Thursday, July 18, 2013

Modelling Best practise tip

One of the most interesting aspects of using Revit for model authoring is often there is more than one way to skin a cat. Let me provide you with an example. Take a look at the image below.

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You will notice, in principle both wall junction configurations look the same. The end modelling result graphically provides what you need, yet one solution is made up of 3 walls, the other 4 walls. I see this type of thing all the time with new users, even though they are educated in the deep capabilities of walls.

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You might argue that it makes little difference, but from a purist modelling / downstream use of the model, I believe it does make a difference. This was no fault of the user who modelled it (btw this example was taken from a model I was auditing). He or she maybe under pressure & they did what they needed to do to get the information out of the door. But this highlights a big challenge that the industry has, what is best practise? I’m a firm believer that you should model how you would build it, whether or not you do or don’t use the model for wider “BIM” uses. BY engraining this culture within your teams, when a project comes along where you really have to deliver Level 2 BIM, (ie. a collaborate project where all disciplines are sharing their models) you will be a far better position to ensure that things are done correctly.

2 comments :

Chad said...

Which method would you consider best practice in this instance? Depending on the height & contractor I could see both being "how it would be built"

archisoft said...

David. I agreed in principle but I've got some rather tricky external wall arrangements going on with a current project using various cavity wall buildups. I started with your "3 wall" approach but found all kinds of troublesome issues with wall cleanups in plan that were much easier to resolve when walls were broken up more. For example, if your yellow wall had another wall on top with a different buildup of layers then the joins to a single blue wall could be really troublesome.....