Revit/Sketchup poors, step on in

[tea&jam]

Not formally educated, per my last thread

Self-taught Sketchup "drafter", have been pairing it with a Trimble RPT600 (entry level layout station/software). Not impressed with technical support is an understatement.

Current project I'm on uses Autodesk Build, so I looked into Revit and Leica Total Stations. Have been able to talk to multiple humans in fluent English!

Looking for any and all Bearpit opinions on making the switch. Thanks in advance

 

[plong]

Not sure of your application, so hard to offer cogent advice... We went Revit for all of our design/drafting in early 2007, truly wouldn't use anything else at this point, but it is a completely different animal from traditional CAD (lines-n-vectors). BIM = building assemblies... lots of assemblies... you probably have 30-60 days of full-time work developing your template before you actually draw anything, at least that's about what we spent. Once its built you really start to capitalize on the efficiencies of BIM versus just creating lines on paper.

 

[Bullfrog08]

What are you using it for?

 

[plong]

What are you using it for?

Residential design/drafting, and feeding pertinent data into our detail quantity estimating/purchasing system. Our civil engineer also designs our subdivisions in Revit.

 

[tea&jam]

I work for a small GC in a small town with a lot of development, my company does both custom homes and commercial. Getting into Leica/Revit would be 40k at the minimum. We have used the Trimble for self-performing surveying/layout for foundations. Its a gamble for the company, taking on liability for accuracy, but gaining time by doing surveying once a day, vs once a week.

On a personal level, I think learning Revit would be a good career move. But I'm also looking for advice on how to pitch the move to the company; approving the expense, but also getting all the oldschool Project Managers onboard for how to take advantage of the technology.

 

[plong]

I work for a small GC in a small town with a lot of development, my company does both custom homes and commercial. Getting into Leica/Revit would be 40k at the minimum. We have used the Trimble for self-performing surveying/layout for foundations. Its a gamble for the company, taking on liability for accuracy, but gaining time by doing surveying once a day, vs once a week.

On a personal level, I think learning Revit would be a good career move. But I'm also looking for advice on how to pitch the move to the company; approving the expense, but also getting all the oldschool Project Managers onboard for how to take advantage of the technology.

If you're willing to pay the price to really learn it it will be a game-changer for you and your company. As I said in my first post: BIM is a totally different way to produce a set of drawings versus traditional CAD. By the way: a move to Revit does not automatically mean a move from Trimble to Leica. Our CE draws in Revit, but our earthwork contractor uses Trimlble for all their machine control: pans, dozers, hoes, rover, all run Trimble. We have the CE export the Revit drawings to an AutoCAD .DWG file (Revit does that) then they use the AutoCAD file to build the GPS model for Trimble. So, I guess what I'm saying is you could make the move in two stages if that makes for an easier sell... or just keep Trimble indefinitely for your layout work.