The Consulting Engineer s Guide to Implementing Revit Structure Speaker: James Lupton James Lupton Consultants and Digital Construction (ATC) Assistant/Co-presenter: to be confirmed SE314-1 This session will provide advice on the implementation of Revit Structure in a structural design office. Learn the key areas for achieving maximum productivity gains and improved presentation standards. Examples of coordination with architects and other design-team members will be given as well as details on how to export data from the model to structural steel fabricators and other manufacturers. About the Speaker: For the past 14 years, James has been the senior partner of James Lupton Consultants (JLC), providing civil and structural design services to clients, contractors, and manufacturers. Prior to JLC, James worked in construction, and was later a consultant for two different companies. He was appointed by Computer Services Consultants as part of its product specification team for structural engineering design software, and enjoys implementing software solutions in the design environment every chance he gets, which has led JLC to become the first consultant in the U.K. to implement Autodesk Revit. James has been a Revit user for six years james.lupton@digital-construction.net
Things we will cover in this session Introduction Concept Development Detailed Design Traditional Output formats Presenting the model Exporting the model to other packages Importing to the model from other packages Scheduling and use of the model data Revit for calculation sketches Useful resources Q&A Introduction As an experience Revit User I would like to give you a guide through the Practical Implementation of Building Information Modelling a design consultancy organisation. Our company have been users of Revit and Navisworks for over 6 years and Tekla Structures Users for over 10 years. James Lupton Consultants are an established Civil and Structural Engineering Consultancy. A high proportion of our work has been in the Design & Build market working predominantly for contractors. We have worked on major projects across the UK in conjunction with associated offices of the Atom Group. The consultancy has been using Building Information Modelling for over 10 years with our formative years having been spent developing 3D skills through the use of Xsteel. Our work in the structural steel manufacturing sector has taught us that accurate modelling of project requirements can bring real rewards in solving geometric issues without incurring the high cost of building. Problems are solved at the design stage and the construction work fits when components arrive on site. Projects with very complex geometry can be effectively planned and well understood. This gives everyone in the team confidence that the solutions presented will work in practice. A good BIM package such as Revit will also include the benefit of bi-directional associativity which essentially means that a change made in one location is a change made everywhere. Building Information Modelling is not 3D CAD with data attached to graphical objects. The data in Revit drives the geometry and since we have a relational database as the engine behind the software, when we make a single change to an objects parameter, this will drive changes to the objects appearance in every view of the project which includes that object. This is a very powerful feature of Revit which is extended by the ability to add other non geometric parameters to the object properties.
We were appointed as Structural Engineers for the superstructure of the Xscape Indoor Ski Centre at Milton Keynes. This project was typical of those which provide geometric challenges to the design team. The BIM helped the team immensely in developing their understanding of the geometry of the building. Cinema s, shops, bars and restaurants had to be fitted within the curved external envelope of this building which also included a real snow ski slope extending from the highest point on the front elevation down to ground level at the opposite end of the building. The BIM of Xscape brought many benefits in checking the design proposals against the Architect Faulkner Brown s requirements It helped to identify numerous problems due to conflicting requirements between the design intent and the buildings functional and geometrical constraints As a result, these issues were dealt with at the design stage which helped bring about a successful project for everyone involved. Recognizing the extent of our knowledge in BIM, a colleague and I established Digital Construction to specialize in training in Building Information Modelling. As an Autodesk Authorized Training Centre, all training is conducted using Autodesk Official Training Courseware
Two of the main benefits are of working in BIM are improved coordination and improved communication. These apply within your own team where everyone understands the project to a better level and across the design team, allowing fellow professionals to understand the proposals better. The client develops a better understanding of what is to be constructed as does the contractor and others in the construction team. The key to the success of BIM is the data which lies behind the objects. We are all used to traditional databases in many different formats such as phone records or drawing schedules. Revit provides the functionality of the traditional database but within a much more familiar environment where the objects are easily recognised. The reports from our Revit database can be similar to the traditional reports but also include graphical reports in the form of drawings and other views from the model. New functionality in Revit has improved the communication of project requirements through the supply chain. Revit Structure can have two way communication with analysis and design software such as Robot. Extensions4Revit also provide a means to communicate the structural steel elements to other packages such as Tekla Structures using CIS/2 format. Additional input from the manufacturer enhances the model information which can optionally be used to update the original Revit Structures model. Output from the manufacturing model can then be passed to production control software such as Steel Projects where further input from the production line team will determine the routing of components through the factory. The data from the BIM will undoubtedly change the way you work and provide additional information about the proposals which would not normally be available without significant additional work. All in all there is a lot to learn and new users need to take implementation in steps
Concept Development The project shown alongside here is a detailed model of Charles de Gaulle Airport Terminal 2E in Paris. Although this is not a concept model, it demonstrates the ability of Revit to handle complex geometry on large scale projects. Capturing the geometry of a project accurately from day one can often be the key to understanding the challenges whichh lie ahead in the development of the design. Different design options & ideas can be explored quickly and various different output formats can help immensely in communicating the project proposals to the client and others. Clearly the quicker we understand the issues presented by a project then the sooner these become resolved and coordinated across the entire design team. Clients understand 3D much more easily and it is often easier to communicate difficulties or to present alternative solutionss through the use of good quality 3D images. The model shown alongside was a concept design developed by the architect who presented their proposals to us in the form of a Revit model. We developed the structural model and passed it back to the architect for review. Issues were identified by both the architect and our structural team and these were easily resolved at a very early stage of the project. The really big advantage on this early stage collaboration with other Revit users is the speed with which project requirements get communicated and understood and all without the need to produce any drawings. The Revit model can also be used to quickly establish areas and volumes of materials required to construct the building together with clear floor-space information which may have a critical influence in the clients decision to proceed.
Detailed Design Very soon after getting into Revit you start to realise that your process of understanding and resolving design issues is changing. You will also begin to discover new ways of communicating the project demands. 3D views of the model are effectively controlled from within the model and are very useful for discussing and communicating the design proposals with others. It is important to take care over what you are modelling at these early stages since it is all too easy to get carried away in defining the detailed geometry of the components without allowing time to understand the overall project requirements. It is advisable to remember at these early stages of a project that the objects need to reflect to overall principles of the project rather than the detailed shape and form of individual components. It is also worth remembering that the objects ( or families as they are referred to in Revit) can become more detailed as the design develops at a later stage. As the design develops, the families can become more complex and detailed decisions made about the exact position of objects and how they relate to each other. Try to use families as much as possible since this will bring greater rewards as work progresses. The use of in-place families is a quick way to generate geometry in the model however, it becomes more difficult to re-use this geometry in alternative options or other projects.
As the design progresses, numerous problems become clear and are often resolved very quickly before the design information is passed across to others. However detailed your model becomes it is worthwhile minimising the used of curved or rounded surfaces since these can slow the model unnecessarily Traditional Output Formats We are all used to DWG and our industry still needs drawings. It is therefore essential that we can produce high quality 2D output from Revit in a format that can be passed on to others working in traditional CAD. With the ability to generate 3D images of the project easily within the model, the traditional 2D sections plans and elevations are often supplemented with additional 3D views. Both 2D and 3D output from the model can be exported in DWF format which we find ourselves using a lot at the early stages of a project as a quick way to keep our clients informed. It is especially beneficial if you project requirements in the form of a model from the architect or other team members. This can often give you a quick starting point to develop your ideas around and has the added advantage of eliminating the need to draw geometry from scratch. The process of working from a BIM can often result in numerous drawings being producedd in quick succession late in the production cycle and this is certainly something which may take time to adjust to since a lot of people use the review of drawings as a means of measuring progress on the project deliverables.
Presenting the model The Consulting Engineer s Guide to Implementing Revit Structure The quickest and easiest way to share the model acrosss the team is in 3D DWF format. This helps keep people on-board with the progress you are making ahead of formal drawing production. There are however, many other great ways to share the model and to make use of the model to communicate different aspects of the project. JPEG images from the project model can be exported for use in Powerpoint to present different aspects of the project at different stages. This may include the use of images snapped from the screen and marked up with graphics to highlight issues identified. NavisWorks ( a recent Autodesk acquisition) can also provide a great way to share the model and combine it with other non Revit based systems. Extensivee use of phasing and filtering is likely to be implemented to create the views required with the correct objects on show. It is also worth developing a good sub categorisation system for families to allow their visibility to be controlled more readily. A useful tip here is to bear in mind that the comments field is one which exists in all components and can therefore be used in conjunction with filtering to control the visibility of any objects irrespective of the object categorisation.
Exporting the model to other packages A very useful tool we developed using the Revit API is something we call SPOUT. SPOUT allows us to quickly create bills of material from our structural model in excel format. In the BIM we are able to highlight selected members or select all steel members and then run the API. The product is an excel spreadsheet with all the necessary information ncluding contract, unique member ID number, section size, material grade, length and quantity. Being able to epresent model data in XLS format providedd us obvious benefits, generating material lists and tonnages aligned to the model status was easy and reasonably quick. Furthermore we discovered that this information (or BIM data) could quickly be passed through to Steel Projects management information
software and this data could then be used for a variety of other purposes. Once the model dataa was imported into the Steel Projects software we could run material optimization checks on the steel components, this quickly nested the individual parts into commercial stock lengths. By doing this we could quickly ascertain the total material required and the amount of waste, this maximized material and minimized waste. We could then run this optimized material list into their Estimating software and we were now able to generate fast accurate estimations, all of this using information directly from our BIM. This proved to be extremely beneficial for us as we could then populate our standard estimation templates with the data generated through the API and the outpu was a very accurate Tender document that was truly reflective of the BIM content that could be communicated to the client in various formats. Useful resources Autodesk Discussion groups Reseller support www.augi.com www.revit-objects.com www.lupton.co.uk Autodesk support Revit Experts www.revitcity.com www.digital-construction.com www.bim-consult.comm www.steel-projects.co. uk