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Revit Import


zoomer

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VW has a Revit Import.

That is nice as some clients even don't bother exporting but send me plain Revit Files 🙄

 

Here are my experiences.

 

1.

On Mac, VW 2018 needs 1-2 (or more) freezing hours to import a 160 MB RVT.

While VW 2019, with same settings, I gave up after 16 hours of freezing.

I was a bit more successful on VW 2019 Windows.

Revit Import is impractical slow anyway.

 

2.

Convert to VW Solids option, as it looks, has no impact at all.

I get in just loose 3D Faces.

Which are unnecessarily triangulated and even additional tessellated in length.

Revit in general can produce nice Solids - for DWG exports.

 

3.

Beside, as for the Revits Meshing of Geometry when exporting from Revit.

Revit does really nice meshing job for things like Slabs with lots of cut outs.

But everything rounded I got was a) too coarse and b) things like cylindrical Columns

are unnecessarily tessellated in height.

 

4.

A 160 MB Revit File translates to a 1.9 GB VW file (because of 3D Faces instead of Solids ?)

But the best I saw was a 9 MB RVT that VW translated also into a 1.6 GB VW file

WTF

Beside the non Solids Conversion of Geometry,

I assume there are some additional Problems, like exploding Hatches or losing Instancing

things, that could cause such flagrant file size explosions.

 

5.

RW Material Problem.

(Generally VW 2019 Mac seems to have Problems (freezing) with even ACAD Materials in DWG)

In the 160 MV RVT there were about 30 Materials that came in fine.

Beside one single Material that came in duplicated by about 3000 times !!!

Deleting these Duplicates from Resource Manager with "use Material X instead" option takes

another 3+ hours.

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The only Revit imports we've been successful with are files containing only a model of some piece of furniture. Even then it's like a coin toss whether it works or not.

 

Currently, the Revit import feature does not work, from a professional's point of view. It's completely useless for a whole building.

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1 hour ago, JMR said:

It's completely useless for a whole building.

 

Kind of.

Have to look into those laggy Files again to see if there is anything

useful in there or if they are "repairable" at all.

 

But at least Revit Import allowed me to take a look at the building

to estimate how it evolved meanwhile, opposed to my last stand.

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Many of the issues you describe aren't specific to a Revit import. I was recently given a model of a rock & roll truss system as a DWG. I'm pretty sure it was translated from something else as the majority of the model was NURBS surfaces. In the translation to VW the file ballooned from 354mb to 1.57gb. The resulting file was super slow. VW needs some smart tools for cleanup if the future is about shared models. They would include -

  1. A way to condense/compress duplicate textures. My file had literally hundreds of duplicates, most with the same name and an increasing number following it. This sort of  stuff should be easy to automate the cleanup.
  2. A way to show that duplicate groups are actually symbols. I should be able to select many groups that are the same other than orientation and have VW condense them into multiple instances of the same symbol. This alone would make it way easier to rebuild troublesome geometry since you could edit a few symbols. It would also help with quick classing and turning off excessive details.
  3. An automatic method for switching Y and Z when a model comes in from an alternate coordinate system modeller. (This is why I suspect the model didn't originate in Autocad.)
  4. A quick way to sit a model on the ground plane. Lots of models I receive have the Z centred with respect to all objects. When a file is geometry heavy it can be very hard to reorient a model (too many snaps, redraws, beach balls etc.) using current methods. Even if it were possible to move the whole model with some of it turned off (as opposed to moving the user origin which I avoid completely) and still have all of the geometry (including invisible) move.
  5. My experience with this recent file really highlighted the single core issue. Its especially bad with object changes where geometry is recalculated (moving object for example). Even deleting textures took crazy amounts of time. I'm really curious what type of hardware/software the model originated on. Even C4D, which is pretty good about large amounts of geometry, choked on it. Either VW is just really inefficient or the originator has some serious hardware.

Kevin

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3 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

A way to show that duplicate groups are actually symbols.

 

These are "Anonymous" Blocks

(Which arent "anonymous" as they DO have a name nevertheless !?)
I don't really get that ACAD Block Variant existance or meaning crap, maybe @Art V does ...

These are more like VW Groups (Change 1 = change NOT all)

 

In Bricscad - so I assume in ACAD too - you can't distinguish these

"Referenced (anonymous) Blocks" from regular "Referenced Blocks" = VW Symbol Instances,

beside that their Names include one or more "$"s.

 

But yes, they appear mostly multiple times in Drawings.

In a same fashion, but are saved one by one.

So I also would welcome a way for VW to sort these as real Symbol Instances,

as an import option.

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Second,

if I get (more and more) ACAD or Revit crap,

as those don't have proper CAD Groups, draftsmen always use Blocks instead for everything.

Or, each Revit Family is exported as a Block.

 

So I will always get about 5000-7000 Symbols from Blocks.

As Material Assignments or general Separation or Sorting Hierarchy gets lost,

I would strongly welcome an option to extend VW's Magic Wand / Select Similar

to be able to select ALL Elements - including those inside of Symbols.

 

I can't repair Elements in every 7000 Symbols,

so the only option is to Explode all Blocks/Symbols.

 

Which means losing those 200-300 "real" Symbols usages, that have some 2-80 Instance Copies,

out of 7000 bad Symbols with misuse of Blocks. Which just adds unnecessary complexity and

is redundant and quite pity.

Although my experience is that although CAD, 3D and OpenGL loves Symbol usage,

the exploded Block Versions run much better in VW; Bricscad and C4D or Modo exports !

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Many have access to these ODA Revit Libraries and are eager to

provide Revit exchange. but so far, at that state, only VW offers

it as a Feature.

 

I see it the same. iFC is the way to go.

But especially Revit users seem to be larger offices where it is

not that easy to find someone who feels in charge of looking

into export options.

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On 3/10/2019 at 12:56 PM, zoomer said:

I assume there are some additional Problems, like exploding Hatches or losing Instancing

things, that could cause such flagrant file size explosions.

 

Well,

I can see that VW import exploded Line Types like "short dash long dash" into

single separate Line Objects.

Not very helpful.

I think that is something which could be solved for the RVT Import (?)

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21 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

A way to condense/compress duplicate textures. My file had literally hundreds of duplicates, most with the same name and an increasing number following it. This sort of  stuff should be easy to automate the cleanup. 

This is one of the nastiest import details with DWG files that I am dealing with as well. Part of the problem however is coming from two things:

1. scaling differences of the symbol, of which I think VW cannot accurately determine if they are the same symbol with just a different scale or actually different symbols

2. internal object ID's within the DWG file, especially if the same symbol is used in multiple dwg files that get imported (e.g. dwg xrefs).

 

In the past I suggested to have a replace function in the resource browser where you can replace/merge the multiple numbered instances with a single resource copy of that symbol in one go, e.g. similar to the replacing of a symbol with another symbol through the OIP. That way the user would be in control of the replacements instead of hoping that VW gets it right on import in case there are too many issues with automatic simplification of symbol instances.

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22 hours ago, zoomer said:

These are "Anonymous" Blocks

(Which arent "anonymous" as they DO have a name nevertheless !?)
I don't really get that ACAD Block Variant existance or meaning crap, maybe @Art V does ...

These are more like VW Groups (Change 1 = change NOT all) 

Yes, these are anonymous blocks in DWG, there are several ways to end up with these. For example the so-called dynamic blocks from AutoCAD (in BricsCAD you'd use parametric blocks) used to generate anonymous blocks when copying such a block, not sure if this is still the case as I no longer use AutoCAD since I switched to BricsCAD for native DWG editing/drafting. Importing from another file format (e.g. DGN) can be another cause for these things to show up.

 

Or... even when exporting from VW to DWG you can get those is you check the convert groups to anonymous blocks option.

The number in the name is basically the equivalent of an internal ID number.

 

 

22 hours ago, zoomer said:

In Bricscad - so I assume in ACAD too - you can't distinguish these

"Referenced (anonymous) Blocks" from regular "Referenced Blocks" = VW Symbol Instances,

beside that their Names include one or more "$"s.

Yes, block names with "$" in the filename are usually referenced and/or anonymous blocks. The same applies to DWG layer names. Those are often bound external reference DWG layers. So if you end up with class names having "$" in the name you should normally see the part before the "$" appear more than once. This is normally the name of the referenced file. Which may come in handy if you think there are objects missing, then you can trace back what file it should be and request that file to be sent as well.

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22 hours ago, zoomer said:

f I get (more and more) ACAD or Revit crap,

as those don't have proper CAD Groups, draftsmen always use Blocks instead for everything.

Or, each Revit Family is exported as a Block

Technically speaking AutoCAD/DWG does have groups but they are not nearly as convenient to work with as VW groups. Those will usually import as anonymous blocks as well.

 

22 hours ago, zoomer said:

I can't repair Elements in every 7000 Symbols,

so the only option is to Explode all Blocks/Symbols.

 

Which means losing those 200-300 "real" Symbols usages, that have some 2-80 Instance Copies,

out of 7000 bad Symbols with misuse of Blocks. Which just adds unnecessary complexity and

is redundant and quite pity.

You should be able to select "blocks" that have e.g. "$" in their name by using the custom selection and catch most of those anonymous blocks for exploding/ungrouping. That should leave the "proper" blocks intact (unless they too hav "$" in their name)

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22 hours ago, zoomer said:

Many have access to these ODA Revit Libraries and are eager to

provide Revit exchange. but so far, at that state, only VW offers

it as a Feature.

 

I see it the same. iFC is the way to go.

But especially Revit users seem to be larger offices where it is

not that easy to find someone who feels in charge of looking

into export options.

BricsCAD is going to implement the Revit import as well, so depending  on how well it does that in combination with its BIM module (i.e. better than VW or not) it might be an option to import into BricsCAD first and then export to another format (not necessarily DWG) that VW can import.

 

Another issue is that some authorities require Revit instead of asking for standard/neutral/interchangeable file formats simply because they think Revit = BIM therefor BIM = Revit. The same is going in in the Civil area, over here they have developed some standard that is basically AutoCAD oriented so if you use another program that can read/write DWG files you'll have to recreate most of it from scratch, not to mention when they make updates to that standard.

So those using Revit basically don't see a need for exporting to other file formats unless they really have to. So it is up to the rest to make sure they can import Revit etc.

Edited by Art V
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23 hours ago, zoomer said:

I can't repair Elements in every 7000 Symbols,

so the only option is to Explode all Blocks/Symbols

Something that just came to mind, did you try using the "Blockify" tool in Bricscad after exploding all anonymous blocks? That might solve some of your problem with the anonymous blocks.

 

It would be nice if VW could have an equivalent tool.

For those who are not familiar with the latest release of BricsCAD, it has a tool called "Blockify" that analyzes the drawing for similar geometry and those that are exact copies of geometry will be turned into multiple inserts of the same block, which should reduce the load on the software for handling geometry. It works for both 2D and 3D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS5Cr97cmRI (2D)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNR2nL10xlw (3D)

 

From their help file:

"BricsCAD includes two Blockify tools, one for 2D entities and one for 3D solids. The Blockify tools enable you to easily convert repetitive sets of entities to block definitions. You simply select a set of 3D solids. BricsCAD creates a block definition, searches the drawing for identical sets of entities and automatically replaces them with the block reference."

 

@Jim Wilson Is this something that VW may eventually get as well? I think it would be really nice to have though I can imagine it may not be that easy to implement.

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Wow!

@Art V and  @zoomer  - once again MANY THANKS for tips and in depth discussion of functionality and use case descriptions of other file formats we vwx users encounter. Very helpful for working with import/export and when talking to creators of those other files.

 

@Jim Wilson  can this kind of info be added to augment the vwx guide about switching from ACad or elsewhere in Help

 

-B

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On 3/11/2019 at 6:19 PM, Art V said:

You should be able to select "blocks" that have e.g. "$" in their name by using the custom selection and catch most of those anonymous blocks for exploding/ungrouping. That should leave the "proper" blocks intact (unless they too hav "$" in their name)

 

Hi Art V,

yes I can somehow.

Although I think that all other real Blocks have lots of $s too,

after I bind or import a Reference.

I wonder why there can't be a hint of which kind of Block Type

in Bricscad's OIP.

 

I think the only real way to distinguish Anonymous Blocks is by

checking Drawing Explorers Blocks list.

If such Block is not there - it was anonymous ....

 

 

On 3/11/2019 at 6:25 PM, Art V said:

a)

BricsCAD is going to implement the Revit import as well, so depending  on how well it does that in combination with its BIM module 

b)

Another issue is that some authorities require Revit instead of asking for standard/neutral/interchangeable file formats simply because they think Revit = BIM therefor BIM = Revit.

 

a)

That is what I wanted to politely address 🙂

b)

Yes, kind of banana republic behaviors ...

 

 

On 3/11/2019 at 6:36 PM, Art V said:

a)
using the "Blockify" tool in Bricscad after exploding all anonymous blocks? 

 

 b)

"BricsCAD includes two Blockify tools, one for 2D entities and one for 3D solids. The Blockify tools enable you to easily convert repetitive sets of entities to block definitions. You simply select a set of 3D solids. BricsCAD creates a block definition, searches the drawing for identical sets of entities and automatically replaces them with the block reference."

 

a)

Yes, somehow.

 

But first,

because of the amount of parts it is impossible manually to find those parts

worth Blockifying.

You may pick just that Beam that is 2 cm shorter than the others.

Also I see similar Elements where I can't see any difference, but 3 separate

Blocks where used, so 3 individual Revit Family Members ?

Maybe just a slight drawing imperfections ?

 

Second,

option II, letting Bricscad BLOCKIFY the whole file,

will give you of course nearly the same bunch of millions of arbitrarily named Blocks

(and so far not sure which Block Origin will be automatically chosen)

So no fun if you ever need to work with these later again.

 

b)

Things like Blockify are absolutely great.

Its 2D potential is very impressive.

 

I read the help too.

But so far I did not find a 2D and a 3D version of it.

(Opposed to 6 new different BIMSUGGEST ... ah ... BIMPROPAGATE options)

I did my standard (quick) test :

A park bench from 3 Solids that I spread in file but forgotten to make Symbols first.

You can select no more than 1 Solid,

but for me it looked like it BLOCKed Seat and Legs separately only !?

Have to try again when enough time.

 

But if they get that 3D Part to work the way one would expect,

that would be invaluable.

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I looked deeper in thses Exports.

I think 80% of the problems wouldn't exist if VW would not convert,

or better explode Linestyles to 3D Polygons.

It looks so embarassing to see at what scale that happens and I feels

the same for offereing that feature officially at that state.

 

BTW

Also not very positive I feel when I see how looooooooong VW needs to give

those 14 GB RAM free again and finally close such a drawing - although

I said it doesn't need to save !

Edited by zoomer
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Yes there are some things that could be done to improve, and equally important... simplify,  the import/export of DWG files.

 

E.g. the way VW exports sheet layers to DWG with multiple viewports on a sheet layer by including the entire drawing as many times as there are viewports on the sheet layer is simply adding too much clutter that requires cleanup. If VW could, as an option, automatically crop content outside the viewport boundary and not export the whole thing multiple times into the DWG files in such cases then it would be a lot cleaner to work with such DWG files.

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Well I go on repairing one of the imports which would be the BIM Model.

I shaved nearly 0.5 GB off by deleting everything 2D-ish (3D Polygons here)

Large parts of the data may be included in the Railings though.

 

If have chosen VW Objects + Solids conversion option in import settings.

Solids Conversion for VW means :

Revit Object > Solid Addition > loose 3D Polygons

 

I can easily get rid of the "Revit Object" Overhead by a CTRL+U

But if I try to PushPull such a Solid Addition creation from loose 3D Polys

it will fail !

 

If I go into that Addition and select all 3D Polys > CTRL+ALT+R to create a "Mesh" first,

"Convert to Generic Solid"s that Mesh and leave Addition's Edit Mode,

"Convert to Generic Solid"s that Solid Addition,

PushPull seems to work.

 

(BTW

cutting and pasting stuff out of Solid Additions did not work for me here as "Past"in Place"

wasn't as much "in place" as I would have liked)

 

Edited by zoomer
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This is just cumbersome, either the ODA libraries for Revit import need improvement or the implementation by Vectorworks is suboptimal/incomplete (e.g. like the implementation of the ODA libraries for DWG not fully supporting the import/export of text styles). I guess we'll have to wait for Bricscad to implement the Revit import so that we can make a comparison. Although I read somewhere that ODA has improved the Revit libraries recently so it could be that we will have to wait for VW to incorporate those updated libraries in the next service pack.

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Yes,

and that Revit Exchange is quite important and I think worth to invest some energy.

 

 

There are also some other ACAD DWG oddities beside "Block Content on Layer 0"

that will adapt Attributes of the Layer its Block Container insertion.

 

I'm not 100% sure but I think there are also Polylines with "Thickness".

Which is something like an VW Extrude, that is missing top and bottom Caps.

(I think like when in VW you extrude something without a Fill or an open Polygon ?)

 

For me that sounds like totally 80ies creative messie legacy,

but Bricscad's CONVERTTOSOLID creates beautiful Solids from these without any

problems. So I think these are kind of an accepted ACAD Standard too.

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BTW

 

Why are all Objects, which can't translate into any VW PIO,

hidden in a "Revit Object" Container.

 

I can understand this for "IFC Entities",

as those shouldn't be manipulated after import by design.

But for a standard Import like Revit, DWG, DXF, .... ?

 

In my practise this is just unnecessary overhead that I get rid off

by a CMD+U.

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The Symbols I get in from Revit,

when I do any Manipulation and leave Edit Mode,

always bring a Warning that there is anything wrong in its content

and VW asks about deleting it.

 

At fisrt I was afraid but now I see it will not delete anything of the Geometry.

So I ask myself what is special in Symbols from Revit.

If I magic wand select my Geometry and invert selection, I can't find or select

anything else.

 

And,

those Symbols may either include "Dynamic Blocks"

or Block Scaling that gets lost when impored.

As my Glass Panels in Curtain Walls are all just the same Symbol,

no matter which opening size they are in.

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