As engineers, we are required to use and understand various modeling/analysis programs. From using these programs throughout the years we have come to learn that these programs are far from operating perfectly. All programs contain glitches, or present issues/limitations that keep us from using it capabilities to 100% efficiency. When it comes to Revit and BIM applications, there are various problems that are encountered while modeling that can cause design projects to be delayed or created using programs other than Revit/BIM applications due to modeling requirements not being able to be met with Revit/BIM technology.
First, Revit/BIM is rather advanced, and requires decent understanding of the programs and their inner workings. This can cause issues for designers/engineers when first being introduced into a company because there is no guarantee that everyone will be able to comprehend the programs advanced workings in a timely manner. Thus they will choose to work in programs more well known outside of Revit/BIM. I have witnessed this issue first hand during my first co-op experience. I worked for an AE firm that was slowly integrating Revit/BIM into its departments. While working in the electrical department I noticed that they were primarily AutoCAD while the architecture department was mainly Revit. Coordination between these two groups was difficult at times because not all the electrical engineers understood how to use Revit and when they worked on AutoCAD plans from the architectural Revit model, not all changes from each group were reflected in the drawings due to coordination issues. I as the co-op took the time to learn Revit and became the go-between for the department and helped the group with Revit to AutoCAD coordination.
Second, specific calculations cannot be completed by Revit/BIM programs, that other programs are capable of doing. A major drawback to Revit is that it is unable to do specific electrical calculations. This means that electrical designers are forced to use other programs to model/calculate electrical needs, which can cause coordination issues in the future of the design project. Furthermore, due to different departments being able to work on a Revit model at the same time, calculations by one department may not be able to be conducted due to missing necessary parameters that another department is responsible for inputting into the model. This can cause delays in design, etc.
Finally, Revit/BIM programs provide the ability to export files into different formats in order to allow further manipulation of a design. While this is helpful for most programs. Revit/BIM programs do not export/are not compatible with all programs. This makes coordination impossible for some instances in a project, which requires decisions of whether or not to use Revit/BIM technology in the first place. On top of this, it seems that Revit models are year specific, meaning that if you are working on a project in Revit2014 and you decide to later open/manipulate that model in Revit2015, you will not be able to go back to using that model in Revit2014. Once a model is updated to the newest version of Revit it is no longer able to be accessed in the earlier versions of the program. For example, this is an issue where I co-oped previously. Due to the companies small size, not all computers run the same version of Revit. Thus causing issues when I was asked to work on certain Revit projects and not having the correct version on my computer. There were points where I was either unable to work on the project entirely, or I had to remotely access another persons computer with the correct version in order to use the modeling program.
It just goes to show that there are constant flaws in technology, no matter how "efficient" they claim themselves to be. My hope would be that for the future, Revit/BIM programs be created with these issues in mind and allow for better coordination and manipulation as a whole both inside the program and outside of the program.
RESPONSE TO CLASSMATES
Dmitriy Voznyak
I completely agree with Dmitriy's analysis of the current problems in the world of Revit/BIM. He spoke about similar aspects of these problems when pertaining to abilities of those who work in firms utilizing Revit/BIM software and also about the issue of backwards compatibility of files in Revit. Furthermore he touched on an issue that I did not, and that was about the legality of who owns the rights to a model. This is an issue that is very common, especially when multiple companies are working on a project, that needs to be addressed. Instances like this cannot be ignored, because it can cause major problems for future steps in the design process.
Young Kwang Lee
I completely agree with Young's analysis of the current problems in the world of Revit/BIM. He, like Dimitriy, touched on a lot of the same issues that I did. I like that he talked about the overall cost burden using Revit/BIM programming can put on a firm trying to utilize it. It 100% can determine if a firm will be able to compete for specific projects based on Revit/BIM possibilities. I also agree that this will effect small firms more so than large because they may not be able to afford the programming like a larger firm can. In regards to a small flaw going unnoticed in a large model, I completely agree that it can have detrimental effects to the project if not caught. Small issues can manifest into large ones that may not be reversible after a certain point. So it is important to put checks in place in a program's capabilities in order to avoid issues like this.
REFERENCES
Dmitriy Voznyak
I completely agree with Dmitriy's analysis of the current problems in the world of Revit/BIM. He spoke about similar aspects of these problems when pertaining to abilities of those who work in firms utilizing Revit/BIM software and also about the issue of backwards compatibility of files in Revit. Furthermore he touched on an issue that I did not, and that was about the legality of who owns the rights to a model. This is an issue that is very common, especially when multiple companies are working on a project, that needs to be addressed. Instances like this cannot be ignored, because it can cause major problems for future steps in the design process.
Young Kwang Lee
I completely agree with Young's analysis of the current problems in the world of Revit/BIM. He, like Dimitriy, touched on a lot of the same issues that I did. I like that he talked about the overall cost burden using Revit/BIM programming can put on a firm trying to utilize it. It 100% can determine if a firm will be able to compete for specific projects based on Revit/BIM possibilities. I also agree that this will effect small firms more so than large because they may not be able to afford the programming like a larger firm can. In regards to a small flaw going unnoticed in a large model, I completely agree that it can have detrimental effects to the project if not caught. Small issues can manifest into large ones that may not be reversible after a certain point. So it is important to put checks in place in a program's capabilities in order to avoid issues like this.
REFERENCES
- Guest Lecturer from Week 3
- Class Discussions
- Co-op Experiences
Wholeheartedly agree in regards to the issues of: legality, interoperability, communication difficulties between various engineering fields, and backwards compatibility. These make it difficult for many smaller firms to make the next step to BIM instead of the 2 dimensional AutoCAD they have been using. I believe that these issues in fact, fundamentally have a much deeper source. The lack of educational opportunities such as hands-on training classes currently available leaves the vast majority of architects and engineers (even fresh out of college) incapable of understanding the full capabilities of BIM/Revit. For example, even at Drexel, as a freshmen I expected to have at least one drafting class a term throughout my education. Nevertheless, to our misfortune, there has been two including this class to hone our drafting skills. The future is BIM and hopefully more academic programs will begin to focus more on these useful workplace skills instead of useless classes and equations that can be found in textbooks.
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