{"id":246,"date":"2019-05-02T13:50:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T13:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegreenhearth.com\/?p=246"},"modified":"2019-08-02T13:55:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T13:55:21","slug":"bim-panel-follow-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegreenhearth.com\/bim-panel-follow-up\/","title":{"rendered":"BIM panel follow-up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Last fall, I attended\na discussion on BIM with my local IIDA chapter. At my knowledge level, the\ntopic was both rudimentary as well as inspiring (it covered a large ground of\nwhat BIM is). After the event, and after much contemplation of my own experiences\nusing BIM (and, in particular, Revit) I worked with the chapter to develop a\npanel discussion bringing together designers and manufactures to talk about\nthings we need\/want\/hate and the benefits or challenges to using BIM. Here\u2019s my\nrecap and thoughts on the event\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Okay, not actually a\nflat-out talking point of the night, but still; I\u2019ve actually heard this phrase\nbeing said in some way or another since I was an intern. From the designers\nI\u2019ve heard it from, it was always about how any person could learn how to use\nthe tools to document, but you couldn\u2019t teach a designer \u201cgood\ndesign\u201d. I\u2019ve always hated this mentality because it meant the only way\nfor you to succeed at being a designer<\/em>\nmeant your hard skills could be weak, but if you couldn\u2019t pull a palette\ntogether, you\u2019re better off changing careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m here to tell you\nthat this is not true! I have seen many talented designers \u2013 at all levels \u2013\nwho either don\u2019t get Revit, or, refuse to truly grasp it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s being said, a\ncomment made last night was one of my own indicating to manufactures to\n\u201cdumb down\u201d their models so your \u201caverage designer\u201d could\nwork with it. I hadn\u2019t realized I had completely contradicted myself earlier in\nthe session when I was trying to push the use of Revit for designers. It was\nbrought up that, yes some of these tools within a Revit family could be seen as\n\u201cmore advanced\u201d, but at the same time, were created in a way to\nreduce bloat to a model size (ie. Having a type catalog can be challenging for\na designer to understand why they aren\u2019t seeing the different family types, but\nthat allows the designer to pick and choose the few they need in their model\nrather than the entire set of options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kudos to the\nmanufactures that brought this up! As designers, we need to be willing to\ncontinue to learn and grow, no matter how many years of experience we have! <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll admit, this was\none of my \u201cwish list\u201d items I announced towards manufactures. If I am\nable to download a Revit file for your chair family, please, please, please <\/em>build the family in Revit, not another\nprogram \u2013 and don\u2019t assume inserting a 3D CAD into a Revit family will work! I\ncan\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve seen this and it causes messiness in plans\nfrom the polygons in the 3D CAD, and when we are in a crunch for renderings, if\nI can\u2019t change the material, chances are I will find something that will cause\nless of a headache. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As an additional note\nhere, I did hear comments about what was in the models from manufacturers. Some\ndesigners indicated that models could show the nuts and bolts (literally) of a\npiece of furniture, when it really wasn\u2019t something we needed. I also shared a\nstory (presented by a good friend of mine) of a furniture family \u2013 pulled off\nof a manufacturer website \u2013 that contained a nested family\u2026 Of a door! These\nsort of Easter eggs<\/em> cause serious bloat\nin our models and lots of frustration. It pretty much sounded like the\nconsensus here was: give us what we need to produce, but leave the nitty-gritty\ndetails at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I may have been the\nbiggest chatter-upper about seamless textures at the event, but I wasn\u2019t the\nonly one to talk about materials within families. Designers on the panel\nunanimously agreed that having a family with all material set to default <\/strong>was fantastic and ideal \u2013 however, we\nall did request a Material Browser library of the manufacturer\u2019s finishes.\nThink about it: if I\u2019m bringing in your family for a lounge chair, I don\u2019t need\nthe legs to be cherry when I know I\u2019ll be using walnut. I don\u2019t want the\ncushion to be a solid red, when I want to propose to the client a green pattern\n(and that\u2019s, of course, once I am willing to show the material. I may only show\nthem white box renderings to focus on the space way<\/em>\nbefore they get bogged down with color).<\/p>\n\n\n\nYou say\nit\u2019s a Revit file, so why give me something different? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Image\nis everything<\/h2>\n\n\n\n