Revit Prison Planet

Welcome!

So, the latest project I've been tasked with is a massive maximum security prison complex.  Well, at least I was for a few minutes, when I was pulled off to handle an emergency tenant finish-out, which they needed by tomorrow, so I issued it today (since I didn't have to wait for two hours for the shell building that we did to convert to the latest version of Revit).

Then it was back to prison (which I was able to jump right back into because it didn't take 20 minutes to load up).  What it did take was a little bit of time to figure out what the first guy who started cleaning up the drawings had done.  The first thing I noticed was that he had kept the copious amounts of ductwork shown on their drawings (he put it on a layer that would shade it, but there was just WAY too fucking much of it (and it makes the .pdf set that I got from the engineer look like unadulterated shit).

Part of the reason they were leaving it was that there are a number of fire/smoke dampers throughout the building - but these can be shown without having to leave ALL of the ductwork on, so it ALL went bye-bye.  Then I started going back and fixing all of the fuckups on the floor plans themselves - of  which there were many.

The first thing I noticed was that a number of doors appeared to be missing - but it turned out they were just on a layer that was inexplicably turned off (unfortunately while off, the other guy moved the plans - leaving the doors and some other items floating in space - or overlapping other plans).  Some quick adjustments and I had it back on track.

Then it was on to the standard removal of various headers, structural elements overlapping and wiping out sections of plan, and general 'prettying up' that I like to do so that my plans don't resemble the result of work done while buttchugging flat champagne mixed with expired rave drugs.  That's when I noticed that there are entire sections of plan that (for one reason or another) are doubled-up.

When I say 'doubled up' I mean that there is one set of plans overlapped by another set of plans (but offset *just a little bit*).  It seems to occur in the same part of the plan on multiple levels, so it's either view range fuckups that are allowing me to see the pans above/below the floor I am on - or someone accidentally angled the walls in this part of the plan so I'm actually seeing lines showing the top and bottom of the wall.

Neither of those would be that surprising - and the only trick to fixing it is figuring out which ones are correct, and which ones to delete.  I'll probably just make my best guess and tweak it where necessary

After discussing the project with the guy who sold it - it turns out all we are doing is a one-for-one replacement of all of the existing devices and reusing existing wiring (not that I would've known that based on the tiny amount of information I was given going in).  Oh - and this, despite the fact that it doesn't even remotely meet code - although the AHJ may be giving them some wiggle room, since the place is manned by guards 24/7.

The salesman said he attempted to sell them on the same kind of facility management system that we designed for the massive project I just got through designing, but they turned it down.  Not strictly because of cost though, but (in their words): 'some of their guards are as bad as the inmates when it comes to messing around with stuff'.

I could definitely see opportunities for a bored guard to screw with his buddies by remotely setting off fake alarms and laughing as everyone ran around trying to figure out what was going on.  Honestly, prison guard would be one of the most boring jobs imaginable - but with the constant danger that one of the inmates (who are bored, and most of whom have nothing to lose) will decide to attack you.

That, and the occasional prison riot.

I hear the train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine
Since, I don't know when
I'm stuck in Revit Prison
And load times keep draggin' on
But that train keeps a-rollin'
On down to San Antone

When I was just a Revit newbie
My Mama told me, "lad
Always be a good boy
Don't ever play with CAD"
But I deleted a man's model in Reno
Just to watch him die
When I hear that hard drive spinnin'
I hang my head and cry

I bet there's CAD folks eatin'
In a fancy dinin' car
They're probably drinkin' coffee
And smokin' big cigars
Well, I know I had it comin'
I know I can't draw free
But those people keep a-movin'
And converting models tortures me

Well, if they freed me from this Revit
If that railroad train was mine
I bet I'd move it on a little
Farther down the line
Far from Revit Prison
That's where I want to stay
And I'd let that lonesome whistle
Blow my Revit blues away

(Apologies to the late, great Johnny Cash)

-ullfuckSk

Next Time: Cloud With A Chance Of Bullshit

Pure Revit

Party Time!

I just finished a massive project for (redacted) that involved replacing an existing facility network with a more robust fiber-optic network dedicated to the systems that I design.

Over 100 buildings, now linked together - with the ability for any building to report issues to a handful of manned locations on-site (or remotely) - down to which device is reporting back.

Now it's back to dealing with another massive project where (in the time in between when we issued it and now), they refuse to stop changing shit and bringing in even more people to try to find ways to justify their paychecks by suggesting even more changes.

Fortunately I've already solved the first problem on the list (which was the one I was the most concerned about), but unfortunately there is another one with the potential to crop up, and it has all of the tell-tale signs of being a knee-jerk reaction from someone whose installers were making excuses to cover up their own incompetence.

We use the same system of tagging circuits on every single project we do, and while most of the projects are installed by our own people, we have never had a single project come back where the installers couldn't easily figure out what our design intent was, and how to run the wire.

Enter the dumb fucks that are installing this project - and they want us to go back through and hold their hand by color-coding the whole damn set (despite the fact that they would then need to plot the whole damn thing in color in order to be able to see them, and the fact that it's TOTALLY FUCKING UNNECESSARY!!!)

If we do end up doing it, it will be at massive cost to their client (which may dissuade them from pursuing this idiotic course of action - but at the same time, they have pretty deep pockets).  As always - if they want to pay us a huge amount of money to do something retarded, then we'll do something retarded (and their installers will STILL fuck it up).

In the meantime, someone referring to themselves as 'architaki' commented a previous post (Just Add Stupid) about some site offering Revit 'training' called https://revitpure.com/

I spent a little time flipping around on their very basic looking website (although I am a fan of websites that focus on function over form - rather than having to load massive image files and require the use of glitchy buttons and pull-down menus), and it appears to be somebodies attempt at providing a streamlined approach to learning and applying Revit.

Of course, as soon as you start drilling down, you quickly realize this is actually somebodies attempt at bilking Revitards for cash.  They offer a magic template for $100 (a steal, since some places charge between $5,000-$20,000 for custom templates, ya'll), as well as other tools for making what is supposed to be Autodesk's flagship BIM solution into a functional piece of design software (basically admitting right off the bat that it's useless as FUCK right out of the box).

I clicked on 'design' and was immediately dying laughing at their description (cut and pasted verbatim below:

-----------------

USE REVIT TO SEDUCE YOUR CLIENTS

Revit doesn’t have to be bland and boring. This package will teach you highly effective seduction techniques that will seriously turn on your clients.

 ----------------

Because giving your client a big ol' hard-on (or a lady hard-on) is the sure fire way to soak them for the extra cash necessary to spend the next three months modeling a building that could've already been designed, reviewed by the applicable AHJ's, constructed, and occupied.

Their 'blog' has comical attempts at helping you with 'wall joins':

"You need a lot of patience not to get triggered by the bizarre, diagonal, odd-shaped default joins that Revit will propose to you by default"

But don't worry - they've 'got you covered' (since Autodesk obviously has no fucking idea what they are doing).

 I'll be honest, since I've never used Revit for architecture (and will never use it for anything else), this site might actually constitute something useful for someone whose balls (or lady balls) are being slammed in the Revit drawer - but I seriously fucking doubt it.  My money is on it being yet another attempt at cashing in on the Revit 'craze' - both by propagating it, and then trying to sucker the poor fools being taken for a ride out of even more money.

But as I always say - fuck those poor fools.  They deserve every damn thing they get.

Fuck Autodesk, fuck Revit, fuck Revitards, and if you don't like it - FUCK YOU!!!

llfuckSku

Next Time: Revit Prison

20/20 Revision

Greetings,

It's that time again - a brand new version of Revit came slouching out of the Autodesk gate, only to fall directly on its face and shit its pants.

I mean... you've GOT to see what's new in Revit 2020 ya'll:

I was impressed to see that the very first 'improvements' that are listed on the Autodesk site under the bullshit-generated title of 'Capture Detailed Design Intent' were to the Electrical portion of the software - but was then immediately struck with a case of the eye-rolls when I started reading what they were bragging about  finally having accomplished.

"A great example that we’re particularly pleased to release are long-requested electrical design workflow improvements." such as:

• Revit now lets you utilize feed through lugs when creating your electrical distribution systems. This capability streamlines related documentation tasks, and helps designers create a better digital model of the system to support analysis.

 In other words, basic functionality that we needed a FUCKING DECADE AGO WHEN I WAS HAVING THIS BULLSHIT FORCED DOWN MY FUCKING THROAT BY MORONS WHO DIDN'T KNOW WHAT MY JOB CONSISTED OF!!!

• Electrical homerun wiring improvements give you the control over arrowheads and tickmarks that you need to create electrical documentation that’s easier to understand and use.

 Oh joy...  you know what else gave me 'control over arrowheads and tickmarks that I needed to create electrical documentation that's easier to understand and use?  A DECENT FUCKING PIECE OF SOFTWARE THAT DIDN'T FUCK ITSELF INTO A HOLE IN THE GODDAMNED GROUND EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY!!!

And that's about it for the Electrical side of things - then it's on to glorious architectural bullshit like elliptical walls/curtain walls, and structural shit like the ability to copy rebar and structural elements.

Oh - and now you can bring .pdfs into your drawing!!!  And have the ability to snap to them so you can trace them!!!  I think I just came!!!

Then it's on to some cloud bullshit, and finally a toss off to the Mechanical people - the ability to export to CSV or TXT (because they've obviously solved every other shortcoming of the software for HVAC/Plumbing design).

A few more 'automation and optimization' tools that... holy shit!!! What's this?   You can CUT & PASTE LEGENDS ACROSS SHEETS!!!!   JOYOUS DAY!!!!

Then, since Revit doesn't already have more view settings than there are hydrogen molecules in the universe - they decided to take care of a 'top customer request' - "improved OR in view filters new in Revit 2020 lets you focus on parts of your model at a higher level of specificity and gives you further control over view graphics."


 And (believe it or not) this doesn't even cover all of the new 'features' and 'updates' in Revit 2020!!!

I actually believe them - since if they had included any more descriptions, there wouldn't be a Revit Architectural/Engineering shop anywhere getting any work done at all (so, in other words, like normal) because they would be having to replace every Revitards computer screens after they get shorted out by being covered in jizz.

 Fuck Revit 2020, it's just the beginning of another decade of suffering and pain for the idiots still sticking their dick in the Revit pencil sharpener.

In the meantime - MICROSTATION!!!

Not using it either, but my latest project was done in it, and the files I received were TOTAL GARBAGE.  The first set I got were comically renamed by an incompetent who managed to wipe out the file extensions by naming the files A.1, A.2,, etc. (instead of A1.dgn, A2.dgn, etc.).  I renamed the first one and imported it to CAD, only to find out that it would only show me walls (no doors, room names, etc.)

I had a guy at the firm we share a building with convert it from .dgn to .dwg and it was slightly better - but a lot of stuff was offset (as easy as moving it back to where it belonged), but that's when I realized they were just floor plans, with none of the equipment that should've been showing up on them.  Even if it had the information I needed, there are literally over 100 buildings on this job site - and that's before you got to the site plans showing primary and secondary fiber loops, so I would've had to convert every single last one.

I had a .pdf set - and despite seriously disliking converting .pdf to .dwg, I have been trying out various programs to see which one works the best.  I was rather amazed by the free demo of a program simply called 'Any PDF to DWG Convertor'.  It managed to convert a several hundred page .pdf into .dwg - and the only thing it seemed to want to do was dump panel schedules and some other image files (none of which I needed) into their own .dwg's (resulting in over 600 files that I had to comb through).

I was able to compile every single building and site plan into one .dwg, get everything scaled properly, and start working on it.  It's a fairly extensive project, but I shouldn't have any trouble banging it out in short order thanks to not having to wait a decade for 'design workflow improvements'.

I did run across some comically elaborate 3D elements (strangely only in one of the 100+ buildings - so it had to have been where some BIMtard got ahold  of this one building and probably spent as long detailing it out as the person who did the rest of the set).

Yes, that's a toilet (1580 lines x4) and a urinal (1309 lines x 3).  The keyplan reproduced the toilets, urinals AND three sinks consisting of another 9861lines- for a total of 20108 lines.  They are completely inconsequential to my project, so I just deleted them.

Just like I'd like to delete Revit, and everyone still sucking the Revit dick in 2019-2020.

Fuck 'em all.

-lfuckSkul

Next Time: Pure Revit

Just Add Stupid

Cock 'n Balls!

Ah, what a glorious day!

I was sick as fuck last week, and still managed to finish banging out one massive High School, a slightly less massive Elementary School (both of which supplied me with piss-poor Revitized floor plans that were sad jokes), and then dove into my next project: an addition to a college dorm.

As usual, I would rather do three new projects (regardless of how badly the floor plans are drawn) than have to deal with one attempt at modifying an existing building.  Fortunately we did the original building (before my time), so I was able to bring in the existing devices and get right to wo....

No wait - instead (after cleaning up the hatching-fest that was the garbage Revit drawings that I was provided) I attempted to overlay the new devices, only to find out that the moron responsible for regenerating the entire fucking thing in 3D was dangerously incompetent, and almost nothing lines up.

Now, it's possible that the original drawings were not drawn accurately (but not probable, since they were done before Revit got on the scene and starting ejaculating its diseased semen all over the industry).  More likely is that they went out and took some inaccurate measurements, then tried to cram it all together in Revit - while also making various modifications to the plans - and finally slapped an addition on the end.

Then the guy who laid out the new equipment in the new and existing areas smoked a big heaping bowl of crack, and attempted to 'design' (using that word in the loosest possible way) a system that would supposedly be sufficient to address the existing portions, the modified portions, and the new addition.

Now it falls to me to figure out what the FUCK the final system design for the whole damn building is going to look like.  I've already attempted contacting the poor fuck who sold/priced it, and I can guarantee that he hasn't even thought of (or been aware of) the majority of the items on my list (and I wouldn't be surprised if he either fails to respond, or responds with standard, non-committal nonsense that will make it obvious he didn't actually read my e-mail).

I copied the owner of my damn company on it too though, so it's not impossible that I might get some clarification on it.

It wouldn't be the first time I've had a project tossed in my lap, hair on fire, with nobody having any clue what is going on - no schedule or budget to do it properly, and which will most likely come back multiple times as things that could've easily been worked out on the front end by adults who know how to communicate and use reasoning, become a clusterfuck of assumptions.

I regularly joke about every project that comes through the doors being the 'first project we've ever done', meaning that they make the same damn mistakes every time they sell a project, and have the same expectation that everyone involved is a goddamned mind reader (rather than putting together even the most basic 'theory of operation' so that we don't take off in the wrong direction and end up having to spend extra time and effort correcting course).

It can be highly amusing at times, as we go through the same process of explaining to them what we actually need to know in order to properly design and complete a project, but it can also be extremely frustrating as we go through the same damn process of explaining to them what the fuck we need to know in order to properly design and complete a project.

It bounces directly off some people's brains, because they think we'll just 'figure it out', and while we are absolutely 'figure it out' masters, there's a point at which they are relying on our ability to do this after the fact, and it makes them think they don't have to be involved - either on the front end, while it's in the works, or afterward.

Then you get the most hilarious e-mail/phone call where they ask 'why isn't this like this' or 'why didn't we do such and such like so and so', and you get to point them to the e-mails where you kept asking them to DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS and they kept doing the old generalized hand-waving routine rather than get hard facts.

In the meantime, I was at the movies the other night and by a weird coincidence ran into the guy that used to be the 'Revit Guru' at my last firm.  I had seen on Facebook where his wife was opining his being let go (fired?)  I didn't bother getting any more detail, but he has landed himself a job, amusingly, at the firm that did the job I was complaining about in "A Machline Made In Hell"

I doubt he had anything to do with that particular project, because it's a massive firm with field offices all over the damn place, but I have little doubt that he's spreading his Revit stupidity far and wide - making the same stupid excuses for why they still haven't fixed basic functionality, and defending it against all enemies (real and perceived).

Anyhow, Fuck Revit, Fuck Autodesk, Fuck you, and Goddamn Am I Tired.

Suck A Fat One,

-fuckSkull

Next Time:  Like OMG - Revit 2020 is just so... like... fucking amazeballs ya'll....

The Continued March Of The Dumbfucks

Good Day Sirs/Madams,

So the incompetence continues into 2019, with my first major project coming across my desk this morning - another large school, fortunately all new and shiny, but no less of a mongolian clusterfuck.

The first thing I do is start flipping through the .pdf set they sent - and it's pretty straightforward - except for some 'typical' classrooms and other 'enlarged' areas.

I pull up the CAD files they exported out from what I don't doubt is Revit (although, other than the drawings looking like total shit, I haven't run across anything that would indicate Revitization (I usually find at least one or two guaranteed tell-tale signs, like circles that are two half circles (for whatever reason).

I got CAD files for both the Architectural and the Electrical Systems that I need - the Electrical drawings looked like total garbage.  Both are broken up into views on individual sheets rather than one overall floor plan (and I don't have time to waste trying to extract a better set), but despite there being 60 fucking  .dwg files for the Architectural, it's still inexplicably missing one corner of the building, and the entire second floor.

It's also missing two field houses - which I have Electrical .pdfs for that I'm going to convert to CAD (since the CAD files are missing backgrounds), one of which is supposed to be for baseball (according to the title on the sheet) but which is labeled 'football' on the view titles (the second one has 'football' for both the sheet and view titles, so I'm pretty sure I figured it out, despite their stupidity).

There's also the issue of one corner of the building's electrical drawings inexplicably missing some of the text (from what should be symbol blocks - but which are all exploded), but I can infer it from the other drawings, and I'm going to be replacing everything with my far superior symbols anyway.  Oh - and where that drawing should be connected to the rest of the building is fucked up, so their drawings are actually missing all of the devices that belong on the other side of a door (but again, I'm smart enough to infer them).

I was wrong when I said that I didn't have any of the typical indications of Revitardation - obvious problems with view range started cropped up, causing several windows to disappear on their plans.  It's fairly inconsequential to my drawings, but as I always say 'holy fucking shit, I can't believe these people are issuing this kind of garbage', and as I always say back 'it's not surprising, considering some poor Revit monkey probably reached the end of their rope, and said 'fuck it - good enough'.

Still not excusable.

Nearly every single door in the building is missing a frame (and by 'frame' I'm referring to a fucking rectangle to connect the door to the wall) - this was the first reason that I really wanted to clean up the Architectural plans (since they looked a little better) but without the upper right hand corner of the building, or the entire second fucking floor, I had to just go with the shitty looking Electrical plans (although if I get a chance, I might go ahead and fix up the doors).

All this bullshit just to get a functional background to work on - but even when I get done, it will have been less stress than just opening a Revit model and trying to figure out how badly it is fucked up (and then coming in every day not knowing how much more fucked up it will be).

I simply can't imagine working in that kind of environment anymore.  It would be like going out to my car every morning and not knowing if the engine is going to start, or turn into a giant gay unicorn with rainbows shooting out of its ass.

No matter how fucked up my day gets, or how far off the rails a project goes, I always know I've got the tools and the ability to de-fuck and re-rail it - and that's golden.

Fuck Autodesk, fuck Revit, fuck Reviteers, and fuck you if you don't like it.

-lfuckSkul

Next Time: Addition Perdition

IT'S 2019 BITCHES!!!!!

And I'm still not using Revit for anything other than to receive shitty looking drawings like this:

That's right ladies and gentlefuckers - that there is a pair of tables that someone managed to attach to structural elements.  It took me a minute to figure out what was going on because (somehow) part of the chairs had disappeared as well.

This is a fairly common issue that I run across when cleaning up the garbage vomited forth from the Revit dumpster fire.  Entire sections of plans are sometimes obscured by things that are either accidentally dropped into the model (or a linked model), or are intentionally put there, but are supposed to show up at a different level - and someone either couldn't figure out how (or couldn't be bothered to give a shit) about correcting it.

It's never surprising, considering that NASA's TESS satellite has just identified 14 trillion additional view range settings orbiting Revit.  In this case it was fairly simple to fix because there were similar elements nearby that could copied over after deleting the offending linework - but that's not always the case.

The lines that remain after some nonsensical piece of equipment or other element leave a gaping hole in a floor plan can sometimes be used to deduce how it was intended to look, but it can be a crap shoot.  Sometimes I can look at .pdfs of another discipline's plans and infer more information - but more often than not, I have to just make my best guess.

The fact is, nobody is going to build the building from my plans, so they don't have to be perfect.  They are mostly just for installing the systems we are providing (often by our own installers) - but they may have to go through various city/county/state/federal review processes, and I can't submit my drawings with a whole chunk of plan missing.

In cases where some misguided dipshit actually sends us the Revit model itself, we have an opportunity to fix it before exporting (since we have access to Revit through the other firm in our office), but in the time wasted opening a Revit model, watching it start the hour-long process to upgrade to the current version, cancel, then re-open it in the correct version, it can usually just be tweaked in CAD.

In other news - I received a hilarious e-mail the other day about someone wanting us to model some shit for 'collision detection' where 99% of the equipment was actually already modeled by the Engineer that we received the design from.  It wasn't in the original contract, and if they force the matter, I'm going to open their model and dump a huge pile of useless (and massive) families into it, link several dozen useless files to it, and then try to send it back to them in a newer version of Revit than they are using.

Any complaints will be met with serious beatings.

As always, fuck autodesk, fuck Revit, fuck Revitbots/Revitards/Revit 'Gurus', and anyone else selling, marketing, purchasing, using, forcing others to use (or doing end runs around various engineering disciplines in order to require the use of) Revit.

It's 2019 fucksticks - time to get with the goddamn program.

-fuckSkull

Next Time: The Continued March Of The Dumbfucks.

Linky Dinky

Que Bueno Verte!

Welp, it happened.  The other firm sharing the building with us that received a 3-day crash course in Revit before sticking their dick in their first Revit pencil sharpener project have hit their first problem that made them come to me (oh sweet irony).

It was ostensibly a simple problem with the files that they received (which, of course, were done in a previous version, requiring them to download and install the previous version).  Whoever had set the drawings up had several linked files that were not coming up due to the links looking for folders on the senders server.

It seemed like a simple enough fix - just update the link locations (same as an XREF - which, in CAD, have the option to set links as 'relative' so that you can send someone files, and as long as the file structure within the folder they dump it into is preserved, the links will work perfectly, not sure if Revit even has this capability).

So we tried it, and after crunching for 15-20 seconds, voila!  'Error - blah blah blah, overlay, blah blah blah' (pretty standard Revit shit).  I left him attempting to open the different files and see if he could figure out how to get the links to work (not unlike how a 'Revit Guru' would throw his hands up and tell a Revit dick socket to 'search online' or  'just fuck with it' to see if they could get it to work).

I went back to my desk and did a few quick searches on 'received Revit file links overlays, etc.' and read a few hilarious attempts at people describing the problems they are having, and the even more hilarious attempts at other people (including some at Autodesk) at interpreting the problem, and offering 'solutions' (most of which didn't actually apply).

It was amusing for a few minutes, but got boring quickly, so I decided to jump into a small voice/data and CCTV project that I had received CAD files for.  I had the project set up and completed in the time it took Revit-boy to download the Revit models that he will most likely spend the next week staring at and rotating as his brain slowly starts to decay.

In non-Revit news - motherfucking Adobe Acrobat DC.  Ah - cloud based entertainment.  I was at my wife's office for lunch the other day, and she was attempting to open a .pdf, but at some point in time an update had taken place on her office machine that was preventing her from doing so.  The best I could tell was that Chrome had updated an extension (or whatever) because .pdfs on her fucking desktop had all changed to a Chrome-ish icon.

Clicking on them would pop up asking for a username/password, and would not allow her to go any further.  She attempted to download a non DC version of Acrobat, but apparently Adobe no longer allows this.  I pulled up a chair and tracked down an older version of Acrobat and 'BAM!!!' she could now open .pdfs (which I reiterate - are on her fucking desktop) again.

I'm sure I'm missing some key piece of the puzzle as to why they fuck a program that ostensibly only exists to open .pdfs is no longer capable of opening .pdfs without logging into 'the cloud', but in reality, there is never any fucking reason to log into any kind of cloud based (i.e. internet based) anything in order to access or open shit that is RIGHT THE FUCK THERE ON MY MACHINE.

I don't want an Adobe account, I already have multiple ways to save documents that I can access from anywhere, and just... go fuck yourself already.

Fuck Adobe, fuck Autodesk, and if these people don't get their shit straight, I'm going to stick the entire 'cloud' directly up their ass.

Hasta Luego!

-uckSkullf

Next Time: A Whole New Year Of Derpiness.