topic Re: AC Compatibility with Revit in Collaboration with other software

AC Compatibility with Revit

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:02:18 GMT

We are architects working in ArchiCAD on a Mac platform but will be collaborating with a firm that will be using Revit. We are lead designers and will prepare drawings up through design development when our collaborators will take over and prepare contract documents. What are some of the issues associated with working between the two different BIM products and the platforms. For example, is it possible to export the AC model in whole to Revit?

Re: AC Compatibility with Revit

Thomas Holm — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:36:39 GMT

IFC is the way to go. Do a search in this forum and you'll find several tips on how.

Re: AC Compatibility with Revit

Chris Phillips — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:24:41 GMT

Hi

This is a real bag of unresolved problems.
1 make sure that the REVIT ifc translator is the very latest.
2 visit them on site and swap sample files
3 watch out for untranslated curved walls and unresolved curved wall junctions

I have found that the "certified" REVIT translator that I have been exposed to is a very indifferently written bag of spanners.

Chris Phillips

User since 3.42!

Re: AC Compatibility with Revit

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:36:19 GMT

I also recommend IFC for most purposes for sharing between ArchiCAD and Revit. I have been doing quite a bit of work with this lately and find that it works acceptably well with a few issues.

Depending on what you need DWG and 3DS can also work. They produce relatively "dumb" models but sometimes that is enough.

Re: AC Compatibility with Revit

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:36:20 GMT

Thanks for the help. This will be a very complex project ($50M museum) and with all that is at stake I'm very concern about the transition. The transitions need to be as error free as is reasonable and thus far I don't have the confidence that will be the case.

Would appreciate any other feedback.

Re: AC Compatibility with Revit

__archiben — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:39:56 GMT

H wrote:
Thanks for the help. This will be a very complex project ($50M museum) and with all that is at stake I'm very concern about the transition. The transitions need to be as error free as is reasonable and thus far I don't have the confidence that will be the case.

Would appreciate any other feedback.

consider breaking the model down into smaller files by speciality - so structural steelwork, concrete, HVAC etc . . .

they will be very easy to put together and see as a whole project using hotlinks in archicad, but their smaller size and individuality will aid in many ways...

- firstly a 'package' of information gets locked out: you start to give ownership to each part of the building. i.e. you have to be intentionally working on it to be able make changes - things can't get moved by accident.

- small changes can be updated easily without transferring huge files

- the smaller size of the information contained will put less pressure on the IFC file's complexity.

consider each archicad<>IFC<>revit model files in a similar manner to the old DWG x-refs: a final DWG paperspace drawing will often consist of many combined x-ref files. same thing with your model . . .

HTH
~/archiben

Re: AC Compatibility with Revit

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:16:58 GMT

You are going to need some expertise. You will either need to hire it or learn it. To accomplish the latter, follow the previous suggestion and do a trial run with some sample files. You can download Revit and it will run fully functional for 30 days. This should be enough time to work out at least the basic issues.

You should also take some time to figure out just what you really need. Typically each side only needs the 3D geometry for reference, so in some cases even 3DS or DWG can do the trick.