any coordination will be done in the field (which is how most projects end up getting coordinated in the first place), and that degree of separation is the one thing that takes the sting out of the rest of the frustration involved with a project like this.

That, and the fact that whenever I go into this project - it's open in seconds, will never require 'conversion' (no matter what version of ACAD I upgrade to), and (of course) the hilarity of opening the latest .pdfs of their model and still seeing lights inexplicably hosted to data racks, and knowing that somewhere, someone is cussing up a storm because they can't figure out where the fuck their lights keep going.

Fuck Revit, Fuck The System, and Fuck the Fuckety Fuck Fuck Fuck.

Sincerely,
SkullFuck

Next Time: I rant about.... something.

Revit 2017 is a... thing?

Every year Autodesk shits out another version of Revit - and Revitards everywhere lap it up.  As I've said, with the compilation of all disciplines into one 'Uber Revit', specific disciplines like Electrical get pushed further and further into the background.  Reading the list of 'enhanced features' for 2017 is one of the saddest fucking things ever.

From some cocksucking dildo posting on: https://revit.news/2016/04/whats-new-in-revit-2017/
an almost cut & paste of the advertisement from Autodesks website, with a few pathetic attempts at shoring up another fucktastic release (that everyone now has to switch to, or they won't be able to open anyone else's files.

Plenty of buzzwords with little to no substance:

'enhancements will help drive more efficient processes within an extended, multi-discipline building information modeling workflow'

Jesus Fucking Christ dude - just go balls deep on the Autodesk cock why don't you?

'Fasten your seatbelt - Revit 2017 is the fastest and best performing release yet'.

More like fasten your face to the Revit cock.


"More operations running with multi-threaded capabilities improve overall software performance by as much as 20%."

Holy fuck - 20%?!?!?! That's a... number.

"With multiple improvements and user-requested updates that simply help make features easier to use, Revit 2017 further contributes to user productivity."

I'm not even sure if the person who wrote those words has ever used Revit.

"Revit expert, author and trainer Paul Aubin experienced this running Revit 2017 for more than six days straight commented. “At the end of the week I realized, wow I never had to restart, and I fully suspect it would have kept running”

Mr. Aubin is impressed with the fact that he never had to restart... that's... just fucking hilarious at this point.

"Get more into-and out of-a Revit model"

Just... wow.

"Revit 2017 gives users tools to create models that even more accurately and completely represent what will ultimately be built, connecting design and fabrication workflows"

Okay - they are really getting on my nerves by basically repeating the same goddamned thing over and over with slightly different wording.  And nobody is using your fucking model to fabricate shit, so get your head out of your ass.

"Embed design intent in a model by using Global Parameters to drive dimension and element instance parameters."

'Global Parameters' is one of the only actual 'new features' I've seen touted - but damned if I can tell what the fuck it's actually supposed to DO.  

Mr. Aubin elaborates "The potential for global parameters is huge,” adds Aubin. “You can start creating design relationships between objects that aren’t even next to one another. They could be in totally different areas of the building, but you’ve got a global point of control.”

Well, that cleared that up...

 "With Revit 2017 designers can include the higher level of detail needed for downstream fabrication and building, modelling projects of any size and complexity."

Again with the 'downstream fabrication'.  Nobody that has actually worked in this industry for more than five minutes harbors any delusions that someone is going to hang their hat on a model that a first year intern shat out in Revit.  Every single fabricator in existence develops their own drawings (typically in ACAD).

 "Mechanical detailers can automate the fabrication model layout and convert design level of detail model elements to fabrication level of detail elements."

Did you get that?  It's almost like word soup.

"Structural engineers can improve the definition of design intent, or the level of detail for reinforcement modelling and documentation, to better connect steel design to detailing workflows."

Fascinating.

From another Revit Dick-Socket's site: http://redstack.com.au/support/blog_posts/whats-new-in-autodesk-revit-2017

A feature called 'depth cueing' (because god knows there weren't enough settings for depth/visibility in Revit already).  One buzzword (or buzzphrase) they keep using is "making your visuals 'pop'", which is what I'd like to do to the head of the person who first came up with that.

"'Text improvements'  - a top ten wishlist item since version 1.0"

That's no shit - although I'm willing to bet that the 'improvements' still don't address most of the major issues with the shitty text editor.

"Improved railing hosts"

(Facepalm)

"Global parameters bring the power of parametric families into the project environment to better capture design intent."

 Oh, we're back to this kind of shit again are we?

"Use global parameters to drive the value of a dimension or a constraint, associate to an element instance property to drive its value, or report the value of a dimension, so the value can be used in the equations of other global parameters. For example, a standard corridor width requirement can be associated with any dimension we use between corridor walls."

Not just back to it, doubling down on it...

"Rendering"

This at least goes back to what the real reasoning behind modeling everything out is - giving your customer something they can look at.  Just like back when we used to... do renderings.  Walkthroughs are great too - you can 'ooh and ahh' your customer with a fully 3d representation of the building that they can't afford, won't have designed on time, and will end up having to radically alter to fit budgets/schedules.

"Reference Planes"

One of the most useful features in Revit - making it possible to put shit where you need to put it (the other guy that I used to work with used to damn near just coat any building he was designing with reference planes to prevent having to have anything be hosted on the building itself.

They acknowledge that anyone using Revit (not me thank god) might start to run into problems with the feature that allows reference planes to come into the model from families due to the inconsistent nature of various content developers (product manufacturers, etc.).

The list goes on and on - but fucked if any of it has any real meaning to the average Revit user who is just trying to get their project done.  I can't find it now, but one of the 2-3 electrical 'enhancements' (they aren't even bothering to claim they are adding new features anymore) had to do with being able to group electrical circuits the way they actually get grouped (i.e. 1,3,5 or 2,4,6) which should have been that way from day one.

It's just another sad release, crumbs tossed to the morons who love Revit, and more lies and empty promises to the ones who continue to struggle to do their fucking jobs while the Autodesk bootheel grinds down harder and harder on their necks.

Fuck Revit 2017.

Fuck Autodesk, Fuck Revitards, and if you don't like it - FUCK YOU.

Skullfuck Out.

(Next time - Branching Out)

Reviting Is The Soul Of Shit

Oh glorious day - not a Revit in sight.

Then I get this file for a government project - which, of course, requires everyone else to get their Revit on (but not me, because fuck Revit, that's why).  My firm had already designed and installed a fairly elaborate system on the second floor, and they wanted to do the same thing on the first floor.

Oh wait, I'm sorry - did I say the 'same thing'?  As usual, 'the same thing' was radically different, and the guy heading up the project has since sent me four different iterations (let's put all the equipment on this wall in one place, no wait, let's put all the equipment on the far wall, and distribute it, let's divide it up like this, let's divide it up like that).

No problem of course, because I can flip it, smack it, and send it on it's way - plus we are trying to get in on the front end so that our equipment takes precedence and everyone else has to work around it - and instead of plopping it into a Revit file where someone will promptly ignore it, the client actually has a (highly qualified) guy responsible for coordinating the different disciplines.

I was able to infer quite a bit of how the structure of the building worked from the old second floor project, but I went ahead and requested a structural plan - and found one column line was different (which was a mistake on the part of whoever did it the first time, as they had mistaken a grid line on the sheet for a column line).

That was a minor issue that nobody caught the first time, and nobody likely would have caught this time - I might've not caught it either, but then I received someone's sketch of proposed air handling unit locations - and while inserting them into my drawing noticed the discrepancy (along with noticing that some of the second floor columns in their model were offset - derp).

The beams going across were my biggest concern - as some are deeper than others.  Fortunately (for now) I will only have to go underneath one of them (instead of all of them - which is what would have happened if the HVAC reviteer had been allowed to lay out their equipment first).  Between sprinkler/water/air piping, ductwork, lights, and structure - even a high ceiling starts to fill up quickly.

Looking at .pdfs of their model (which is, thank god, the only way I have to be exposed to their model) they already have some return duct that is starting to threaten to impinge on my space, but I'm already forcing them to move some air handlers, so I may be willing to work around it.  It appears to be up against the deeper beams, but it also gets bigger and bigger as it makes its way back.

There was also a sad smattering of lights - some of which appeared to have attached themselves to one of the (doubtlessly massively bloated family) data racks and rotated to the angle of whatever the hell it attached to.  Whoever put it in was probably cussing as they attempted to insert it repeatedly, only to have nothing appear to happen (since the racks were most likely below their view range).

I can picture the conversation when someone finally notices it:

Revit Junkie: 'Why do you have lights attached to the data racks?  Did you mean to do that?' 

Electrical Designer: 'FUCK YOUR GODDAMNED FUCKING BULLSHIT MOTHERFUCKER'

Revit Junkie: 'Hehe - yeah, Revit can be a pain sometimes - you just have to learn how to do things its way!'

Electrical Designer: 'FUCK DOING THINGS REVIT'S WAY - AND FUCK YOU FOR WILLINGLY BENDING THE FUCK OVER AND ACCEPTING IT!!!'

And the same goes for everyone out there still willingly bending over and accepting it - Fuck you, fuck Autodesk, and FUCK REVIT.

-S.F.

Next time: a (necessarily) brief review of the electrical 'improvements' in Revit 2017.

The Ninth Circle Of Revit

I was pondering just how PTSD several years of being exposed to Revit had made me (and based on posts and comments of other people banging their heads into their desks, questioning how the fuck they had gotten stuck with this idiotic bullshit - other people are in the same boat), when I picked up a hotel project that someone shat out in Revit while apparently high on crack.

After eliminating a handful of 12,000 line segment gooseneck lights from the front of it (linework so dense it was almost generating a 3d surface - for no discernible reason), I started cleaning up the drawings for my use.  That's when I ran across their third floor that was either cut at the wrong height, had the wrong view depth setting, or one of a bajillion other settings that are necessary to tweak in order to get an actual plan view out of Revit - making it to where the doors into the bathrooms weren't showing up (and these were the drawings they submitted - which means they were reviewed and signed off on - without anyone in their firm noticing).

I'm sure they are there - but I'm just looking at the wall above them (since they are shorter than the doors coming into the room from the hall - which are showing up fine).  A Revit apologist would probably just toss out an 'oh yeah - just tweak this' but I can guarantee that if I were still in Revit 'just tweaking this' would result in something else breaking (that's the way it tends to work).  Then it would be four hours later, two calls to the Architect Lackey/Reviteer, three to 'Revit Guru', and I would finally be able to start work (and then crash headlong into the next problem).

Fortunately, since I was in ACAD, all I had to do was spend a minute or two deleting the remnants that were still visible (they are sliding doors - that apparently block the closet adjacent to the bathroom when the door is open), copying the necessary linework into place, and then trimming the wall segment out.  That's when I start to notice other mistakes they made because of their fucked up view settings - bathroom countertops extending into walls, walls that stop short of other walls or overlap, doors that overlap desks, etc.

Then it's on to plumbing fixture locations that got screwed up when they moved walls around (and of course - no standardization, with nearly every single room layout with custom dimensions), and finally - fixing the exterior doors so you can tell that they are entrances/exits - and not a stack of lines showing the curb, wall above the door, and other stuff that inexplicably extends part of the way into the openings (oh - and these issues are all evident on the .pdf construction document set I received from them - so it's not a problem with exporting to ACAD).

My next task was to decipher their typical floor plan layouts - they actually did a good job of distilling down a building full of rooms into one sheet with four layouts that were representative enough to use throughout, but I noticed that all four showed exactly the same equipment - and their notes (that were attempting to clarify this) had several conflicts in them.  Their legend seemed to be the most logical and accurate, so I based how I proceeded off of that and ignored the notes for the most part (for some reason the concept of handicapped vs hearing impaired rooms turns people's brains from 'low' to 'off'' - I've seen dozens of projects where they couldn't keep them straight - or remember to include them in the first place).

I take a great sense of pride in the appearance of my drawings (not to mention things like missing doors is a good way to have an AHJ immediately reject a set of drawings - which I'm sure the Architect is going to have to deal with at some time in the very near future), and it amuses me greatly to have my drawings be superior in quality to the ones that the Architect submits.  It's worth it to me to spend a few extra minutes tweaking them to perfection (especially compared to spending hours fighting Revit to get something half-assed).

To those still suffering under the Revit boot heel - there is hope.  Go somewhere that you are appreciated for the skills and abilities you possess and are capable of learning - rather than your compliance to an arbitrary standard set by uncaring, unfeeling, and incompetent fucking assholes that have been responsible for this nonsensical garbage.

Fuck'em.

S.F.

Revit Breeds Incompetence

Another beautiful day outside the Revitsphere - the sun is shining, the birds are singing, productivity is high, and holy shit this apartment building I just got looks like somebody had a fucking stroke while they were trying to model it (which wouldn't be surprising, considering the amount of stress and frustration involved in modeling even a simple building).

Like other apartments, it is a lot of repetition - so they detailed out a pair of units (one normal 1-bedroom, one handicapped 2-bedroom).  There are a lot more variations than that - but I actually appreciate the acknowledgement that other disciplines (including those tasked with actually constructing the building) can infer the rest of the units from those two layouts.

They then proceeded to detail out every single unit on the overall plan.  Again, this is appreciated since in my current discipline I do have to show my systems throughout the building - but (of course) the devices laid out on the 'typical' plans only fit one set of apartments, and required rotating, mirroring, and then endless adjustment to get them to show up correctly.

Nearly every single unit they detailed out through the building has some minor difference in it - this as a result of someone sitting and modeling each one, rather than being able to copy/mirror throughout and retain some semblance of consistency (or detail out a handful of units - instead of every single unit).

Actual Architects (as I've mentioned in the past) appreciate consistency throughout a project because while they like to include subtle variations to break up monotony - they know it costs money, and in the case of an apartment building/hotel/etc. - very few people are going to notice that the unit across the hall from them has a slight variation.

Except the guy building it.  He will absolutely notice when he has to basically custom build every single fucking unit, modifying countertops, etc. - then the other disciplines will notice as they attempt to pack a water heater, HVAC unit, electrical panel, comm panel, etc. into a closet that got smaller because some dipshit Reviteer got bored and rotated the washer/dryer around in one unit.

At any rate - then I start noticing they have random pieces of wall and countertops (and devices) missing, more handicap units shown on their plans than their cover sheet calls for, and the third floor is missing room names/#'s altogether (meaning they might have even more) and that's when I notice even more units that have layouts identical to the handicap units, but not labelled as such.

After reviewing the room and device layouts, it occurs to me that there has most likely been mis-communcation (or more likely - a total lack of communication) between the Architect and Engineer as to what units are 'handicap accessible' and which ones are hearing impaired - exacerbated by the fact that, while every unit is detailed out, there are only two 'typical' plans.

Now, I can ignore these oversights and proceed based on their drawings, but it will require a number of assumptions to be made - all of which are likely to come back and bite me (as well as turn into a cascading series of problems as devices get added, equipment gets overloaded, etc.), but attempting to communicate these concerns can open a whole other can of worms, so I have to tread lightly.

How I proceed will have a lot to do with the attitude I encounter - which (due to Revit) has increasingly been one of indifference.  People simply don't have the time or ability to give a shit about important details anymore (for example - the address on the construction documents I received lists the building at 'the corner of x avenue and x street' rather than an actual street address).

Fortunately, I have already determined the actual address, zip code, and a few other key pieces of information missing (or shown incorrectly) on their documents, and while it probably won't get noticed by anyone that isn't seriously OCD, my project submission will be on a superior set of floor plans after I fixed all their screw-ups.

I had to leave the 'custom' aspect to make it match theirs, but damned if I'm going to turn out some chicken-scratch looking piece of shit.  My reputation (and the reputation of my firm) stands on the quality of the product that I put out - even if I could blame them for any mistakes from their drawings that make their way onto mine, it still makes mine look incomplete/incorrect.

Obviously not all of this can be blamed on Revit - if a firm hires stupid and careless people, then they are going to get bad results, regardless of the software they use, but it seems to have been a downward spiraling trend though, as firms are forced to hire people with Revit ability (but no industry experience) in order to meet the demand for Revitization.

I hear from people on a regular basis who tout the advantages of Revit, I'm just not seeing it make it's way into the quality of the product that they produce.  If I hadn't worked in this industry for several years prior to the Revitlution, I might not know that standards used to be much higher, and (like some of the Reviteers who try to sell me on it) would think this was the norm.

As always, I am just glad I don't have to work directly with these fucking people anymore, and ecstatic that I don't have to even look at Revit, even if I do have to look at the crap people using it manage to churn out.  Now I can apply my skills and abilities where they are appreciated, instead of having people blow Revit crack smoke up my ass.

Fuck Revit.

-SKuLLFuCK