Jun 27, 2022

Welcome to episode 38 of the Fire Code Tech Solocast series. In this episode we are speaking about 3d modeling software. In this episode we discuss the history of revit and stick around till the end to get my top 4 tips for gaining proficiency.

Free Revit Course: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEAg47jdYMs

Transcription

Hello. Welcome to the solo cast of fire code tech in these episodes. It's just gonna be me, your host, Gus Gagliardi. There's gonna be a range of topics, but I'm gonna talk about specific technologies, installation, standards, codes, and how they work as well as some other interesting topics that don't neatly fit inside of the context of a normal I.

Hello. All welcome to episode 38 of fire code tech. The solo cast series. In this episode, we're talking about Revit. Revit is. A 3d modeling software. And in this episode, we're going to break down the history of the modeling software, some of the features that make it a industry tighten and the background on my tips for how to be proficient and efficient and Revit.

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With that being said, thank you all for listening and let's get into the show. So I wanted to talk about Revit because Revit is the 3d modeling software. That is the. I'd say it's the number one in the architecture, engineering, and construction community for how design drawings and documents, contract documents get developed.

Um, I've had the opportunity to use Revit since about 2017 and over the last. Five years. I have gained some level of proficiency with it, but Revit is 3d modeling software. A lot of people are very acquainted with 2d modeling software that is still in common use. That is AutoCAD. Both of these technologies or softwares are owned by.

Autodesk. Autodesk is a software company that acquired Revit. We're gonna go over a little bit about the history of Revit, but reason why I wanna talk about this subject is that I'm fascinated with Revit and it is, um, unavoidable. If you do business on medium to large facilities in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry.

And maybe for some professionals who aren't as mired in the details of the production of construction documents or, um, the contract document production, then this might be informational for you. So the history of Revit is that the company was founded in 1997 and it originally had a different. and then it was changed to Revit technology corporation in 2000.

And then in about 2002. So the product Revit was generated by a venture capitalist back company, a. And it was developed and they had attempted some other software projects before. And then they finally struck painter with Revit and sold the company to Autodesk in 2002 to the tune of over 130 million.

there are a lot of 3d modeling softwares, but the biggest advantage of Revit and specific is its ability to associate modeled elements with database parameters. So, um, for those of you who maybe have never worked with Revit, if you draw a wall in Revit, You can generate a wall and there will be a variety of properties that are associated with the wall.

How tall is the wall? How wide is the wall? Where is it located in the project? What type of wall is it? Is it a brick wall? Is it a concrete wall? And so. the wall will have its own specific ID and all of these properties and characteristics will be logged inside the program. So if you have a building that you've modeled and you have hundreds of walls, you can make a schedule in which all of the walls will be displayed on in.

Not quite Excel, but a tabular inventory, similar to Excel's layout in which you can revise elements within the schedule to alter the modeled elements. So if I go into the wall schedule in this hypothetical scenario and I select all the walls in the project and I decide to change the. Property of the walls from.

a brick wall or a masonry wall into a concrete block wall. You can do that instantaneously with just the click of a button. And so this is the big competitive advantage of Revit and the kind of. Differentiator from its competitors. Couple of its competitors are ArchiCAD and reflex. Uh, I don't know too much about these, um, by and large Revit is for most firms that I've ever worked with the dozens of engineering and.

Consulting firms I've worked with CAD is it's either CAD or Revit. Revit is pretty much unavoidable for projects after they reach a certain complexity. So Revit, even the name of Revit has to do with this competitive advantage of the database being associated with the model elements and the model elements being associated with the database parameters.

And. You know, I've seen this term, it's called bidirectional associativity you know, so the ability to modify parameters in the database and change properties in the modeled elements and vice versa. So the name Revit. Comes from a contraction of the two words revise instantly. So I found that pretty interesting as somebody who's been working with this program for half a decade and, you know, didn't even really know why it's called Revit.

I always just thought it was some random name that didn't have any real meaning, but of course, um, that's not the case. so Revit is not only just a benefit to users during the design and construction phase of a building's life cycle. Revit can be in building information modeling, um, can be of value to a building owner or engineers, or really anybody at any stage of the building's life cycle.

It can be a benefit. In design during construction. the main life cycle of the building as people are using it. And, you know, BIM models can be used to keep accurate logs of maintenance and other features within the buildings, during the operation of the building. And then all the way to the death of the building in the demolition.

There might be valuable information in the, uh, destruction of a building in. Building information model more specifically a Revit model. So this is a concept that's really gained traction, I'd say within the last decade, um, you know, from. You know, Revit's been around since 2002, but I think in my experience and from people I've talked to in the industry, it's really taken a hold since around the 2010, 2012 range.

And so it's around to stay. It's gaining more traction all the time. I work with less and less clients who refuse to use the 3d modeling capabilities. So it's a very interesting piece of software. Revit utilizes something. It calls families in order to model 3d elements. So there are a variety of Revit families and many are.

Out of the box ready to go, and you can also create custom families. And when you think about, uh, Revit families, they're just a 3d or 2d modeled element, uh, with associated parameters. So let's give my four tips for Revit and. You know, becoming proficient with Revit. My first tip for Revit is to use your key bindings key bindings come with the out of the box, Revit key command as Ks.

So if you press Ks, you will be able to go into Revit and assign different. Tasks key commands. My recommendation would be to put as many key commands for common tasks, able to be used by one hand. really your left hand so that you can click with your mouse and your right hand, and you can do key commands with your left hand.

This will greatly improve with efficiency. If you're not always having to look in the toolbar or ribbon, the command that you're looking for. And really this is a, uh, software and PC recommendation in general. Anytime you're using a program that has key commands. It will save you. It may not seem like much time, but if there are a dozen different tasks that you use every day and you are spending, you know, whatever, six seconds, a task, 10 seconds, a task looking on the ribbon for the right button.

Or if you just know. That you can press it without even looking at the keyboard. If you are a proficient typer, it will save you mountains of time. Second tip is to understand the interface. Now I'm not saying that you should go and read every tool tip for every Revit command. I don't think that's necessary.

And most likely you're probably not gonna use. Most of the. Different key commands probably you'll use a select variety of key commands and use those most frequently until you gain some proficiency. But what I am saying is to understand the interface, look at the major tabs and the components on the perimeter of the program in order to get a good sense of.

Are the features. Um, so you don't have to look inside all of the system tabs, but I would say try to get as much situational a awareness about the buttons on the extreme perimeter of the program, and that will help you. Um, it kind of goes from the outside of the program more. broad to more specific as you get into the ribbons.

Don't know if that makes sense, probably needs a visual, but that's tip number two. Know your interface. Tip number three is. Make sure that you have all your tabs turned on, so you can go to options and Revit and out of the box. Sometimes not all the systems tabs will be turned on. So I know I've installed Revit before and had to turn on the, uh, electrical system components in order to get fire alarm devices.

To uh, show up or display. So if you're having trouble finding something, be sure to go and take a look and make sure that you have all of your tool ribbons turned on. My last tip is to take a course. If you are just starting out with Revit, there are some good free re resources on YouTube and I'll drop a link to a full free course and Revit.

Um, produced by free code camp. Free code camp is a software development company, but they do tutorials on a broad variety of subjects. I've used free code camp for learning how to get started with web development. But if you're interested in learning how to code, or if you're interested in learning about Revit, you can check out the YouTube in the description.

um, also just as a last note, Revit has a interface for programming. So Revit is designed in C plus, plus I believe, but there are interfaces with. Python. And you can also use the visual based coding of dynamo, which is built into the program to automate some of your tasks in Revit. That's all I have hope you enjoyed the episode.

We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.