B3 - (GROUP B) - Matthew Zabiega

                BIM software is almost essential to any design firm as it allows for easily visualization, editing, collaboration and planning of the project. REVIT is arguably at the forefront of the BIM software. “Revit has now and will become more deeply integrated with the core of planning, conceptual design, detailed design, fabrication, and operation of our built environment” [2].  However like all things, nothing is perfect and REVIT certainly is not perfect.  Probably one of the biggest problems REVIT faces, it probably its biggest key feature; it is so incredibly complex almost to the point that no one is an expert. A REVIT model can be designed with huge amounts of detail, features and families, but the problem is to teach a new employee or teach a student. The learning curve varies from person to person, it may take a few hours watching tutorials and taking it out for a test drive before you can start ‘designing’ something incredibly basic. Once you feel like you have the hang of it, you hit a wall and have to ask questions (if there is anyone to answer) or watch another tutorial/buy books.  This process is almost repeated infinitely.

                Another problem I personally experienced is also another big advantage of REVIT; multiple people working in the same model at the same time. A REVIT model, if located on a server, can be accessed by numerous amounts of people that can work on the project simultaneously. Every now and then (more now than then) you have to save and reload the project to make sure you are seeing the most up-to-date model. This can present a relative big problem is someone either: goes a long time without saving/reloading, or tries to edit the same structure/family someone else is trying to edit. For the first problem, the work that person has just done may be over-written and possibly lost if someone has edited the space around it. For the second problem, if you edit a something in the model that someone else has already edited, it could cause the model to glitch, blend the edits or even crash. This requires a lot of planning if multiple people are working in the model at the same time, one way around this is to divide the work up so that no two people are working on the same thing.

                Sometimes REVIT is stubborn, anyone who has used REVIT can more than likely agree. The task may be simple but REVIT will not allow you to create that pipe connection, or connect those walls. A funny personal example happened at my last co-op, I was given the job to update the edits in a REVIT model. One thing I had to do was replace a 60 degree pipe take-off with a 45 degree take-off and then reconnect the pipe. For whatever reason it was, REVIT would not allow it. Fast forward 2 hours later, with our departments 2 best REVIT designer and the actual head of the REVIT department (person who is really good at REVIT), crowded around my cubicle, trying to figure out why REVIT would not create that connection. No Clash-detection. Check. No interference. Check. No turned off layers clashing. Check. Elevation and view correct. Check. No one could figure out what the problem was. It was becoming more of a personal dilemma for the designers to figure out this ‘simple’ problem. They ended up finding similar objects around the model, copying and dragging them into the needed place.

                Something that seemed so simple just took four people three hours to accomplish. Sometimes REVIT does not budge and you have to improvise. The REVIT software is always being advanced, there is a huge difference between REVIT 2012 and REVIT 2016 and I am sure REVIT 2017 will be even more glorious than the previous.

Sources:

1: http://aecmag.com/technology-mainmenu-35/450-the-trouble-with-bim

2: http://www.seandburke.com/blog/2014/03/29/is-revit-dead/

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