Moving to Revit after AutoCAD?

I’ve used AutoCAD for years and now have a client who is using Revit.

Anyone using both? How easy would Revit be to learn? I’d be amending (house type working drawings for a national house builder) other peoples drawings, rather than drawing from scratch.

I don’t use it but work with people who do.

It will be a steep learning curve as they’re fundamentally different.

Good luck!

I use both and yes it is a steep learning curve, when you go back to AutoCAD you will keep typing ZE
I guarantee it. For me working on other peoples models is a pain as there are so many different ways
to do things in Revit you won’t have this problem as your new. Just remember the lines in Revit are the 3d model not 2d lines (well not unless someone has bodged it). message me if you need any help.
cheers Chris

I started to use it but the BIM requirement has stopped being a thing for us (NHS) so back to Autocad so didnt have to buy the Revit licence.
I found it was very intuitive and really just worked even roofs and pita stuff and the way it updates itself without you really doing anything is great but it does work totally different from Autocad and you have to not think about how things work in Autocad.
I can imagine changing someone elses files could be awful though.
I totally see how useful it is, learning it is always going to be good for new work. Theres a 30 day trial from Autodesk, or there used to be.

Thanks all. There is a free demo but only for PC and I run Mac. I have Parallels but with Windows 7 & 8, not the 10 I need. Maybe time to replace my 2009 iMac..

I’ve asked for an example house to have a play with. Autodesk have a load of tutorials to do.

I’m an experienced Civil3D user who does the occasional bit in revit.

I don’t think it matters your AutoCAD experience. Its very different software to autocad but its more about how you work if you are technically minded its fine after the initial wtf* do i start.

Theres not really a half measure you can’t just draw something to get it done. You have to commit. I find it easy way easier than civil 3D but also really dull. Its just based on parametric components.

*Where the ****

BIM requirement has stopped being a thing for us (NHS) so back to Autocad

Its not BIM software why would you stop/be made to stop? its a far more useful tool than AutoCAD!

I wondered the same, the gov. BIM mandate is still a thing, it’s not gone away just transitioned from BS1192 to ISO19650.

As for learning revit, I do a 4 day revit fundamentals course When we have new starters that haven’t used revit before. Best way is to take your car drawings and repeat the work in revit.

Also, I guess it depends how you use autocad: I switched in 2009/2010. at the time autocad had introduced the ribbon, but I always loaded in my own toolbar layout round the sides. Whereas revit introduced the ribbon around the same time so was weird for me to have to hunt through different tabs to find my commands. Where as the uni students who are used to the AutoCAD ribbon find it easier to transition.

Pretty much everything you’ll need to make a house will be on the architecture tab… Then all your modify tools in the modify tab. All the other tabs you won’t need to bother with much (Cept for creating sheets via the view tab)

Revit requires you to do more work upfront… Before you can start rattling sheets off, but once you have the building model then making the views is dead easy.

Like if you’re doing a house extension, it’ll make your life easier later if you first model the existing building in the existing phase first then add the extension on the proposed phase

That’s one thing to remember: in revit, do everything in the one place. Don’t do as one person did: model the existing house in one place then copy it across 200m and go the proposed works to the copy version

If it’s just going to be you working on a model, and your never going to be 2 or more working on one model at the same time there is The much cheaper Revit LT version

On the autodesk university site there is several AutoCAD to revit sessions that’ll get you started, as well as on LinkedIn learning.

Au.autodesk.com

Some good advise above.. I dived in this summer as it was something i’d been trying to get around to for years, having been AutoCAD only for just about 20 years.

Did a quick linkedin learning tutorial over a day and that got me as far as modelling my own house and a bit more googling and YouTube i managed to do a fairly decent model of one of our Uni buildings.

Once you get the idea that you’re not just drawing a line, you’re setting up how the wall is built, thickness, materials etc and then placing them in the model – then it becomes less scary.

Jeff

I’d be amending (house type working drawings for a national house builder) other peoples drawings, rather than drawing from scratch.

actually scratch the bit about revit LT.
While both versions of revit use the file extension .rvt, full revit files can’t be opened by LT, but LT files can be opened by full revit.

If you want to continue to have revit & AutoCAD, then the AEC collection will make sense. As you get revit and AutoCAD for now much more than revit costs on its own

If you will be working on files sent to you then sending them back, then you need to make sure you use the same version of revit as they were created in. Revit files are not backwards compatible through the annual versions. So if you buy Revit 2021 now, and you are sent a revit 2020 file (or earlier), when you open it, revit will “update” the model to r21, but you won’t be able to save it back to an earlier version of revit like you can with AutoCAD.
Since revit 2019, it says the year version of the file your wanting to open in the “open file” dialog. (why it took nearly 20 years for that function to come in is anyone’s guess, still.. It took 15 years before there was a warning before a model was upgraded, and the addition of a cancel button was the year before)

copy it across 200m and go the proposed works to the copy version

That old chestnut. When i started my current job the “CAD manager” for a 400 person company didn’t even know how to use xrefs. Cue multiple versions of everything each time a design changed.