You will love Revit... whether you like it or not!
December 03, 2018
You will love Revit... whether you like it or not!
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Revit
At Korsmo Construction, we use Revit to create fabrication level structural models to validate design and create drawings and models which are used for estimating, constructability review, drawings and layout data for all self -performed scopes of work. The act of modeling closely simulates the act of building; if you cannot model it due to a lack of information, you cannot build it. This often finds errors and omissions from the design team and solves issues before they present themselves in the field. Our VDC department is the currently the only department that models in Revit, however, there are a few in the organization that can utilize it by simply opening up design teams models and analyze for design intent and reference.
- 3D Models - It's kind of a no brainer, but the key benefit of Revit is its ability to model in 3D. It's a somewhat complex modeling environment, however, it's not impossible to learn and I have seen users from a range of abilities to effectively model content in Revit.
- Schedules - 3D is great, but the ability to quantify your geometry is contains valuable data if modeled correctly. If you model how you will build it, Revit has the ability to give very accurate schedules which includes quantities, and any data you would like to incorporate into your model.
- Industry Standard - Revit is the industry standard. With that being said, it really help to use software that is compatible with other agencies for collaborative model review.
- Versioning - Revit is not backwards compatible. This creates issues if you are working with people who are using older versions as you cannot save to a previous version. I understand why this is and I do not see this ever changing, however, Its very annoying.
- Autodesk - They are the 800 pound gorilla in the industry. The lack of competition inhibits development and it seems Autodesk has put more effort into its BIM 360 platform and Revit development has suffered because of it. I would like to see better competition so Autodesk would step up its game.
- Revit is included in our AEC Collection. I find the cost of my suite affordable for what I am getting. The true cost of Revit is not found in the license cost, but in the training, SOPs and content management. We get our ROI from flushing out design errors/omissions which can add up to a large number. One issue can easily cost the project 10-100k depending on the issue. I see no reason anyone would find it challenging to get ROI from integrating 3d modeling in your business development.
- Revit really is the foundation of content creation. If we didnt use Revit, it would be hard to claim we have a functioning BIM/VDC department. I would question any AEC professional that claims they can perform VDC and does not know how to use Revit.
As I stated previously, it's hard to come up with a competitor for Revit. Revit was developed by Charles River Software back in 1997 and was bought by Autodesk in 2002. It's only real competition is with Bentley Systems or Tekla. Bently is just not used by the industry and would create coordination issues if everyone was not on the same platform and Tekla is good at concrete and struggles with any other content. The competition is just not there.