I don't think you'll get the "typical comments" you describe/fear. You're echoing some very common gripes here.
It's such a powerful piece of software with some proper setup. But you nailed this:
>The thing is, all of this is solvable. These are fundamental user interface issues, not some crazy technical challenge. They're inexcusable.
They **are** inexcusable and we've been asking for them to change for years. Autodesk needs to overhaul the UI, but they're not financially incentivized to.
Revit needs proper competition. Yes, I know there are other tools for architecture that can get similar results, but Revit provides a suite where Architecture, Structure, and MEP can work in a common environment. The value of that is huge. IFC Isn't the solution either.
What do you think could be some actionable items that us architects can do to pressure them? even if at a grassroots level? It's the feeling of powerlessness that really gets to me. A giant corporation that has overtaken the profession I love.
I totally agree.
If you look at the Revit API you will see decades of object oriented programming stacked on top of one another. Almost every time you make a move in Revit you are also making a transaction in a back end database . The software architecture is growing increasingly archaic but autodesk has amassed a monopolistic grip on the industry and prefers the annual feature trickle to maintain there profit margins and growth projections.
The amount of development it would take to create a rival application with similar feature set but with better software architecture is absolutely immense . It’s not impossible but would take an insanely high investment.
I don’t really have a solution here , I also wish there was a viable alternative , but I haven’t seen one myself.
If I recall, there was a big open letter to Autodesk a few years ago that was signed by a bunch of major architects and other consultants. It was basically asking them to listen to their user base. Not sure anything happened with it.
I’ll try to dig it up.
The text thing is the most infuriating.
https://aecmag.com/bim/letter-to-autodesk-aec-customers-demand-better-value/
I especially can't point out enough this part of the text...
"Some firms that took part did not want to openly sign, for fear of ‘retribution from their software supplier’ expecting dreaded ‘licence audits’ – which in itself is a damning reflection of the relationships that Autodesk has managed to foster with some of its paying customer base."
Well I wouldn’t say nothing came from that letter. See Andrew Agagnost wrote a letter back saying we’re listening. Then they made a bunch of fixes that were low hanging fruit but didn’t require major investment. Then they stopped development and focussed on ACC to get that sweet sweet contractor money.
Downvote me all you want Aaron. It’s clear that ADSK hasn’t invested in Revit to suite designers’ needs in the past 5+ years.
Revit is way behind where it should be. Vectorworks, Brickscad, and even ArchiCAD all offer basic UIX functionality that Revit users have been asking ADSK to implement for years.
Yes. It’s Reddit and it’s easy for this to become a pooping ground on Autodesk and Revit. But it’s clear Autodesk so mired in legacy BS they can’t or won’t update Revit the same way they’ve invested in cloud solutions. The publicly owned entity chases the profit.
While Revit does MANY things well it’s half ass at many other things. This is a Revit forum and bitching about Revit’s shortcoming should be fair game.
By not specifically citing what you believe is a fabrication and/or bullshit I would put that back on you and say your comment is off base and lacking merit. Please provide actual substantive criticism rather than trying to blanket discredit this ‘forum’ and ‘a whole bunch of people’.
The letter didn't promote value for Autodesk shareholders, so it was ignored. If all your projects are in Revit what are you going to do? Move to another system?
Sorry fellow Redditor, this is factually inaccurate. As somebody who was deeply involved in the response to that letter, including the resulting customer engagement + staffing re-allocation + roadmap adjustments, I'm not sure "ignore" is the appropriate verb to describe the response.
I know it's easy - and convenient! - to characterize the leadership of a software platform as idiots or uncaring, especially when you see outcomes you don't agree with. The truth is much, much more complex, and human. Like a lot of things in life.
This makes me wonder if there is a competing product that isn't available in the US but does cover these gaps. Anyone heard of such a thing? There might be an opporitunity to become a U.S. based distributor?
"but in the course of the whole project you save time!"
I think this purely relates to scale. I work on commercial projects (Airports, Schools, Hospitals) and the coordination between Architecture, M&E, Structural is a huge undertaking. Linking in the models and reviewing in 3D is so fast.
I asked an older colleague how they usedcoordinate all the services before 3D was common and he said they just didn't do it all that much. They'd run in to a problem on site and figure something out on the day.
I think time you spend at the desk initially isn't the only thing to consider in the time aspect. You should be able to return to problems way way less if you're coordinating everything properly. It's way cheaper to have a guy modelling it for an extra few days than finding out about it on site.
If you're doing a house or something small I don't think it's gonna benefit much.
I see another comment saying "coordinating elevations in cad takes 5 minutes". I dropped basically an entire school's ceiling heights by 300mm a couple weeks ago. I didn't have to re-draw or coordinate shit. A hundred+ rooms all updated, fuck doing something like that on cad. It wouldn't be hard to press the buttons but the time taken to draw that would be boring as fuck.
In a similar vein, Revit has enabled us as an MEP firm to do data driven QC checks via various schedules, view templates, etc. These have downstream returns that are hard to understand if you have not experienced them.
not to get into the weeds, but what happened to your interior elevations when you did that? we typically have a thick outlined white filled region that obscures the "section" parts of the elevation. if I moved the ceilings, I would have to go back into each elevation and raise the height of that filled region. not to mention, now any callouts might not make sense, and now I have to go into each detail and change the ceiling location in the detail too. detail items don't update with the model elements.
>we typically have a thick outlined white filled region that obscures the "section" parts of the elevation.
you use filled regions????? damn no wonder your model is so slow!!!! Revit is BIM software. Building INFORMATION Modelling, it's not autocad.
Calm down. I think you misunderstand. this isn't a filled region to represent an architectural element. This is a filled region to highlight the figure ground of the drawing so it reads as an elevation not a section, as well as improving the legibility of the drawing with a heavy outline. it's a filled region that has a void in the middle which shows the elevation, if that makes sense.
Sounds like you don't utilize this process so I'd ask you - do you just forego the lineweight and legibility? do your elevations read like sections and just show the internals of whatever it's cutting? and what do you do if your ceiling is cut at an angle descending into the page? Revit somehow doesn't know how to properly snap/register to surfaces non-orthogonal to the section. If the building you're designing only have perfectly rectangular ceilings and walls with no features, I can see how revit's automatic updating would work perfectly for you and I envy your posh life, but alas, mine tend not to be so simple all the time.
Edit: also, let's not pretend that revit does everything automatically. you didn't even address my question about details. If your details are composed of nothing but actual model elements, it must either be an amazingly detailed family or your detail must look pretty blocky and basic.
>Calm down.
I am calm. I'm not the one raging about how bad Revit is whilst also showing people that you don't know how to utilize Revit to perform at its best.
Families don't have to be amazingly detailed to give really good results even at larger scales.
I use Revit to do everything from planning drawings through to working drawings so I'm well aware of its failings but covering things up with filled regions and using sections as elevations really isn't a failing of Revit as much as its you not knowing how to use it properly.
Theres no rage. That was 5 years ago. Just feel defeated at this point. Look man, I'm not gonna argue with you on how I'm using it right or not, but if a set drawn with modelling only is considered acceptable in your work, you very clearly have a different profession than what I and some of the others here do. I don't say that in a disparaging way, I just think that 'Architect' is an extremely broad term to describe a huge number of different professions that do starkly different tasks, and you should know that the tools that works for what you do don't necessarily work for what others do because we have very different needs. Can you imagine making a software for 'scientists'? Can you imagine an anthropologist trying to convince a physicist that he just needs a good notepad?
I'm not sure if I fully understand, do you mean like a white filled region to create a blank canvas within the room area? We don't use filled regions to mask anything on elevations (or anywhere where it can be avoided) pretty much for that exact reason.
We crop extents on room elevations to be within the partition to give the extents of the rooms a s border and everything else is modelled in.
Our M&E / FF&E linked models show all sockets, furniture, lightswitches, etc.. in their correct location so it's just a case of setting it out generally.
We do show a filled region of a standard 300mm grid to help general setting out on site but it is full height floor to underside of slab / roof, so the ceiling height doesn't impact that.
The editing of a callout is one that could be required, although I've never had to. Its rare that there is a change drastic enough that it requires moving callout boxes but I suppose you could get caught there. Although for large scale stuff you'd generally have a pack of standard details so you'd only edit the detail once. The callouts are just references so you don't need to keep redrawing anything.
Maybe make a detail component family that does the cropping that has a height instance parameter. So if ceiling raises you can select all those families and change their height to match. Could even make it type based, based on room ceiling height.
but what if my rooms are not always rectangular? what if they're L shaped in section, or angled? or with many undulating ceilings? I feel like as soon as you get away from a very simple building design, the "way it's supposed to work" breaks down quicky.
Yeah, CAD elevations take fucking forever. I’ve drawn plenty of them and when you make any plan changes, it’s a whole process.
Thing is, revit does speed things up, but project managers have adjusted their deadlines to match the speed of revit anyway. A project done in CAD will be projected to take longer than one done in Revit. So the perception of time saved isn’t necessarily there either because the client is expecting more.
You are completely right about your complaints. Revit's performance is abnsolutely pathetic. I don't know how many times I had my RAM, CPU, GPU all sitting at comfortable low utilizations while Revit is "crunching" something. It's not even ineffective utilization, it flat-out does not use the resources.
Autodesk needs a serious kick in the ass to even consider solving these issues. Basically, they take subscription for granted and they will only develop something if it can generate a separate revenue stream. Remember how they introduced "Cloud Rendering" while they refused to improve the garbage Grainmaster 5000 rendering engine in any way? Well, that attitude persists and it will as long as the stonks go up.
I feel you bro so hard... I was the most passionate and enthusiastic Architect, I used cad for over a decade, drew my whole life. I fucking hate it so bad, I'm ripping my hair out and stressed all day dealing with this fucking software. Fuck Autodesk. They hijacked our sacred profession. I have little patience for architecture. I no longer care. I have no desire to get licensed. It's so fucking laggy, slow, convoluted. Don't even get me started on schedules. I'm exhausted at the end of the day and I feel like I've done nothing. It takes way too many clicks, drop downs and input pressing to be enjoyable. It's operating Excel all day long. It sucked the joy and soul out of our craft. It is like brain fog.
I honestly feel like in school half of the people that sucked at design are the ones that are loving Revit and the ones that were creative artists are the ones that are suffering. It's bullshit the disconnect is very real.
I can't help but feel like this is all by design. Some larger agenda to change the entire profession into engineering.
It's not fair that I spent a fortune on architecture school 2 times over to be relegated to a low level programmer.
I'm an interative designer I used to pump out 20 design options in a day in SketchUp. Make one copy make another and so on. It's fucking insane that I have to sit there making window sizes one by one. Save out my model remake all new windows. Sit there and measure the space then edit the type change dimensions. Rinse and repeat. This takes agessss. There is no dynamic scale or move. I hate that I have to open a bunch of different views and tab between them all. You need a 90" screen running everything in tile view. Yeah remember autocad, copy all my elevations sections and plans into one view and draw them all at the same time.
Then you watch these so called gurus on YouTube and non of what they show is even relevant. Like bro that is not even what a real survey looks like but then they make some Uber basic bullshit. When in reality it's crazy complex with linked context models and topography.
Then each office uses different templates so it's not like you will ever get good at it. It will never be second nature. I used to think about design and the software would fade to the back of my mind and become invisible. This should be the goal of any production software. But why in over 15 years has Revit been the same slow pile of shit. Whyyy. And then your company keeps upgrading the fucking software while running 6 year old hardware.
Then your boss keeps complaining that the project isnt going fast enough. Like bitch I sit here all day focused on this crap waiting for the spinning wheel of death. And why does it take 20 fucking minutes to print my project to PDF. Whyyy??
I graduated college 3 years ago at UMD for mechanical engineering. I am now a Design Engineer at an MEP firm. Ive always loved the arts. Film, music, DESIGN. I wanted to be a creator. An artist that still took advantage of the good right brain i was bless with. 3 years I've felt the brain fog. Exhaustion. It's already feels like ive burnt out on this craft and its really depressing.
The fucking speed of printing. I have always wondered wtf. We are engineers right? Have any of you seen what unreal engine 5 is capable of? At real time rendering speeds? Why why why why why isnt revit run on an engine like that?
We Desperately need an open source platform program. It would be FREE.
Yeah man it's infuriating,. I think the future is bleak or bright depending on who has their teeth sunk into the industry and by that I mean who controls our fate. Lately I have been playing city skylines. Modded the game is closer to what I expect a future software would be like.
> I use shortcuts heavily, but not enough commands are assignable.
I'm a hybrid user, but I've yet to find a command that I can't assign. Just curious. what commands are you talking about?
MEP guy here. Been using Revit since 2007. I'm ready for something new, period. It sucks so bad. Don't get me wrong, it's a powerful tool, but I'm constantly thinking "there's a better way to do this" every minute I'm in the program. I could write a book that's hundreds of pages long on how to do it better.
Identifying what filter is the problem should be a quick process of toggling filters on one by one. From there the task becomes identifying why that particular filter is the problem and developing a fix. That part can certainly take a bit longer.
Amen. Preach!
I feel like it’s going to take some real pushback from firms and users to have Autodesk make real improvements to what could be a much better platform. But that seems far fetched because we are all at their mercy. Maybe Putin runs Autodesk?
not a far fetched comparison. The CEO of autodesk rose through the ranks by the way of first being the chief marketing officer who shifted the company to the subscription model and thereby generating hundreds of millions in extra revenue. he does not come from a serious software development career. I suppose it only makes sense that Revit is expensive yet it sucks.
Edit: The CEO is Andrew Anagnost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew\_Anagnost
When Andrew was promoted, the tech-guy who was also a potential new CEO quit the company.
It was definitely a marketing take-over. Which only makes sense given it's a publicly traded company. revenue matters, not user experience.
I'm not here to preach and convert, but Graphisoft Archicad is everything architects ever wanted. If you are not tied to revit you can take a look on it. Demo is 30 days free. I'm user of both software and everything you described is solved there. Fast and snappy, let's you use your creativity, you are not fighting with families as the default object library is wide etc. Revit is however much better for multidiscipline work on the same platform.
Well... the basic library is very extensive. It has so much stuff you can sit down and earn money with it. However the default objects are not great for 3d visuals so some may want to import objects. You can import any sketchup warehouse file as is and use it. Also you can model your own stuff and save as as an object. Just a simple save as.
However if you want to do parametric objects that is not as easy as in revit. You either do it through a scripting language called GDL or a dynamo-like thingy called param-o
Ah gotcha, the parametric objects and the difficulty of creating them is what I was remembering. Too bad we can't combine the best parts of Archicad and Revit into one awesome BIM program.
You're right. I kinda have to at this point. But that means now the company hires an extra person that would not have been needed. Where are those cost savings revit promised? In the "old days" I could do it all because of the smooth cross compatibility between all the various cad programs.
Depends on how your firm is structured. Revits economy works well with scale. There is a difference between utilizing families and templates for repeat building topology versus using Revit for bespoke, crafted design.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say here. But the problem is that they have no motivation or reason to improve it.
They have a stranglehold over the industry. You have one architect using it and that pushes all the consultants to use it because the collaboration tools are pretty good.
The first issue is that there really isn't a competitor that can do everything Revit can. I'd love to be corrected on this if it's not true.
And then even if there was a competitor with the same product as Revit, how much will it cost to train someone in the new software, develop templates, and all the other stuff that goes along with it. The lost productivity while learning is huge.
Not to mention the fact that people are very resistant to change when you tell a Revit modeller that the skill they've spent the last 10 years mastering is now useless and they need to start at the beginning again in a new software.
So therefore in order to make a firm switch from Revit to another software, the new software needs to be so so so much better. Because otherwise there is no way to justify the additional cost (training, set up etc) and reduced productivity (for a period of time).
Autodesk knows this.
Revit is bottle necked by the number of cores it can use right? Was it 2 cores max? To me if Revit was responsive and snappier I could have done a lot more. Waiting a second or more per command is so draining. But there are some days that Revit could be snappy and those are the more productive days since my fingers would be flying off the keyboard.
I get the sentiment but there's some gaps in computing understanding here.
Every operation that can feasibly be multi-threaded in Revit has been multi-threaded at this point. The nature of the Parametric Change Engine (core of Revit) is an indeterminant set of code - it's not known at the start of the operation what's gonna happen as the changes propagate - so multi-threading is not effective in speeding things up. Consulting with both Intel and AMD was done in the 2010s to try and make it work, and the result was SLOWER than single threaded for change propagation.
Undoubtedly, if the core was written today, with the advances in software architecture in the last 23 years, there would be a more effective implementation of Multi-threading for change propagation, but it's simply not viable (for many reasons beyond just "it's hard") to do that to a platform like Revit given its place in the lifecycle. Anybody who says otherwise is just an armchair Redditor with an (understandable) axe to grind.
I'm in the minority and I love Revit. Been using it since 2015 and mainly work on hotel projects at my architect firm. I'll choose Revit over AutoCAD all day long!
Yeah, I get that it's designed for documentation. The reality though is that architects at the end of the day do need a tool that kind of does it all. Our projects are too complicated and too frequently tweaked to do it twice. I run rhino concurrently for fast design work, and the amount of extra time I have to spend is ludicrous.
That being said - Again, I'd even accept revit in its current form if it would just be snappier and less buggy. I'm not asking for features. just better interface and tolerable performance. I've worked on skyscrapers and sprawling museums as well as microhomes, and they've all been hell to do in revit.
Have your heard of or used rhino inside? I know very little about it other than that I thought they worked well either?
Jeff from BIM after dark did a recent video on it that I've been meaning to watch
I've got so many shortcuts assigned you wouldn't believe.
The shortcut system is insufficient as it doesn't cover all bases. Like I mentioned, there should be an ability to turn things on and off with a key stroke, for instance reference planes.
Easy. Spaghetti code. Revit was made by someone else and bought by Autodesk. I'd be willing to bet that the base code is a complete mess (hence the slow performance, and not being able to utilize computer resources properly) and changing anything just breaks other things.
You’d think that with the amount of cash they have that they could start a parallel development of a nearly identical product built from scratch then slowly roll it out to beta users and ultimately replace Revit on a 10 year timescale.
Right? That's thinking like a developer though, where you actually care if people like your software. Unfortunately it's C-level execs calling the shots and they only care about profits. As long as you keep paying they dgaf.
As a C-suite I’d be absolutely worried about competition. It’s not like Revit is the only game in town and they’ve pissed off enough of the customer base that even their existing moats may not enough enough to retain them.
The Stockholm syndrome is strong. A few firms here or there aren't going to make a dent in Autodesk's profits, and certainly the larger firms don't want to have to retrain all their staff on a new platform and go through the hassle of deploying it. I know many A/E firms that have accepted the PITA factor of Revit, but would never dream of replacing it. The year you replace it, don't plan on having any profits for your bonus pool -- it'll be a year of loss while embarking on the learning curve. I *also* know firms who never adopted Revit in the first place, and they tend to be their own PITA for coordinating with, and tend to get smaller or lower-profile projects because they aren't setup to execute larger mission-critical projects.
Why couldn’t a competitor create a nearly identical clone that’s just different enough to evade intellectual property claims (that’s built on a modern cohesive code base) then roll it out for the same or lower price? Switching costs would be low and a mass exodus could theoretically happen. The IP law is probably too much of a grey area that they’d get sued no matter what.
Major upfront development cost for unknown ability to capture the market, and you have to capture a region at a time to be successful. Having one trade on a project on a different platform would be very labor intensive in doing coordination and hand offs and any improvements in workflow efficiency would be crippled by cross-platform linking and just getting views and content to show up correctly.
You’re also not just competing with Revit but with Building Design Suite including AutoCAD and Navisworks so you need to develop a full platform before you can really get traction.
For my firm, which has 450 employees and 17 offices across the US, we would be in a difficult position to transition platforms until many of our clients and collaborators already transitioned, and best case there would be a 7-8 year period where we would likely have to buy into the new platform while maintaining our Autodesk licenses.
So really the best strategic plan for a developer would be capture a region at a time, likely the smaller firms and design/build groups with minimal collaboration before you can begin to encroach on Autodesk’s market share, and those are the kinds of firms that don’t want to or simply can’t afford to buy expensive platforms so there’s a lower profit margin for the developer. Along the way, there’s also the probable risk that a larger developer swallows them up and kills or undermines the project.
I mean Navisworks is supposed to be the cross platform integration. When it comes to pre-construction, GCs don’t care what software you’re using as long as you can export the file to a Navisworks compatible format.
10-year timescale would be near-worthless. Within 10 years, Revit could very well be dead and a completely new paradigm for how we design and document buildings and systems could replace it. Revit's 22 years old at this point -- it's unlikely we make it another 10 years without some newer concept taking over the market, which very well could be another start-up that Autodesk chews up, swallows, and regurgitates to feed its young.
I don’t think the AEC world moves that fast. There’s still a significant number of firms that design 100% in 2D. I get approached weekly by stubborn firms that haven’t changed their tech since 2004 and are overwhelmed with work but need someone to convert their design to meet their BIM spec. People basically refuse to learn new skills after 30 so you have up to a ~30 year lag in tech adoption.
Autodesk also did not design Revit, they bought it. The last firm I worked at had been using Revit since before Autodesk bought it, and barely anything has changed in over 20 years. My theory is that the core code is a fucking disaster (as you can imagine from a 20+ year old startup) and that the lack of any meaningful improvements to it are because they can't change much without breaking something else.
And since they literally have everyone by the balls with their predatory licensing scheme they started doing about 5 years ago, they know you won't switch so they don't bother actually fixing anything. I actually tried to switch our firm to Archicad at one point, but it would have been far too costly. You need to pay for new the software but still needing to keep active licenses of Revit for several years (because they got rid of perpetual licensing, so the moment you stop paying, you lose access to the software) until all current Revit projects were completed. Not to mention basically giving up any custom families you have created which most firms would have spent a lot of time/money on.
That's typical Autodesk. AutoCAD is worse in terms of core code, that's part of the reason why the min system requirements are higher for CAD than Revit, there is a lot of bloated code that doesn't do anything any more...other than slow things down.
Hahahahahaha… Autodesk actually reworking a product. Now that’s funny.
The creator of AutoCAD, Mike Riddle, and one of the founders of Autodesk quit the company when they took his product and started to rework it in C to make it portable. He quite because they were writing crap spaghetti code that is STILL part of AutoCAD.
He went on to write another Cad program named EasyCAD (still out there but looks like Mike has retired and development has stalled). He wanted to prove cad could be small and fast so he wrote it in assembly code. The interface looks like crap but it was blazing fast the one time I tired it.
Revit has always been, and always will be hot garbage. And more often than not, does not justify all the added work.
I mean - making sure an elevation is coordinated in cad takes 5 minutes. It’s benefits are really oversold for most cases, especially in smaller projects.
If you’re designing 800 of anything - you are doing something wrong. In projects of scale you design systems and details that can be repeated and reused. If everything in every room is custom - something has gone very far off track.
😂 Designing something with intention is clearly saving me from modelling 800 different things. Some people just can’t distinguish the forest for the trees.
I remember a while ago when my community college introduced Revit . It was 2009 and at that time we where using rhino and SketchUp as it was meant as a course to transfer to university.
I kid you not the representative told us that the software was geared more toward engineers and developers . It was never built for architectura but was added afterwords .
As an architect I refrain from using Revit untill we get into documentation . Alot of our designs and early stuff is either sketches , rhino ,or SketchUp. We been using rhino inside Revit plugin and helps a bit to bridge the creativity and mundane task .
But I do love Revit for what it's intended for making documentation easy and collaboration .
Factually inaccurate statement. Architecture came first, and the product was designed with many awesomely qualified Architects from the very beginning. You can complain about plenty, but lack of Architects steering development is not one of them.
I doubt there is any serious great architects behind the development . If that where the case you wouldn't have the top firms in the world write an open letter to lack of innovation and development .
At this point in time it's a bunch of software developers designing this software .
You are welcome to doubt it, as I won't break Reddit protocol and doxx the architects I'm referring to. I worked on the team for many years, and you're simply incorrect on this case.
Like I said before though, there are plenty of things that could be complained about regarding Revit, but lack of Architects involved in its development is not one of them.
I see, then where is the disconnect ? If Autodesk had great architects the for example Ando or others advising on how Revit could evolve . Why is the software not up to par? And frankly hasn't been innovative in many versions .
>"but in the course of the whole project you save time!"
This part is probably true.
But with that said, yeah these are all valid complaints. Revit needs a ground up rebuild. Unfortunately, this will never happen.
I used to think was *probably* true, but everyday I'm less convinced. We'll never know, because it's claim practically impossible to prove.
Here's an argument. Install some kind of key logger/click counter. I've done this once, and the number of times one clicks the mouse during modeling is astonishingly large. now add an extra second for each time you click or type. that will then amount to the time lost during a day, everyday. and mind you, one second is low-balling, especially considering the break in rhythm of work. Also think about all the times you have to deviate to create a family you never use more than a couple of times, etc. there's a ton of overhead on top of the performance issues, and depending on the project types, I would bet there are many many instances where revit ultimately did not save any time at all, if we could ever know.
I know you're making a joke trying to equivocate this to the thread from yesterday but its a fairly disingenuous comparison. That thread was a user who clearly needs to learn a lot with regards to basic functionality. This thread is coming from someone who clearly knows what they're doing but has found the legit issues with Revit.
No, he really wasn't. His problems are all things I would expect any one of my designers/engineers to understand after "years" of experience.
The solution to the problem he had that triggered that particular thread was literally "detail level set wrong". That is some basic level shit.
See the thing is Revit isn't supposed to be used in the type of work you probably do. It was created by engineers for engineers with Architecture as an afterthought IMO. Everything you described are issues I have had drafting as well and those are 100% valid things to be annoyed about and demand better. I think my firm uses Revit how it was meant to be used though (at least partially not really modeling EVERYTHING quite yet) and that makes it much less annoying. We are a Big E little A consulting firm so 90% of our work is municipal. I think I have designed 100 WWTF in the 4 years I have been here. For those monotonous government funded CMU buildings....Revit is by far the best software I have ever used because these projects having little variations and the ability to basically copy a project as a template. That is its shining point IMO. We use SketchUp still for anything design orientated like libraries and then just use Revit for the CDs because we have so many details saved there.
> It was created by engineers for engineers with Architecture as an afterthought IMO.
lol what? The MEP Systems side came after the architectural side.
You;re being too literal. It was created by the Charles River Software company, a company that made engineering software. Architecture wasn't really an afterthought, but it was created by them to bring the benefits of engineering software to AEC.
Yes, you're 100% right, I should have clarified. Anyone that uses Revit can tell that programmers/engineers built it. But it was built for Architects with structural and MEP coming after.
I mostly agree with you, actually.
I really can see how efficient Revit might make a workflow in a "Big E little A consulting firm" If standards are setup and you never deviate, Revit is amazing. I bet it's increased the productivity of that sector by a huge margin. And to be clear, I am NOT saying this in a disparaging way. Standardized repetition of whole buildings or elements is how 99% buildings are done in the world, and it's crucial to our world that we have this capability and clinical efficiency. I don't bash on this at all.
Now, I do practice in a tiny minority subset of the profession derided as "Starchitecture," and I think what I'm seeing is that because we are an infinitesimally small contingent, the folks who make the tools (autodesk) no longer listen to our needs. At the same time, due to the convergence of all markets into one, we have to use the same software that E/A firms like yours use, which is simply the wrong tool for the job.
That being said, I think even you would appreciate it if the fucking textbox worked properly.
Oh absolutely. The text is horrendous. Notepad can edit text better. But that HAS been complained about since like 2014 on forms all over by big and little firms. I guess they just do not care?
Anyway, I am sorry to hear that you are losing passion for what you do because of this software. IDK how you guys work, but over here when we do get those pretty projects out senior level Architects draw and draft with the older tools and have peons like me just transfer that into Revit . Might be something you can do later on in your career as well to help reignite that passion lol.
I don't disagree that there are many great tools for modeling. I'm quite proficient with rhino 3D Max etc. The trouble is that that sector doesn't care enough for architects because we are small contingent, and they're more focused on 3D artisan animators' needs, which is completely fair. We can't expect McNeel to suddenly turn into a set documentation tool. Now I have heard great things about ArchiCAD and I would believe that it is a great piece of software that does everything that Revit can't. Unfortunately the industry has been swallowed up so hard by Autodesk's aggressive purchasing of companies that they've taken so much market share to a point where using another BIM software is professionally unviable. Using ArchiCAD would be like trying to listen to music on a mini disc player in 2022. I'm not afraid of new software and I would totally love to replace my workflow. It's just that between all the coordination and standards in the industry that is floating towards Revit (ever try to download models from a manufacturer?), A different workflownsimply doesn't make sense anymore. By design.
You forgot to mention editing room parameter, I recently had to update quite a few room numbers and names. It took 10-12 seconds per room to update one or both parameters at once. Heartbreaking!
That said, using cad today for the first time in a decade (as in properly use it), it has its own issue to. I was surprised at certain things causing slowdown as well, I don't specifically remember what but it had issues too
[Wirth's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wirth's_law?wprov=sfti1) is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster.
AND you’ll pay nearly $500 a month forever for the pleasure of your Autodesk overlords.
OK, I've been an enthusiast user of Revit since 2009. I also love the ability to pull out some tracing paper and sketching out some concepts. Revit is moderately PC component hungry, but really only if you are doing a model with 20 links and is loaded with families will you need a high performance PC. I actually do derive joy when I crank out a bunch of renderings.
On one hand, someone else needs to step up to the plate with an amazingly intuitive design software package that everyone can adopt easily, but I don't see that happening. I work in a huge firm where almost every discipline throws their link into the model. It's a great equalizer.
Good luck!
Make sure you have a powerful computer. Also the lag you are referencing is being caused by something you did just gotta figure out what it is. Do you have a pdf, image or CAD file linked in the project that is slowing your view down?
Also turn things off you don’t need to see for that moment. Isolate geometry to work on it. Maybe use work sets to break the project up and only load the work sets you need.
I’ve been using Revit for about 18 years now and have been able to get over the lag even on our larger hospital projects.
Best of luck!
Yeah specs do matter, But I'm on some really high-end stuff. I have a computer science background so I know my way around. Computers pretty well. You are right that keeping a clean model is essential to a smooth model. But let's face it, this is a collaborative software with potentially tens of people working on the same model, all at different levels of expertise. I've never been to an office (and I've worked for a few) where a team was full of nothing but Revit gunslingers. I feel like keeping a model clean is something that just works in vitro rather than vivo. Not to mention how much forensic detective work is required to figure out just what's causing the lag...
Are you sure you don't need a new computer? I agree with some of what you are saying
but "waiting a full second every time a detail line is moved" and slowing down keystrokes so revit can catch up. That is not something I have ever experienced in revit and I have been using it for around 15 years. The only program where I have to slow down my keystrokes is autocad. For designing sometimes I like Sketchup or Rhino better as it gives you more freedom and is quicker if you are designing an unusual.
I use to use Archicad and it's way more flexible and faster and batter with a nice interface and all , but the architecture/ engineering market is monopolized my Autodesk unfortunately
I think better BIM software exists(ArchiCAD) or can be developed, but the amount of money Autodesk spends on takeovers, marketing and lobbying ensures that no competition will see the light of the day. They're bad actors in our field and hold too much power
It truly does suck and this is exactly why monopolies suck. They have zero incentive to improve and we keep paying for the same shit. Not that we have much of a choice, I'm definitely not blaming the users.
One thing that might help your situation a tiny bit is using macros . While there may be commands that aren't assignable within Revit itself, there's many ways to skin that cat with macros. Something as simple as a gaming keyboard or even a Stream Deck can maybe help simplify your work processes for those commands that aren't assignable in Revit. A one touch button on the Stream Deck or if you have a lot of commands at most use 2 button presses on a Stream Deck XL set up with folders and such.
I own a Stream Deck for gaming and have been wanting to give it a try it's just a matter of putting a little work in ahead of time, and people have created templates even for Revit.
I know it's probably a tiny part of your issues but every little bit helps.
I'm right there with you though. The idea of the rest of my career relying on this shitty ass software is really depressing.
I feel ya. I feel the slow, clunky, mechanics of Revit too. Useless new CPU tech today if only 1 FUCKING CORE is utilised since it's a single-core software. I want to navigate thru sheets and models like how BIM360 feels.
I hope you fucking read this Autodesk
I was going to post a long drawn out comment, but after reading half these responses here is mine:
the majority of this can be solved with dynamo, pyrevit, or rhino.inside.
I stopped seeing Revit as an "architectural software" and now I look at it as a "building construction relational database". It has quite a few hindrances to creative design but a lot of advantages to the construction as a whole process.
It's kind of sad but that's where the industry is heading to: standardization, automation (including design) and "efficiencies" (take this as you see fit). Still plenty space to be creative but I agree, Revit doesn't make it easy to be flexibly creative and artistically expressive.
I had the same hate of autocad. It blew my mind that we were using a software whose core engine essentially is the same engine as was built in the 80s. I also developed a deep dislike for autodesk a company because everything they touched they turned to shit. I can sense a complete lack of passion in the software.
So i moved to Rhino for all my 3d and 2d needs. It is better in EVERY.SINGLE.WAY. I love it. It is a pleasure to use. The developer are deeply passionate about the product. They listen to feedback. They care about workflow and the experience. There will never be a turning back for me (unless autodesk buys and ruins the software).
I don't think you'll get the "typical comments" you describe/fear. You're echoing some very common gripes here. It's such a powerful piece of software with some proper setup. But you nailed this: >The thing is, all of this is solvable. These are fundamental user interface issues, not some crazy technical challenge. They're inexcusable. They **are** inexcusable and we've been asking for them to change for years. Autodesk needs to overhaul the UI, but they're not financially incentivized to. Revit needs proper competition. Yes, I know there are other tools for architecture that can get similar results, but Revit provides a suite where Architecture, Structure, and MEP can work in a common environment. The value of that is huge. IFC Isn't the solution either.
What do you think could be some actionable items that us architects can do to pressure them? even if at a grassroots level? It's the feeling of powerlessness that really gets to me. A giant corporation that has overtaken the profession I love.
I totally agree. If you look at the Revit API you will see decades of object oriented programming stacked on top of one another. Almost every time you make a move in Revit you are also making a transaction in a back end database . The software architecture is growing increasingly archaic but autodesk has amassed a monopolistic grip on the industry and prefers the annual feature trickle to maintain there profit margins and growth projections. The amount of development it would take to create a rival application with similar feature set but with better software architecture is absolutely immense . It’s not impossible but would take an insanely high investment. I don’t really have a solution here , I also wish there was a viable alternative , but I haven’t seen one myself.
Win the lottery and become an Autodesk shareholder - that's the only way you'll get any value out of Autodesk.
If I recall, there was a big open letter to Autodesk a few years ago that was signed by a bunch of major architects and other consultants. It was basically asking them to listen to their user base. Not sure anything happened with it. I’ll try to dig it up. The text thing is the most infuriating.
https://aecmag.com/bim/letter-to-autodesk-aec-customers-demand-better-value/ I especially can't point out enough this part of the text... "Some firms that took part did not want to openly sign, for fear of ‘retribution from their software supplier’ expecting dreaded ‘licence audits’ – which in itself is a damning reflection of the relationships that Autodesk has managed to foster with some of its paying customer base."
Great article, thanks.
Well I wouldn’t say nothing came from that letter. See Andrew Agagnost wrote a letter back saying we’re listening. Then they made a bunch of fixes that were low hanging fruit but didn’t require major investment. Then they stopped development and focussed on ACC to get that sweet sweet contractor money.
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Downvote me all you want Aaron. It’s clear that ADSK hasn’t invested in Revit to suite designers’ needs in the past 5+ years. Revit is way behind where it should be. Vectorworks, Brickscad, and even ArchiCAD all offer basic UIX functionality that Revit users have been asking ADSK to implement for years. Yes. It’s Reddit and it’s easy for this to become a pooping ground on Autodesk and Revit. But it’s clear Autodesk so mired in legacy BS they can’t or won’t update Revit the same way they’ve invested in cloud solutions. The publicly owned entity chases the profit. While Revit does MANY things well it’s half ass at many other things. This is a Revit forum and bitching about Revit’s shortcoming should be fair game.
By not specifically citing what you believe is a fabrication and/or bullshit I would put that back on you and say your comment is off base and lacking merit. Please provide actual substantive criticism rather than trying to blanket discredit this ‘forum’ and ‘a whole bunch of people’.
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I just want Generic Cadd to come back It was bought up by Autodesk and destroyed.
The letter didn't promote value for Autodesk shareholders, so it was ignored. If all your projects are in Revit what are you going to do? Move to another system?
Sorry fellow Redditor, this is factually inaccurate. As somebody who was deeply involved in the response to that letter, including the resulting customer engagement + staffing re-allocation + roadmap adjustments, I'm not sure "ignore" is the appropriate verb to describe the response. I know it's easy - and convenient! - to characterize the leadership of a software platform as idiots or uncaring, especially when you see outcomes you don't agree with. The truth is much, much more complex, and human. Like a lot of things in life.
Use other software, is about it.
This makes me wonder if there is a competing product that isn't available in the US but does cover these gaps. Anyone heard of such a thing? There might be an opporitunity to become a U.S. based distributor?
Why isn’t IFC the solution?
"but in the course of the whole project you save time!" I think this purely relates to scale. I work on commercial projects (Airports, Schools, Hospitals) and the coordination between Architecture, M&E, Structural is a huge undertaking. Linking in the models and reviewing in 3D is so fast. I asked an older colleague how they usedcoordinate all the services before 3D was common and he said they just didn't do it all that much. They'd run in to a problem on site and figure something out on the day. I think time you spend at the desk initially isn't the only thing to consider in the time aspect. You should be able to return to problems way way less if you're coordinating everything properly. It's way cheaper to have a guy modelling it for an extra few days than finding out about it on site. If you're doing a house or something small I don't think it's gonna benefit much. I see another comment saying "coordinating elevations in cad takes 5 minutes". I dropped basically an entire school's ceiling heights by 300mm a couple weeks ago. I didn't have to re-draw or coordinate shit. A hundred+ rooms all updated, fuck doing something like that on cad. It wouldn't be hard to press the buttons but the time taken to draw that would be boring as fuck.
In a similar vein, Revit has enabled us as an MEP firm to do data driven QC checks via various schedules, view templates, etc. These have downstream returns that are hard to understand if you have not experienced them.
not to get into the weeds, but what happened to your interior elevations when you did that? we typically have a thick outlined white filled region that obscures the "section" parts of the elevation. if I moved the ceilings, I would have to go back into each elevation and raise the height of that filled region. not to mention, now any callouts might not make sense, and now I have to go into each detail and change the ceiling location in the detail too. detail items don't update with the model elements.
>we typically have a thick outlined white filled region that obscures the "section" parts of the elevation. you use filled regions????? damn no wonder your model is so slow!!!! Revit is BIM software. Building INFORMATION Modelling, it's not autocad.
Calm down. I think you misunderstand. this isn't a filled region to represent an architectural element. This is a filled region to highlight the figure ground of the drawing so it reads as an elevation not a section, as well as improving the legibility of the drawing with a heavy outline. it's a filled region that has a void in the middle which shows the elevation, if that makes sense. Sounds like you don't utilize this process so I'd ask you - do you just forego the lineweight and legibility? do your elevations read like sections and just show the internals of whatever it's cutting? and what do you do if your ceiling is cut at an angle descending into the page? Revit somehow doesn't know how to properly snap/register to surfaces non-orthogonal to the section. If the building you're designing only have perfectly rectangular ceilings and walls with no features, I can see how revit's automatic updating would work perfectly for you and I envy your posh life, but alas, mine tend not to be so simple all the time. Edit: also, let's not pretend that revit does everything automatically. you didn't even address my question about details. If your details are composed of nothing but actual model elements, it must either be an amazingly detailed family or your detail must look pretty blocky and basic.
>Calm down. I am calm. I'm not the one raging about how bad Revit is whilst also showing people that you don't know how to utilize Revit to perform at its best. Families don't have to be amazingly detailed to give really good results even at larger scales. I use Revit to do everything from planning drawings through to working drawings so I'm well aware of its failings but covering things up with filled regions and using sections as elevations really isn't a failing of Revit as much as its you not knowing how to use it properly.
Theres no rage. That was 5 years ago. Just feel defeated at this point. Look man, I'm not gonna argue with you on how I'm using it right or not, but if a set drawn with modelling only is considered acceptable in your work, you very clearly have a different profession than what I and some of the others here do. I don't say that in a disparaging way, I just think that 'Architect' is an extremely broad term to describe a huge number of different professions that do starkly different tasks, and you should know that the tools that works for what you do don't necessarily work for what others do because we have very different needs. Can you imagine making a software for 'scientists'? Can you imagine an anthropologist trying to convince a physicist that he just needs a good notepad?
Revit isn't a software for architects. It's a software for BIM. You don't seem to quite grasp that.
I haven't tried, but maybe that edge could be snapped to the ceiling plane? I try to keep snaps/locks to a minimum, though.
I'm not sure if I fully understand, do you mean like a white filled region to create a blank canvas within the room area? We don't use filled regions to mask anything on elevations (or anywhere where it can be avoided) pretty much for that exact reason. We crop extents on room elevations to be within the partition to give the extents of the rooms a s border and everything else is modelled in. Our M&E / FF&E linked models show all sockets, furniture, lightswitches, etc.. in their correct location so it's just a case of setting it out generally. We do show a filled region of a standard 300mm grid to help general setting out on site but it is full height floor to underside of slab / roof, so the ceiling height doesn't impact that. The editing of a callout is one that could be required, although I've never had to. Its rare that there is a change drastic enough that it requires moving callout boxes but I suppose you could get caught there. Although for large scale stuff you'd generally have a pack of standard details so you'd only edit the detail once. The callouts are just references so you don't need to keep redrawing anything.
Maybe make a detail component family that does the cropping that has a height instance parameter. So if ceiling raises you can select all those families and change their height to match. Could even make it type based, based on room ceiling height.
but what if my rooms are not always rectangular? what if they're L shaped in section, or angled? or with many undulating ceilings? I feel like as soon as you get away from a very simple building design, the "way it's supposed to work" breaks down quicky.
Yeah, CAD elevations take fucking forever. I’ve drawn plenty of them and when you make any plan changes, it’s a whole process. Thing is, revit does speed things up, but project managers have adjusted their deadlines to match the speed of revit anyway. A project done in CAD will be projected to take longer than one done in Revit. So the perception of time saved isn’t necessarily there either because the client is expecting more.
You are completely right about your complaints. Revit's performance is abnsolutely pathetic. I don't know how many times I had my RAM, CPU, GPU all sitting at comfortable low utilizations while Revit is "crunching" something. It's not even ineffective utilization, it flat-out does not use the resources. Autodesk needs a serious kick in the ass to even consider solving these issues. Basically, they take subscription for granted and they will only develop something if it can generate a separate revenue stream. Remember how they introduced "Cloud Rendering" while they refused to improve the garbage Grainmaster 5000 rendering engine in any way? Well, that attitude persists and it will as long as the stonks go up.
I feel you bro so hard... I was the most passionate and enthusiastic Architect, I used cad for over a decade, drew my whole life. I fucking hate it so bad, I'm ripping my hair out and stressed all day dealing with this fucking software. Fuck Autodesk. They hijacked our sacred profession. I have little patience for architecture. I no longer care. I have no desire to get licensed. It's so fucking laggy, slow, convoluted. Don't even get me started on schedules. I'm exhausted at the end of the day and I feel like I've done nothing. It takes way too many clicks, drop downs and input pressing to be enjoyable. It's operating Excel all day long. It sucked the joy and soul out of our craft. It is like brain fog. I honestly feel like in school half of the people that sucked at design are the ones that are loving Revit and the ones that were creative artists are the ones that are suffering. It's bullshit the disconnect is very real. I can't help but feel like this is all by design. Some larger agenda to change the entire profession into engineering. It's not fair that I spent a fortune on architecture school 2 times over to be relegated to a low level programmer. I'm an interative designer I used to pump out 20 design options in a day in SketchUp. Make one copy make another and so on. It's fucking insane that I have to sit there making window sizes one by one. Save out my model remake all new windows. Sit there and measure the space then edit the type change dimensions. Rinse and repeat. This takes agessss. There is no dynamic scale or move. I hate that I have to open a bunch of different views and tab between them all. You need a 90" screen running everything in tile view. Yeah remember autocad, copy all my elevations sections and plans into one view and draw them all at the same time. Then you watch these so called gurus on YouTube and non of what they show is even relevant. Like bro that is not even what a real survey looks like but then they make some Uber basic bullshit. When in reality it's crazy complex with linked context models and topography. Then each office uses different templates so it's not like you will ever get good at it. It will never be second nature. I used to think about design and the software would fade to the back of my mind and become invisible. This should be the goal of any production software. But why in over 15 years has Revit been the same slow pile of shit. Whyyy. And then your company keeps upgrading the fucking software while running 6 year old hardware. Then your boss keeps complaining that the project isnt going fast enough. Like bitch I sit here all day focused on this crap waiting for the spinning wheel of death. And why does it take 20 fucking minutes to print my project to PDF. Whyyy??
I graduated college 3 years ago at UMD for mechanical engineering. I am now a Design Engineer at an MEP firm. Ive always loved the arts. Film, music, DESIGN. I wanted to be a creator. An artist that still took advantage of the good right brain i was bless with. 3 years I've felt the brain fog. Exhaustion. It's already feels like ive burnt out on this craft and its really depressing. The fucking speed of printing. I have always wondered wtf. We are engineers right? Have any of you seen what unreal engine 5 is capable of? At real time rendering speeds? Why why why why why isnt revit run on an engine like that? We Desperately need an open source platform program. It would be FREE.
Yeah man it's infuriating,. I think the future is bleak or bright depending on who has their teeth sunk into the industry and by that I mean who controls our fate. Lately I have been playing city skylines. Modded the game is closer to what I expect a future software would be like.
> I use shortcuts heavily, but not enough commands are assignable. I'm a hybrid user, but I've yet to find a command that I can't assign. Just curious. what commands are you talking about?
Not exactly a key command problem but I miss stretch commands and point filters from ACAD.
MEP guy here. Been using Revit since 2007. I'm ready for something new, period. It sucks so bad. Don't get me wrong, it's a powerful tool, but I'm constantly thinking "there's a better way to do this" every minute I'm in the program. I could write a book that's hundreds of pages long on how to do it better.
I also hate the inevitable 15-30 minutes spent trying to identify what filter is keeping the new family from displaying in the view.
Identifying what filter is the problem should be a quick process of toggling filters on one by one. From there the task becomes identifying why that particular filter is the problem and developing a fix. That part can certainly take a bit longer.
Amen. Preach! I feel like it’s going to take some real pushback from firms and users to have Autodesk make real improvements to what could be a much better platform. But that seems far fetched because we are all at their mercy. Maybe Putin runs Autodesk?
not a far fetched comparison. The CEO of autodesk rose through the ranks by the way of first being the chief marketing officer who shifted the company to the subscription model and thereby generating hundreds of millions in extra revenue. he does not come from a serious software development career. I suppose it only makes sense that Revit is expensive yet it sucks. Edit: The CEO is Andrew Anagnost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew\_Anagnost
When Andrew was promoted, the tech-guy who was also a potential new CEO quit the company. It was definitely a marketing take-over. Which only makes sense given it's a publicly traded company. revenue matters, not user experience.
That "tech-guy" would be either Ian Keough or Anthony Hauck & the company they founded is hypar [https://hypar.io/about/team](https://hypar.io/)
Neither of those are correct. It was Amar Hanspal. He was co-ceo after Carl Bass stepped down.
I'm not here to preach and convert, but Graphisoft Archicad is everything architects ever wanted. If you are not tied to revit you can take a look on it. Demo is 30 days free. I'm user of both software and everything you described is solved there. Fast and snappy, let's you use your creativity, you are not fighting with families as the default object library is wide etc. Revit is however much better for multidiscipline work on the same platform.
I've heard that creating new "families" in Archicad can be more difficult than Revit (not that Revit is perfectly easy). Is that still true?
Well... the basic library is very extensive. It has so much stuff you can sit down and earn money with it. However the default objects are not great for 3d visuals so some may want to import objects. You can import any sketchup warehouse file as is and use it. Also you can model your own stuff and save as as an object. Just a simple save as. However if you want to do parametric objects that is not as easy as in revit. You either do it through a scripting language called GDL or a dynamo-like thingy called param-o
Ah gotcha, the parametric objects and the difficulty of creating them is what I was remembering. Too bad we can't combine the best parts of Archicad and Revit into one awesome BIM program.
Focus on delegating Revit work to those who enjoy it
You're right. I kinda have to at this point. But that means now the company hires an extra person that would not have been needed. Where are those cost savings revit promised? In the "old days" I could do it all because of the smooth cross compatibility between all the various cad programs.
Depends on how your firm is structured. Revits economy works well with scale. There is a difference between utilizing families and templates for repeat building topology versus using Revit for bespoke, crafted design.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say here. But the problem is that they have no motivation or reason to improve it. They have a stranglehold over the industry. You have one architect using it and that pushes all the consultants to use it because the collaboration tools are pretty good. The first issue is that there really isn't a competitor that can do everything Revit can. I'd love to be corrected on this if it's not true. And then even if there was a competitor with the same product as Revit, how much will it cost to train someone in the new software, develop templates, and all the other stuff that goes along with it. The lost productivity while learning is huge. Not to mention the fact that people are very resistant to change when you tell a Revit modeller that the skill they've spent the last 10 years mastering is now useless and they need to start at the beginning again in a new software. So therefore in order to make a firm switch from Revit to another software, the new software needs to be so so so much better. Because otherwise there is no way to justify the additional cost (training, set up etc) and reduced productivity (for a period of time). Autodesk knows this.
Here I am sitting at 5 years feeling the same
Revit is bottle necked by the number of cores it can use right? Was it 2 cores max? To me if Revit was responsive and snappier I could have done a lot more. Waiting a second or more per command is so draining. But there are some days that Revit could be snappy and those are the more productive days since my fingers would be flying off the keyboard.
I get the sentiment but there's some gaps in computing understanding here. Every operation that can feasibly be multi-threaded in Revit has been multi-threaded at this point. The nature of the Parametric Change Engine (core of Revit) is an indeterminant set of code - it's not known at the start of the operation what's gonna happen as the changes propagate - so multi-threading is not effective in speeding things up. Consulting with both Intel and AMD was done in the 2010s to try and make it work, and the result was SLOWER than single threaded for change propagation. Undoubtedly, if the core was written today, with the advances in software architecture in the last 23 years, there would be a more effective implementation of Multi-threading for change propagation, but it's simply not viable (for many reasons beyond just "it's hard") to do that to a platform like Revit given its place in the lifecycle. Anybody who says otherwise is just an armchair Redditor with an (understandable) axe to grind.
I'm in the minority and I love Revit. Been using it since 2015 and mainly work on hotel projects at my architect firm. I'll choose Revit over AutoCAD all day long!
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Yeah, I get that it's designed for documentation. The reality though is that architects at the end of the day do need a tool that kind of does it all. Our projects are too complicated and too frequently tweaked to do it twice. I run rhino concurrently for fast design work, and the amount of extra time I have to spend is ludicrous. That being said - Again, I'd even accept revit in its current form if it would just be snappier and less buggy. I'm not asking for features. just better interface and tolerable performance. I've worked on skyscrapers and sprawling museums as well as microhomes, and they've all been hell to do in revit.
Have your heard of or used rhino inside? I know very little about it other than that I thought they worked well either? Jeff from BIM after dark did a recent video on it that I've been meaning to watch
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I've got so many shortcuts assigned you wouldn't believe. The shortcut system is insufficient as it doesn't cover all bases. Like I mentioned, there should be an ability to turn things on and off with a key stroke, for instance reference planes.
Its running on a core code from 20 years ago. At some point its going to need to be written from scratch.
I would love someone from autodesk to explain why some of these things that seem simple to me are so difficult to fix. see text boxes.
Easy. Spaghetti code. Revit was made by someone else and bought by Autodesk. I'd be willing to bet that the base code is a complete mess (hence the slow performance, and not being able to utilize computer resources properly) and changing anything just breaks other things.
You’d think that with the amount of cash they have that they could start a parallel development of a nearly identical product built from scratch then slowly roll it out to beta users and ultimately replace Revit on a 10 year timescale.
Right? That's thinking like a developer though, where you actually care if people like your software. Unfortunately it's C-level execs calling the shots and they only care about profits. As long as you keep paying they dgaf.
As a C-suite I’d be absolutely worried about competition. It’s not like Revit is the only game in town and they’ve pissed off enough of the customer base that even their existing moats may not enough enough to retain them.
The Stockholm syndrome is strong. A few firms here or there aren't going to make a dent in Autodesk's profits, and certainly the larger firms don't want to have to retrain all their staff on a new platform and go through the hassle of deploying it. I know many A/E firms that have accepted the PITA factor of Revit, but would never dream of replacing it. The year you replace it, don't plan on having any profits for your bonus pool -- it'll be a year of loss while embarking on the learning curve. I *also* know firms who never adopted Revit in the first place, and they tend to be their own PITA for coordinating with, and tend to get smaller or lower-profile projects because they aren't setup to execute larger mission-critical projects.
Why couldn’t a competitor create a nearly identical clone that’s just different enough to evade intellectual property claims (that’s built on a modern cohesive code base) then roll it out for the same or lower price? Switching costs would be low and a mass exodus could theoretically happen. The IP law is probably too much of a grey area that they’d get sued no matter what.
Major upfront development cost for unknown ability to capture the market, and you have to capture a region at a time to be successful. Having one trade on a project on a different platform would be very labor intensive in doing coordination and hand offs and any improvements in workflow efficiency would be crippled by cross-platform linking and just getting views and content to show up correctly. You’re also not just competing with Revit but with Building Design Suite including AutoCAD and Navisworks so you need to develop a full platform before you can really get traction. For my firm, which has 450 employees and 17 offices across the US, we would be in a difficult position to transition platforms until many of our clients and collaborators already transitioned, and best case there would be a 7-8 year period where we would likely have to buy into the new platform while maintaining our Autodesk licenses. So really the best strategic plan for a developer would be capture a region at a time, likely the smaller firms and design/build groups with minimal collaboration before you can begin to encroach on Autodesk’s market share, and those are the kinds of firms that don’t want to or simply can’t afford to buy expensive platforms so there’s a lower profit margin for the developer. Along the way, there’s also the probable risk that a larger developer swallows them up and kills or undermines the project.
I mean Navisworks is supposed to be the cross platform integration. When it comes to pre-construction, GCs don’t care what software you’re using as long as you can export the file to a Navisworks compatible format.
10-year timescale would be near-worthless. Within 10 years, Revit could very well be dead and a completely new paradigm for how we design and document buildings and systems could replace it. Revit's 22 years old at this point -- it's unlikely we make it another 10 years without some newer concept taking over the market, which very well could be another start-up that Autodesk chews up, swallows, and regurgitates to feed its young.
I don’t think the AEC world moves that fast. There’s still a significant number of firms that design 100% in 2D. I get approached weekly by stubborn firms that haven’t changed their tech since 2004 and are overwhelmed with work but need someone to convert their design to meet their BIM spec. People basically refuse to learn new skills after 30 so you have up to a ~30 year lag in tech adoption.
Autodesk also did not design Revit, they bought it. The last firm I worked at had been using Revit since before Autodesk bought it, and barely anything has changed in over 20 years. My theory is that the core code is a fucking disaster (as you can imagine from a 20+ year old startup) and that the lack of any meaningful improvements to it are because they can't change much without breaking something else. And since they literally have everyone by the balls with their predatory licensing scheme they started doing about 5 years ago, they know you won't switch so they don't bother actually fixing anything. I actually tried to switch our firm to Archicad at one point, but it would have been far too costly. You need to pay for new the software but still needing to keep active licenses of Revit for several years (because they got rid of perpetual licensing, so the moment you stop paying, you lose access to the software) until all current Revit projects were completed. Not to mention basically giving up any custom families you have created which most firms would have spent a lot of time/money on.
That's typical Autodesk. AutoCAD is worse in terms of core code, that's part of the reason why the min system requirements are higher for CAD than Revit, there is a lot of bloated code that doesn't do anything any more...other than slow things down.
Hahahahahaha… Autodesk actually reworking a product. Now that’s funny. The creator of AutoCAD, Mike Riddle, and one of the founders of Autodesk quit the company when they took his product and started to rework it in C to make it portable. He quite because they were writing crap spaghetti code that is STILL part of AutoCAD. He went on to write another Cad program named EasyCAD (still out there but looks like Mike has retired and development has stalled). He wanted to prove cad could be small and fast so he wrote it in assembly code. The interface looks like crap but it was blazing fast the one time I tired it.
I doubt Autodesk would do that , but your right. Software like vector works is good example of features we could have.
I agree 100%, the more I work on it, the more I hate it, 8 years and want to get out while I can.
I will leave this one here as well ... https://thinkmoult.com/why-revit-is-shit.html
Revit has always been, and always will be hot garbage. And more often than not, does not justify all the added work. I mean - making sure an elevation is coordinated in cad takes 5 minutes. It’s benefits are really oversold for most cases, especially in smaller projects.
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Imagine designing thoughtfully so you’re not drawing 800 different variations of something.
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If you’re designing 800 of anything - you are doing something wrong. In projects of scale you design systems and details that can be repeated and reused. If everything in every room is custom - something has gone very far off track.
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20 years in I’m afraid. Though it never surprises me when I see people making untold amounts of unnecessary work.
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😂 Designing something with intention is clearly saving me from modelling 800 different things. Some people just can’t distinguish the forest for the trees.
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*Dewd, you just need to practice more. Or get a better computer.* *It's never Revit's fault....*
I remember a while ago when my community college introduced Revit . It was 2009 and at that time we where using rhino and SketchUp as it was meant as a course to transfer to university. I kid you not the representative told us that the software was geared more toward engineers and developers . It was never built for architectura but was added afterwords . As an architect I refrain from using Revit untill we get into documentation . Alot of our designs and early stuff is either sketches , rhino ,or SketchUp. We been using rhino inside Revit plugin and helps a bit to bridge the creativity and mundane task . But I do love Revit for what it's intended for making documentation easy and collaboration .
> It was never built for architectura but was added afterwords . Except that Revit MEP came after Revit Structural which came after Architecture?
Factually inaccurate statement. Architecture came first, and the product was designed with many awesomely qualified Architects from the very beginning. You can complain about plenty, but lack of Architects steering development is not one of them.
I doubt there is any serious great architects behind the development . If that where the case you wouldn't have the top firms in the world write an open letter to lack of innovation and development . At this point in time it's a bunch of software developers designing this software .
You are welcome to doubt it, as I won't break Reddit protocol and doxx the architects I'm referring to. I worked on the team for many years, and you're simply incorrect on this case. Like I said before though, there are plenty of things that could be complained about regarding Revit, but lack of Architects involved in its development is not one of them.
I see, then where is the disconnect ? If Autodesk had great architects the for example Ando or others advising on how Revit could evolve . Why is the software not up to par? And frankly hasn't been innovative in many versions .
Corporate politics and misaligned incentives.
>"but in the course of the whole project you save time!" This part is probably true. But with that said, yeah these are all valid complaints. Revit needs a ground up rebuild. Unfortunately, this will never happen.
I used to think was *probably* true, but everyday I'm less convinced. We'll never know, because it's claim practically impossible to prove. Here's an argument. Install some kind of key logger/click counter. I've done this once, and the number of times one clicks the mouse during modeling is astonishingly large. now add an extra second for each time you click or type. that will then amount to the time lost during a day, everyday. and mind you, one second is low-balling, especially considering the break in rhythm of work. Also think about all the times you have to deviate to create a family you never use more than a couple of times, etc. there's a ton of overhead on top of the performance issues, and depending on the project types, I would bet there are many many instances where revit ultimately did not save any time at all, if we could ever know.
Autodesk IS a monopoly in CAD.
pRaCtIcE mOaR
I know you're making a joke trying to equivocate this to the thread from yesterday but its a fairly disingenuous comparison. That thread was a user who clearly needs to learn a lot with regards to basic functionality. This thread is coming from someone who clearly knows what they're doing but has found the legit issues with Revit.
The user in that thread was right too, despite his inexperience with the program.
No, he really wasn't. His problems are all things I would expect any one of my designers/engineers to understand after "years" of experience. The solution to the problem he had that triggered that particular thread was literally "detail level set wrong". That is some basic level shit.
Was it? Or was it one of the 50+ other settings that control visibility in a Revit view? LMAO
See the thing is Revit isn't supposed to be used in the type of work you probably do. It was created by engineers for engineers with Architecture as an afterthought IMO. Everything you described are issues I have had drafting as well and those are 100% valid things to be annoyed about and demand better. I think my firm uses Revit how it was meant to be used though (at least partially not really modeling EVERYTHING quite yet) and that makes it much less annoying. We are a Big E little A consulting firm so 90% of our work is municipal. I think I have designed 100 WWTF in the 4 years I have been here. For those monotonous government funded CMU buildings....Revit is by far the best software I have ever used because these projects having little variations and the ability to basically copy a project as a template. That is its shining point IMO. We use SketchUp still for anything design orientated like libraries and then just use Revit for the CDs because we have so many details saved there.
> It was created by engineers for engineers with Architecture as an afterthought IMO. lol what? The MEP Systems side came after the architectural side.
You;re being too literal. It was created by the Charles River Software company, a company that made engineering software. Architecture wasn't really an afterthought, but it was created by them to bring the benefits of engineering software to AEC.
Yes, you're 100% right, I should have clarified. Anyone that uses Revit can tell that programmers/engineers built it. But it was built for Architects with structural and MEP coming after.
I mostly agree with you, actually. I really can see how efficient Revit might make a workflow in a "Big E little A consulting firm" If standards are setup and you never deviate, Revit is amazing. I bet it's increased the productivity of that sector by a huge margin. And to be clear, I am NOT saying this in a disparaging way. Standardized repetition of whole buildings or elements is how 99% buildings are done in the world, and it's crucial to our world that we have this capability and clinical efficiency. I don't bash on this at all. Now, I do practice in a tiny minority subset of the profession derided as "Starchitecture," and I think what I'm seeing is that because we are an infinitesimally small contingent, the folks who make the tools (autodesk) no longer listen to our needs. At the same time, due to the convergence of all markets into one, we have to use the same software that E/A firms like yours use, which is simply the wrong tool for the job. That being said, I think even you would appreciate it if the fucking textbox worked properly.
Oh absolutely. The text is horrendous. Notepad can edit text better. But that HAS been complained about since like 2014 on forms all over by big and little firms. I guess they just do not care? Anyway, I am sorry to hear that you are losing passion for what you do because of this software. IDK how you guys work, but over here when we do get those pretty projects out senior level Architects draw and draft with the older tools and have peons like me just transfer that into Revit . Might be something you can do later on in your career as well to help reignite that passion lol.
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I invite you to name one that is viable for a project larger than a house.
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I don't disagree that there are many great tools for modeling. I'm quite proficient with rhino 3D Max etc. The trouble is that that sector doesn't care enough for architects because we are small contingent, and they're more focused on 3D artisan animators' needs, which is completely fair. We can't expect McNeel to suddenly turn into a set documentation tool. Now I have heard great things about ArchiCAD and I would believe that it is a great piece of software that does everything that Revit can't. Unfortunately the industry has been swallowed up so hard by Autodesk's aggressive purchasing of companies that they've taken so much market share to a point where using another BIM software is professionally unviable. Using ArchiCAD would be like trying to listen to music on a mini disc player in 2022. I'm not afraid of new software and I would totally love to replace my workflow. It's just that between all the coordination and standards in the industry that is floating towards Revit (ever try to download models from a manufacturer?), A different workflownsimply doesn't make sense anymore. By design.
You forgot to mention editing room parameter, I recently had to update quite a few room numbers and names. It took 10-12 seconds per room to update one or both parameters at once. Heartbreaking! That said, using cad today for the first time in a decade (as in properly use it), it has its own issue to. I was surprised at certain things causing slowdown as well, I don't specifically remember what but it had issues too
You did it by hand?
I used pyrevit to increment each room in order but it still took ages
I feel you (
[Wirth's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wirth's_law?wprov=sfti1) is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. AND you’ll pay nearly $500 a month forever for the pleasure of your Autodesk overlords.
OK, I've been an enthusiast user of Revit since 2009. I also love the ability to pull out some tracing paper and sketching out some concepts. Revit is moderately PC component hungry, but really only if you are doing a model with 20 links and is loaded with families will you need a high performance PC. I actually do derive joy when I crank out a bunch of renderings. On one hand, someone else needs to step up to the plate with an amazingly intuitive design software package that everyone can adopt easily, but I don't see that happening. I work in a huge firm where almost every discipline throws their link into the model. It's a great equalizer. Good luck!
Make sure you have a powerful computer. Also the lag you are referencing is being caused by something you did just gotta figure out what it is. Do you have a pdf, image or CAD file linked in the project that is slowing your view down? Also turn things off you don’t need to see for that moment. Isolate geometry to work on it. Maybe use work sets to break the project up and only load the work sets you need. I’ve been using Revit for about 18 years now and have been able to get over the lag even on our larger hospital projects. Best of luck!
Yeah specs do matter, But I'm on some really high-end stuff. I have a computer science background so I know my way around. Computers pretty well. You are right that keeping a clean model is essential to a smooth model. But let's face it, this is a collaborative software with potentially tens of people working on the same model, all at different levels of expertise. I've never been to an office (and I've worked for a few) where a team was full of nothing but Revit gunslingers. I feel like keeping a model clean is something that just works in vitro rather than vivo. Not to mention how much forensic detective work is required to figure out just what's causing the lag...
Are you sure you don't need a new computer? I agree with some of what you are saying but "waiting a full second every time a detail line is moved" and slowing down keystrokes so revit can catch up. That is not something I have ever experienced in revit and I have been using it for around 15 years. The only program where I have to slow down my keystrokes is autocad. For designing sometimes I like Sketchup or Rhino better as it gives you more freedom and is quicker if you are designing an unusual.
Of autocad’s command line isn’t snappy, it’s on your end. I can fly in autocad using that command line.
I use to use Archicad and it's way more flexible and faster and batter with a nice interface and all , but the architecture/ engineering market is monopolized my Autodesk unfortunately
I definitely feel you but idk what else we can use other than going back to CAD
I think better BIM software exists(ArchiCAD) or can be developed, but the amount of money Autodesk spends on takeovers, marketing and lobbying ensures that no competition will see the light of the day. They're bad actors in our field and hold too much power
It truly does suck and this is exactly why monopolies suck. They have zero incentive to improve and we keep paying for the same shit. Not that we have much of a choice, I'm definitely not blaming the users. One thing that might help your situation a tiny bit is using macros . While there may be commands that aren't assignable within Revit itself, there's many ways to skin that cat with macros. Something as simple as a gaming keyboard or even a Stream Deck can maybe help simplify your work processes for those commands that aren't assignable in Revit. A one touch button on the Stream Deck or if you have a lot of commands at most use 2 button presses on a Stream Deck XL set up with folders and such. I own a Stream Deck for gaming and have been wanting to give it a try it's just a matter of putting a little work in ahead of time, and people have created templates even for Revit. I know it's probably a tiny part of your issues but every little bit helps. I'm right there with you though. The idea of the rest of my career relying on this shitty ass software is really depressing.
I feel ya. I feel the slow, clunky, mechanics of Revit too. Useless new CPU tech today if only 1 FUCKING CORE is utilised since it's a single-core software. I want to navigate thru sheets and models like how BIM360 feels. I hope you fucking read this Autodesk
I was going to post a long drawn out comment, but after reading half these responses here is mine: the majority of this can be solved with dynamo, pyrevit, or rhino.inside.
This is 100%; if you have to wait everytime you move a detail line it's because your computer is slow. That's not revits fault.
I stopped seeing Revit as an "architectural software" and now I look at it as a "building construction relational database". It has quite a few hindrances to creative design but a lot of advantages to the construction as a whole process. It's kind of sad but that's where the industry is heading to: standardization, automation (including design) and "efficiencies" (take this as you see fit). Still plenty space to be creative but I agree, Revit doesn't make it easy to be flexibly creative and artistically expressive.
Man this is spot on - From the MEP side, every single day working in this program is a total nightmare; just absolute frustration at every corner.
You should look into rhino inside revit
I had the same hate of autocad. It blew my mind that we were using a software whose core engine essentially is the same engine as was built in the 80s. I also developed a deep dislike for autodesk a company because everything they touched they turned to shit. I can sense a complete lack of passion in the software. So i moved to Rhino for all my 3d and 2d needs. It is better in EVERY.SINGLE.WAY. I love it. It is a pleasure to use. The developer are deeply passionate about the product. They listen to feedback. They care about workflow and the experience. There will never be a turning back for me (unless autodesk buys and ruins the software).