Revit & What you can & Can't do in it: a Preview

Image (left) showing the Nucleus' Physics being applied to native Revit/Vasari Objects: The cloth is in the midst of being draped over the head.

Marcello Sgambelluri said that it is often asked of him "why" does he create things like the head (above) or the Cow (below), etc. and he has some wonderful answers but something dawned on me...

When; at the May 2011 LARUG meeting someone who is looking to start down the Revit/BIM path was telling me what they heard about what Revit cannot do... BOOM, it hit me!!! THAT IS WHY Marcello!!!

These complex models speak to a lot of things but the main answer may simply be Inspiration!!!

When people say I can't do something I (also) like to show them I can... Kind of like every athlete that's told they are too small or slow or whatever therefore they 'won't make it'... I don't have to mention the countless people who have and continue to prove those pieces of advice to be totally crap; do I???

Perhaps there needs no better reason than for people to see that anything is possible in Revit, if we are only open to it!!!

Closed minds can still use AutoCAD & Microstation...

I often get asked about what one can & can't do in Revit; if it's from a new user or someone looking to get started there are probably hurdles to answering that question... I say that because a lot of people say a lot of things like: Revit can't do detailing or Revit can't do documentation, or Revit can only do detailing or Revit can only do documentation, on and on... I have heard so much bullshit about what Revit can or can't do it's laughable...

Here's a bottom line to remember:
ANYTHING THAT HAS BEEN ABLE TO BE DONE IN ANY PREVIOUS SOFTWARE, FOR BUILDING DESIGN & DOCUMENTATION, CAN BE DONE IN REVIT... PROBABLY BETTER, STRONGER & FASTER.

If anyone says that Revit can't do 'this' or 'that' then they may very well not be a Revit expert (or even casual user!!!) ...would you trust a horse and buggy manufacturer or driver to give you advice about what a Ferrari can or can't do???

Advice is very suspect... Don't even take what I say as truth until you verify it for yourself... Then I will take cash or checks for being correct :-) Don't waste time believing people who don't use Revit, yet find it necessary to comment on it's functionality.

I once posted a training video and found that the ArchiCAD folks saw it and created a section on their user forums saying how boring the video was and hated on the tone of my voice, etc... then after a few pages of other nasty comments one of their own ArchiCAD people finally asked them if they actually understood what I was showing and if they realized that ArchiCAD had no such functionality and they wish it did!!! If you like; the video is HERE... Hate on AutoCAD, Microstation, ArchiCAD, Sketchup...!!!

I was once even told that Revit can't create schedules!!! And if you don't know Scheduling is possibly the most powerful part of Revit!!! Though that's only my opinion :-)

Another thing that people have said (in the past; me included) was that Revit can't model complex or organic shapes. The key word there is: didn't... now it does... actually for a while; but I digress...

As a preview of a larger article I am starting that will profile some of our west coast/Los Angeles Revit Stars; below is an image of a 100% Revit object. Well a few objects since the horns are nested Revit families of their own :-).

The objects in these images were STARTED, MODELED & EVERYTHINGED in Revit & Vasari (Revit's free testing ground of tools to hit Revit).

Oh, you can host walls to the cow too!!! Thanks Marcello, I can hardly wait to finish the article on this and the other extraordinary things you, we & others ARE doing in Revit in Los Angeles and the World!!!

-JBZ