topic working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same job in Collaboration with other software

working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same job

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:32:47 GMT

My firm is going after a job with another architecture firm, where the partnering firm is working in Revit. We just baby stepping our way into ArchiCAD.

IMHO there's no way we can make this work "smartly" between ArchiCAD & Revit, we have a hard enough time managing files on our AutoCAD projects when we partner with other AutoCAD firms.

Does anyone have something "factual" I can use to explain how bad an idea this might be???

We have only completed ONE job in AC11. We're not experienced.

My fear is that those in charge aren't realizing how difficult this partnership could be from a working standpoint. I'm looking for articles or experiences that speak to the turmoil that could occur.

Thanks!

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Thomas Holm — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:45:57 GMT

Both programs read and write IFC (more or less good). Search for IFC in this forum.

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

TomWaltz — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:04:25 GMT

Part of it depends on how you plan to work together. What's the division of labor? What are the end deliverables?

You will not get anything resembling XREFs.

You might be able to pull the project off, but it's going to require a fair amount of both firms futzing with incoming IFCs from them to show in their respective drawings and with outgoing IFCs that the other firm can read.

IFC is not something you can link to, so any time the other party makes changes, you will have to reimport it. Not fun.

Now, if you were using Revit for this project it would be a lot easier. You could either link in their files or copy-monitor them, and they could do the same with yours. Something to think about.

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:21:17 GMT

To my knowledge, our division of labor thus far has been that we are working on the interior while the other firm is working on the exterior.

The approach that they've taken thus far is to draw the work in autocad, and have the other firm update the revit model.

I don't doubt the other firms ability to manage their side, they have a strong Revit implementation. Our end is very very new to BIM & ArchiCAD.

Does anyone know of an ArchiCAD consultant that would be able to help us manage such a thing? It sounds like we'll be heading down the IFC path, and some major thinking has to go into the division of labor to keep everyone working as efficiently as possible.

and I apologize for the "oh no the sky is falling" initial post. things aren't impossible, it's just occasionally frustrating when those above look at the boxes with the cords and the wires and the screens and say LOOK ITS MAGIC....you can make it work, right? no problem?

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:06:18 GMT

Put a lot of time into test runs. Check the IFC transport in both ways. Use module linking and separated models for your part and theirs. For example once you open their IFC model save it as exterior.pln (example) and link it as a module into your project. Complexity of geometry will also be deciding how you want to do it. You could also separate model from drawings (theirs and yours) by exporting required backgrounds into dwg's and use them for your drawings.

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:07:09 GMT

does this mean that the best approach would be to have one firm work on the exterior, while the other works on the interior? this way what we would call composite types etc. aren't shared....?

i'm still looking for anyone who's shared architecture to architecture; i see a lot of posts on sharing revit structure with archicad...but nothing that speaks of revit architecture sharing with archicad. from what i can tell on the revit blogs, compatibility changes with each version of revit (architecture, structure, mep).

thanks, everyone, for your help thus far!!

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Ignacio Azpiazu — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:41:01 GMT

Alice wrote:
The approach that they've taken thus far is to draw the work in autocad, and have the other firm update the revit model.
I don't doubt the other firms ability to manage their side, they have a strong Revit implementation. Our end is very very new to BIM & ArchiCAD.

Then maybe a good approach for the first step (the first job) would be to aim at starting and finishing your own work in ArchiCAD (model as much as you can, set up your views and layouts) and export DWGs for the other firm to keep on working the way they have been working up to now. You will be more than busy enough if you are only beginning with ArchiCAD, and starting and finishing the job in ArchiCAD may by itself be too much of a challenge on a normal job with a normal schedule.

Anything beyond that ('hey, check out this IFC I did and tell me what you see, would that be of any use to you?' etc.) could then be considered experimentation, and maybe brought into the workflow once successfully tried and tested. The good thing about experiments is that failure is not a failure.

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:43:06 GMT

I would more or less forget trying to coordinate data in 3D -- stick to 2D. You could try meshing 3D models together using DWG format or something similar. I can't vouch for Revit's IFC writing capability, but other AC users on this forum have reported that it's not great. That was Revit 2008, so perhaps things have changed.

If you do try IFC, then each team will be linking in a 3D version of the other consultant's work; do that into a separate file, not into your working file, and that link that data in for reference.

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:48:49 GMT

In most cases you can transport information using IFC, but some classes are not recognizable in either software. For Example Revit do not recognize slanted walls (those will import as Straight walls). Or solid Element operation. Or layers support. Most of those can be of course resolved, but it takes time to recognize them and find a working solution.

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:36:48 GMT

it looks like for this project we'll continue with the 2d working method.

however, as a hobby project, we are in the process of learning how to "translate" between archicad and revit architecture; step one is understanding the language barrier (composite = ? ). piece by piece, how does this work, what am i actually getting from one to the other...

i'll keep this thread updated with what we learn....

thanks!

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:37:29 GMT

Alice wrote:
i'll keep this thread updated with what we learn...

Please do - I'm sure many of us are interested and have been lurking here. 😉

Karl

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Chadwick — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:20:06 GMT

For what it's worth, when I was working in ArchiCAD we imported structural and MEP IFC files made from Revit MEP / Structural and it worked out pretty well for us. This was over three years ago now so I'm guessing that IFC has gotten a little better. The way we kept it under control is that we only had updates going one way as far as the model went. We would send out 2D cad files to them, they would then model accordingly and send us their models to be included into the overall building model in ArchiCAD. We could have sent them an IFC but I'm not sure Revit could read IFCs that well at that time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you work in the Milwaukee area? Your profile picture looks like the addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum that Santiago Calatrava did. I used to work in Milwaukee and I thought that the firm I worked in was the only one that was using ArchiCAD in the area...or my assumption could be completely off.

Re: working in ArchiCAD and Revit Architecture on the same j

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:22:18 GMT

I've heard of success between Revit Systems/Structure and ArchiCAD, but I read on the Augi forum that Revit Systems/Structure/Architecture work with export/import of IFC *differently* ....brave new world I suppose, eh? It is encouraging to hear that it has worked with other packages. That helps.

As a quick crutch for our office, we've found an IFC import/export for SketchUP. Why SketchUP you ask? Because only 3 people in our office can "use" ArchiCAD and about 10 others are great at making obscenely overly detailed SketchUP models. We think this will be the process we might use, just for now, just for this project, to keep everyone from hitting the panic button every 3rd day....

I'm anxiously awaiting a copy of the IFC2x3 export from Revit to open in both programs....should have that later today, whee!

I'm excited to get my hands on it and see what we can do with it in either software package! When we fully implement ArchiCAD, it's possible that we'll be partnering with AutoCAD firms who may use SketchUP, and this may help us communicate better with them.

And yes Chadwick, that is the Calatrava Museum in Milwaukee in the background; it was from a quick vacation to summerfest a few years back. But no, I'm not in Milwaukee.