Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2013: No Experience Required

Chapter 1

The Autodesk Revit World

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of presentations on how wonderful and versatile this 3D Autodesk® Revit® Architecture revolution is. You may be thinking, “This all seems too complicated for what I do. Why do I need 3D anyway?”

The answer is: you don’t need 3D. What do you do to get a job out—that is, after the presentation when you’re awarded the project? First, you redraw the plans. Next comes the detail round-up game we have all come to love: pull the specs together and then plot. This is a simple process that works.

Well, it worked up until 3D showed up. Now we have no real clue where things come from, drawings don’t look very good, and getting a drawing out the door takes three times as long.

That’s the perception, anyway. I’ve certainly seen all of the above, but I’ve also seen some incredibly coordinated sets of drawings with almost textbook adherence to standards and graphics. Revit can go both ways—it depends on you to make it go the right way.

One other buzzword I’m sure you have heard about is Building Information Modeling (BIM). Although they say BIM is a process, not an application, I don’t fully buy into that position. Right now, you are on the first page of BIM. BIM starts with Revit. If you understand Revit, you will understand Building Information Modeling.

This chapter will dive into the Revit Graphical User Interface (GUI) and tackle the three topics that make Revit…well, Revit.

In this chapter, you will learn about:

• The Revit ...