Revit Stakeholder Panel: Revit Stakeholders Discuss Standards in Branded Families

JIM CONGER: All right. Let's get started. It looks like everybody pretty much is here. Welcome, everybody, to the Revit Stakeholder Panel. I am your moderator. My name is Jim Conger, and I originally came up with this idea because for my day job previously at Autodesk Seek and now at Suites, I consult with many building product manufacturers to help them build their BIM strategies.

And one thing has become very clear to me, and that is that this workflow is still so new that there's no one way that the industry applies the BIM workflow methodology. It's kind of like the wild, wild West. While we may never apply BIM and VDC exactly the same from project to project and firm to firm, we will inevitably converge on common practices that may help future use of these technologies and methodologies efficient and synergistic.

This panel is intended to create the conversation between all the stakeholders so that we can all understand and better the challenges and needs of the others. As we all know, Autdesk Revit and associated suite of products are most widely used tools for BIM and VDC, and families are the heart of all the models we create.

So it makes sense to have a discussion between all the stakeholders about these model components so that we can come closer to creating models that are useful for all. As you will notice, I have included an important member of this panel, the manufacturer. It is a natural that the traditional design team have a history of communicating with each other since they directly work together on projects.

However, the true experts on the components that make up the building have been mostly left out of the discussion. Our models are only as good as the information we put into them. So it makes sense that we include these experts in our discussion so that they can make better assets to help us be more accurate and efficient in our designs.

We'll approach this panel by finding out how each stakeholder uses their models today and how they'd like to use their models in the future. We will start with our owner and work downline. We only have 60 minutes for our panel. So we will not be able to solve all the world's problems today. But hopefully, you'll leave us today open to continuing the conversation in your daily routine and online and including people like the manufacturers and other people that should be part of this workflow discussion.

I have created an online Q and A discussion forum at bimjim.com where you can post questions and comments. I think you can see it up there. For the panelists and the audience. Some of you have already done that. So if you go onto bimjim, you'll see a couple of early questions that are up there. And throughout the next couple of days and weeks, we will hop on there and answer them. Feel free to answer those questions yourself, because we're all pretty much experts in our fields in this room.

Please pull out your phones right now and navigate to there so that if you have questions during this panel, that you can jot them down, and we can see those later. Autodesk this year has actually put together an office hours. So between 5:30 and 6:30 back in this room, most of the panelists and I will be back in this room, and we'll be able to have discussions with you, Q and A's. We're not going to have a lot of time to do that during this discussion.

I'm going to leave the bimjim.com active forever. So if in the next year, you think of something, you can always go on there. Hopefully, AU can start adding something like that to their AU site so that we can keep all that information in one place.

So without further ado, let's meet our panel and start our discussion. First off, we have our owner, Joe Porostosky. Porostosky.

JOE POROSTOSKY: Good.

JIM CONGER: Excuse me. I screwed it up. He's actually the Director of Facilities Information and Technology Services at Ohio State University. He's the leader of their Buckeye BIM Initiative. And he also is redefining his group's workflow with new, innovative ways to use technology.

Then we move to our architect, Ally Polancic. She's with HNTB. And she is a Manager of Design Technology. She actually manages the application of the design technologies throughout all of their architectural studios worldwide. And she is working on a very near and dear to our heart project here in Las Vegas. And that's the Raiders stadium.

And then we move to our engineer, and that's Laura Halverson. She's with a principal over at Affiliated Engineers, Inc. And she actually leads their firm and their clients who are-- a lot of them are higher education, health care, and research. And she actually is a key leader within their firm with their BIM innovation.

And then we move to the contractor, the build team, and that's David Joslin. He's one of the VDC Managers at Gilbane Building Company. And he actually leads efforts to standardize Gilbane's VDC infrastructure. And he manages their strategic implementation of their technical assets.

And then our new customer or new person to the BIM party and our manufacturer, and that's Jisell Howe. She's a CAD Administrator at Uponor. And Uponor I chose as a manufacturer because they are spending a lot of time and putting a lot of effort into creating these tools for the design-build team. So they're a little bit more advanced than I would say many of the other manufacturers out there. So she heads up their BIM Strategy Team.

And Louise Buchanan. She's our BIM consultant. She's from Microdesk, and she's a Business Development Manager. And she manages the team that helps their customers build Revit content, apps for all the different stakeholders on the team. I've worked a lot with Louise, and we've worked on hundreds of manufacturers to help them with their actual BIM strategies.

So we met the team. Let's get started with our owner, Joe. And what I'd like to know is, tell the group how you are using your models today and then kind of get into how you'd like to use them in the future.

JOE POROSTOSKY: Sure. So welcome. So at Ohio State, we've been developing models for existing facilities for a long time. But more germane to this conversation here is that we've been requiring BIM to be used on projects in excess of $4 million since 2015.

And as part of that, we're expecting a Revit deliverable. And our Revit deliverable is primarily from the A/E side. So we're expecting what we call conform design intent models. It's not from the contractor side. And we don't have a lot of expectations around what those models look like. We have some modeling expectations.

But a lot of it is really around how we get data from the project and how do we get good data for managing our assets long term? And so I think for us, one thing, and if you could go to the slide for our LOD matrix, this is what we use to communicate with our project teams what data we want to see in the models.

And it's what LOD do we want to see individual assets too? This is just a small portion of it. And if you're interested in seeing the rest of it, it's actually on our website. It's all public, obviously.

So this is how we say, look, we care about this asset being developed to this level. And that's where you see the 1, 2, 300s there at the different stages. And then at the very last column, you see the Assets column. And that's where we're telling the teams we want to see these particular assets containing data. And what we don't say is we don't tell them that the data has to be contained within the family itself.

Our process, and if you want to know a lot about the nitty gritty of this process, I'll be talking at 1:00 today about this. So a little plug from out of the class. But we actually expect A/E to actually deliver a COBie spreadsheet of basic information. And really, at that point, it's nothing more than a listing of assets and where they're located.

And it may have some additional information, depending on what the A/Es have built into their model. And then we actually do some work with that and give it to the contractor. And they fill in what actually got installed and serial numbers, manufacturer, those types of things.

So for us, we don't require a lot of information to be in those families. But it obviously helps the entire process when it occurs. So if you want to go to the next slide then also. This is just a listing of the actual attributes we care about currently. So it's not a lot.

It's a pretty slim list, and this is relatively intentional. One of the challenges is that we're expecting our teams to deliver to us data a lot earlier than traditionally, and we're making that expectation known from the very beginning of the project.

And what we don't want to do is say, I want 50 different assets or 50 different attributes for every single piece of asset. And then they're just going to be-- then obviously, cost is going to go up. And it's just going to be a real challenge. That's not where we're at right now. We want basic information. This is what we need to actually manage the facilities.

Obviously, long term, we're going to expand this list. Once we feel like we've got a good process that works with our project teams, and we're getting the kind of data that we want, then we're probably going to expand this list somewhat around other attributes that we actually are interested in to help us manage our facilities more effectively.

JIM CONGER: What kind of attributes are those?

JOE POROSTOSKY: We might start getting into actual attributes of the, like, say belt size and just basic information about the actual attributes. It'll be more specific to the type of asset at that point.

JIM CONGER: OK.

JOE POROSTOSKY: So that's really kind of the basic idea of where we're at from an owner's perspective. And I think I'm going to stop at that.

JIM CONGER: OK. Do any of the other panelists have any questions for our owner, as far as things you may want to pick his brain about? Jisell, have you-- so these lists right here, have you yet had anybody really give you a concrete, like, this is what we'd love to have?

JISELL HOWE: Honestly, no. I don't really hear about that. So that's why I'm here. But no, it's good to hear. We try to build a lot of different parameters into our families. And we try to supply information that we think would be useful. But yeah, someone has not reached out and said this is what we would really need. So we haven't really heard that so much.

JIM CONGER: And that's really the idea of this panel is, this is what we need to know. You guys have all your different workflows that you go through. We really need to know about this, and so being more vocal about it, maybe we use bimjim.com, maybe we just find something else that we do it on. But we capture that so that as a resource for us that are going to be building these at these families for you, we can go out there. So let's move to our architect, Ally.

ALLY POLANCIC: Sure.

JIM CONGER: So how are you using models today, and where do you see it going in the future?

ALLY POLANCIC: Sure. As the architect, our main objective throughout the design phase is to produce construction documents. So many times, our Revit model and our Revit families serve that purpose, to produce drawings. And kind of if you're really good at BIM, the other kind of output is that you have a model that's kind of a supplement to the drawings to convey the design intent.

So with that said, our families are mostly, we try not to put more information into them than required to convey design and intent. And unless whatever we are lucky enough to be contractually obligated to provide to our client or owner, which sometimes does include more data than we would typically put in a family, but our main objective is actually to keep information out of the model, because of file size concerns and because typically the majority of the time that we're working on the project, the manufacturer hasn't been selected anyways.

So typically, in my experience, we actually prefer not to use manufacturer Revit families. Sometimes or most of the time, actually, even if the family is available online, it's like a one-stop-shop, click one button and download it and put in your Revit model. We actually choose not to do that. And most of times, we'll actually rebuild the families from scratch just to make them really kind of clean and basic so that the file size can kind of not grow unexpectedly.

JIM CONGER: Now, is that because of the history of manufacturer-created content has been so poor? So if we had an ecosystem of really good content, lean, mean content, would it be more advantageous for you to do that and maybe just strip out a few parameters?

ALLY POLANCIC: Yeah, definitely. And I think maybe not that the information has been poor, it's just been so much detail or higher LOD than we--

JIM CONGER: We call that poor.

ALLY POLANCIC: Well-- what was I going to say? Oh, yeah. And yeah, if there was maybe kind of like a menu that every family manufacturer maybe offered at least two different versions of a family, maybe one would be for a construction model that had kind of all the metadata and the detail in it. And then there was a design phase version of a family that was really kind of stripped and basic, I think that would really be useful in the industry.

And I'm kind of talking about geometry and metadata, because one thing that I've seen on my projects is if the data is a requirement at the end of the project, we will actually maintain the data outside of the model for kind of the life of the project.

And right before delivery, we kind of inject the data using like an add-in, kind of like a spreadsheet add-in, to bring that data into the model families for delivery only. So we kind of try to maintain all of that detail outside of the model until we really have to put it in.

JIM CONGER: Now, would you say that-- what is the biggest culprit to big file size? Is it geometry, parameters, what is it that you're worried about the most?

ALLY POLANCIC: I think mostly-- I mean, I don't think the parameters, the parameter value in essence really takes up that much data. I think it's mostly the geometry and definitely the way that families are built, whether you're having nested elements or whether there's line work in them. And really kind of more than anything, I would say, the method that the family is built is most important.

JIM CONGER: And would you, if you're talking to manufacturers out there who may be listening this a year from now, what would be your recommendation when they're trying to figure out their own BIM strategies and how to build these families?

ALLY POLANCIC: I think I'll go back to perhaps having several options of LOD families available, because we're seeing more and more fast-track projects. On the Las Vegas stadium that I'm working on now, we are actually building a design model. We're kind of in a design-development phase, but we're actually building a construction-level model at the same time. And they're actually one model.

How the heck do you do that? I have no idea. So we're figuring it out, but as the architect and the engineer of record need kind of a design-level piece of equipment, but we have design assist subconsultants in our model with their own content that is a way higher LOD than what we need.

And we're really struggling, how do we get that content to show up correctly on our drawings? Because they're producing content to the level of shop drawings. But we're working towards a construction document package. So the more and more projects that kind of are moving at a faster pace, we're really going to need to have more options.

PRESENTER: When you're talking to manufacturers, for manufacturers, a lot of times they don't have the Revit knowledge so they reach out to somebody like us to help them with that strategy. And so a lot of times they're like, well, we know we need to be there. But how do we get there enough to be satisfying to our clients?

But basically, maybe not go and do that. Would you rather the-- if they were to just start off to have just the design-build-level model to start off with to satisfy, because it's the start of that process of the construction process, and at least have that. And then as they get satisfied with you, you get satisfied with them, to then build upon that to get to that next level. Would that be a better way for them to go for--

ALLY POLANCIC: Yeah, I think definitely it's better to start simple. You can always add, but the problem comes, I think, maybe most people in the room have downloaded a family from the internet, and it's just like chock full of stuff. And it's harder to modify something that's already been made by someone else than just to create it yourself.

PRESENTER: I totally agree.

ALLY POLANCIC: Yeah. So the simpler the better. And I think it's important to note, I'm mentioning a lot of examples of kind of like screws modeled and all of this geometry. But actually, the data that we need the most and that the owner needs the most is not just geometric data. It's kind of just like a spreadsheet data, right? So even if we had basic geometry families from the get go, all the way till the end, I think in terms of advancing that level of content, a lot of it doesn't really depend on inputting more detailed geometry.

PRESENTER: Sure.

ALLY POLANCIC: It's just like adding in parameter data.

PRESENTER: And do you find that when you're talking about different categories that is a little bit different when you're going from like a wall or a roof, there's not much needed for something like that. But when you get into like furniture or you get into pipe fittings or things like that, there's a different level of what's needed to display and get that model information out there.

ALLY POLANCIC: Yeah. Yeah. I think we were talking a little bit about clearances and how that is like a really-- and that can be kind of a geometric element as part of your family or even just in kind of a parameter somewhere where facilities management or even the contractor--

JIM CONGER: If you want to kind of point it out up there, I have the--

ALLY POLANCIC: Yeah. OK.

JIM CONGER: I have the valve up there.

ALLY POLANCIC: Yeah. And even if that data is in a spreadsheet, at least so you can communicate the clearances around elements or equipment, that's probably, I think, one of the most important categories to have.

PRESENTER: I think is we start to get into taking manufacturer's data, and we do take pieces from manufacturers, but they tend to be specific pieces of equipment. So I need a pump. I want the geometric data from that pump. And I want the flow data represented in there and the head pressure represented in that pump.

But I don't need all of the inner workings of the pump. So the first piece of equipment that I ever got from a vendor where they said, hey, can you evaluate our Revit model, it was the file size of a 300 square foot building for us. So let's just insert this scientific piece of equipment into our model. It doesn't make sense.

Unfortunately, we've all had problems where you hit that sync button and then you just sit there and you go like this for a while. We don't want people doing that. We want our models to run smoothly. And then we also need to recognize, just as Ally said, that for public projects like Ohio State or all of those higher-education facilities, these models are supposed to be vendor agnostic, in all honesty, because they need to be able to bid-- they need to be able to bid that project.

Now granted, this is the other big difference is that technology has sort of gotten ahead of where contracts have been from an A/E industry. So I hear from vendors, well, why aren't you using my content? And I'm looking at them going, you know, that's really still different from how things get bid. So those hard copy drawings or those PDFs, that's the bid document.

People don't get our model until after the bid is complete and someone's been assigned to the project. So now a construction manager or general contractor has taken on that project. There's now MEP subcontractors, and they're starting to pull together submittals. So now there's a manufacturer associated with that pump.

We like to build our families in a way that allows you to add that manufacturer later so that the parameter is there, and that's where downloading manufacturer content can be helpful to us. Can we strip out that manufacturer-- sorry, manufacturer who just gave me your content-- or can I use it in a way that allows me to just sort of hide that parameter, not schedule that parameter if I'm going to automate my schedules.

But we're looking at what Joe wants out of the model when he's using it. But there's also things that Ohio State wants out of the model, not necessarily downstream where Joe's using it, but what helps them during construction. Quality products help them during construction.

So I'm looking at how can Revit help me create a quality document and automating scheduling. If I have 400 air terminal devices in a project, which is not all that uncommon, unfortunately the old way we'd always miss one, right? We created this schedule. It's in Excel, and we brought it in, and we plopped it on a drawing.

And that RFI comes in that says, hey, in room 200, there's no schedule for this air terminal device. If I can use Revit to help make sure, because it's tagged, that it's now in the schedule. That's great. But now I just want the flow parameter minimums and maximums. I don't necessarily want the manufacturer. And I don't want the Venturi that's on the inside of the box. I just want the box.

JIM CONGER: And I have a question for you.

PRESENTER: A very simple box.

JIM CONGER: Is there actually, and this is for maybe Joe as well, is there actually a requirement that you leave the models generic from the owners when you're working on a public? Because obviously on the specification side, you have to open it up to competition, right? You can't have one proprietary unless it's unique in some way. But is there actually something out there that says you can't have a manufacturer's name in there?

PRESENTER: There is not, because they're typically bidding the PDF.

JIM CONGER: Yes.

PRESENTER: So as long as the PDF doesn't specifically say who this is, and there's also, you know, we can use the term basis of design and list a manufacturer, but then we still have to make sure that there's two to three others.

JIM CONGER: But that's in the spec.

PRESENTER: And that's in this spec. So we can keep some manufacturer names in that model. Again, we kind of choose not to, because then we start to hear back from contractors when they do get the models turned over.

JIM CONGER: OK.

PRESENTER: We got bids from so and so. I see this is from-- but we definitely do leave some.

JIM CONGER: Yeah. So there's nothing saying you can't put them in. You just choose not to.

PRESENTER: Right.

JIM CONGER: In your workflow.

PRESENTER: And for things that we would consider kind of commodity items, we definitely wouldn't include that.

JIM CONGER: Drywall.

PRESENTER: So pipe.

JIM CONGER: Yeah, pipe.

PRESENTER: You know, that would be considered a commodity to us. An air handling unit, on the other hand, especially a custom air handling unit, we get a vendor model every time we put in an air handling unit now. We don't ever build that.

JIM CONGER: Now, do you leave their name in or you strip their name out, but it's basically there?

PRESENTER: I think it depends on who's working on it, honestly.

JIM CONGER: Yeah. OK. OK. And your workflow-- Laura, obviously, is our engineer. So we're kind of skipping, and that's kind of what I wanted this panel to be is more of a conversation anyways. But when you're working with that actual piece, how often do you see-- I mean, in the engineering, do you have your own specifiers or do you leave that up to the architect?

LAURA HALVERSON: Oh, all our engineers specify all their own.

JIM CONGER: And they write the spec documents.

LAURA HALVERSON: Absolutely.

JIM CONGER: OK. OK.

LAURA HALVERSON: So you select a piece of equipment, you write that spec.

JIM CONGER: And are those same engineers the ones that are working on the models as well?

LAURA HALVERSON: Most of our modelers are designers who have moved up. They started with maybe a CAD background or a Revit training background and not necessarily engineers. And then we have entry level engineers that work in the model. That's continuing to change as people get older, because most of our engineers who are in their 30s and 40s and older don't have the Revit background to be efficient.

JIM CONGER: Yeah. So how do they--

LAURA HALVERSON: That includes myself, by the way. I'm not efficient.

JIM CONGER: How do you communicate your basis of design that's in the model to those engineers that are actually going to be writing those specifications?

LAURA HALVERSON: Well, that designer is kind of squarely working at the hip with the engineer who's doing the calculations and pulling all of that together. So if we do our calculations and select pieces of equipment, all of that is written out and shared with the designers that are working in Revit.

JIM CONGER: OK. Now, we kind of went over how you guys are using your models now. Where do you see yourself graduating to for future?

LAURA HALVERSON: I think that until we-- I think that until there's a contractual change on how models are used for bidding, which I don't see right now. So the big challenge with that is that if you are going to use your model for bidding, you are changing the legal aspects of an architect's and engineer's licensing and all of the AIA documents.

But until those models are used for bidding, I don't think that workflow is going to change significantly. I think, as Ally said, when there is more manufacturer content that we feel is not maybe too large in data size, we will continue to use more and more of that.

Although, also there is a schedule issue, right? So I call someone and say, hey, can I get your light fixture family? And it takes me like six weeks. Well, at that point, I need to have already filled out all of the light fixtures. So six weeks isn't going to work for me. So until that content is readily grabbable, it's not going to change, because we need to be there right away.

JIM CONGER: Have you seen that getting better?

LAURA HALVERSON: It is.

JIM CONGER: They're slowly getting there. That's why we need to have this conversations, so that more and more manufacturers realize they need to provide this. It may not be the panacea that they're hoping for. I build models, and I sell 500 times more units, but--

LAURA HALVERSON: Even ones that have content, I think Uponor is a little bit different right now, because they are pretty public about their content. Ones that have content, they say yes we can get it to you, and then I feel like they want to know everything about the project and what bid day is before they're going to allow me to use their content. Right? It's their information way of getting information about the project. So we're--

JIM CONGER: Which we understand, but we probably need to communicate to them, be open with it. Right?

LAURA HALVERSON: Yeah. If it's not open, I feel like we're going to use less and less of it.

JIM CONGER: Very good. Very good. All right. The build team. Dave.

DAVID JOSLIN: Yeah. Is this working?

JIM CONGER: Yes. So how are you guys using your models that you get turned over to you?

DAVID JOSLIN: First, just a couple of comments I wanted to tag onto what Laura was saying, like I would say one of the most important things is that the manufacturer content needs to be readily available. I don't want to have to go through form fields. I don't want to have to wait for someone to contact me. I don't need more emails or phone calls coming into my desk.

So if they want it to get used, it just needs to be there, because in my experience, there will be times where I'm coming in, we've got something that's been specked, something has been submitted, and we want to see the submitted equipment in the model for coordination purposes or any of the other uses that we're doing with the model.

And I'm probably going to talk a lot about in the framework of coordination, just because that's where a lot of this is most important. But knowing the bounds of that object, its size, its correct dimensions, like has been said before, we don't really need to see all the inner workings of something.

And I kind of see it as there's sort of like three types of the model. You're going to have the one that comes out of something like Inventor or SolidWorks that's what the guy actually needs to make that part.

JIM CONGER: Yeah.

DAVID JOSLIN: We don't really need that one all the time. There's some instances where that's the only thing that exists in like very specialty equipment where we may need that. But in general, we're looking for something that's just a little higher level of detail, that kind of has the extra bits and pieces that are going to potentially cause issues during coordination, it has all the right connection points that tell us what those are as well.

That way, we're not guessing which nubbin on the thing is for the electrical connection and which one is for like chilled water. That way, our trades can connect everything properly, get all of their radiuses, things like that fixed in. And we can make sure we're not hitting flanges against walls and other pieces of equipment. And then there's kind of the design content, which is like what they've been talking about before.

JIM CONGER: So do you see this now or do you see it in the future where if you have a bid document that has maybe three manufacturers on it, and you award the sub and the sub is maybe thinking about this one but can access the other two, and you get to the point where you have to deal with this, and you have a choice between the one manufacturer who has nothing and one that has really good models, do you see that weighing in their favor, to actually getting installed?

DAVID JOSLIN: That one's not necessarily my call to make. We kind of rely on the trade contractors to do that. And then again, what's accepted.

JIM CONGER: But you have to get the model, though, right?

DAVID JOSLIN: But model-wise what we tell them is we need the worst case scenario. If they don't know what it is yet, we need them to pick the biggest one and put that in, because we've got to make sure we've got space to fit everything into the building. The thing that's got the most restrictions, that's kind of what we're going to look for. That way, if it turns out something else is in there, we can swap it in, and then we now have the space to make that one work.

PRESENTER: The almighty dollar still rules, though. So if the subcontractor has bid this, they're getting whoever came in with the lowest price.

JIM CONGER: Of course. I'm just saying, if you have a similar price thing, and they can access it, some products are that way, right? A subcontractor, I can use this guy, this guy, or this guy. And I'm just wondering if maybe the manufacturer with the good models might have an edge.

DAVID JOSLIN: Yeah. The one thing I have seen about that that is tricky is if there is someone that has a model readily available, and that's one of the potentials, they are probably going to put that one in their model, because that's the easiest thing for them to do. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that's the actual one that's going to get used in the end. And that sometimes can cause problems.

JIM CONGER: Sure.

DAVID JOSLIN: So again, why we try to push on and they need to go with the worst case scenario, not necessarily the easiest thing. But yeah.

JIM CONGER: Now, does anybody else have questions for the contractor on the panel? Louise?

LOUISE BUCHANAN: Yeah. It's actually kind of for all of the designers, in a sense of when you get manufacturer content that is just bad or to a level of badness, if you will, do you ever--

JIM CONGER: Technical term.

LOUISE BUCHANAN: --portray that back to the manufacturer, that really if it had this one extra thing or didn't have this one extra thing that it would be a better family so that they are aware of this? Or do you just kind of just, Oh, I'll just do it myself and be done with it? Because I find that that conversation doesn't happen. So they don't know that they have bad content.

LAURA HALVERSON: Yeah.

LOUISE BUCHANAN: So I was just curious if that conversation happens.

LAURA HALVERSON: We've had that conversation specifically with air handling unit manufacturers, mostly because they're custom units. So we contact them with all the things that we want, and we're looking for all their detailed dimensions. And they'll provide us something.

And when they, again, try to put all of those components in, the chilled water coil doesn't need to be perfectly modeled. So the vendors that we work with that help us get that information, we've had that conversation there for basic pieces, you know, a light fixture. No, we just look at it and go, well, that didn't work. And then we draw something else.

DAVID JOSLIN: I would say, yeah, that time is usually the deciding factor there, something little like that, it's a lot easier just to remodel it and move on. Something bigger like an air handler, you do kind of have certain needs for that. And to Laura's effect, yeah, we don't need like all the little coils. I do need to know which sections of the thing are which and where those connections are.

PRESENTER: Sure.

ALLY POLANCIC: This may be a special case, but the most interaction that I've seen is with curtain wall manufacturers, because it's kind of like very specific. You know, and as the architect, you're kind of designing the reveals. And you know, you're kind of co-designing the profiles with them.

So on a lot of projects, I see curtain wall manufacturers and contractors working very closely with the architects and actually collaborating on BIM standards for that purpose, because sometimes we will use their model and not kind of rebuild our own.

PRESENTER: Sure. Absolutely.

JIM CONGER: Now, do you ever use the models for estimating?

DAVID JOSLIN: Yes.

JIM CONGER: Yes?

PRESENTER: And we tell them not to.

DAVID JOSLIN: This is where a whole other discussion like the LOD thing comes into play and if that's actually been discussed. And from my perspective, Gilbane, we're a large [INAUDIBLE] contractor, so were not necessarily-- we're trying to stay out of design-bid-build situations as much as we can.

We much prefer being able to come in and assist the design team a little bit earlier, in which case then there's a little more fluidity in terms of model sharing. But yeah, I would say engineer's models get used for estimating much less than say like the architectural, where we're looking at square footages and like how many things do we have?

PRESENTER: Are there any kind of general guidelines that you'd give the architect in terms of being able to use the model content for cost estimating or clash detection? Because sometimes, if certain materials aren't broken out or organized in the correct way in a family or in the model, you won't be able to estimate them correctly or kind of like clash them correctly.

DAVID JOSLIN: Yeah. So it's kind of very basic things is, as much as possible, use the Revit category to the model the thing. You'd be surprised how many ceilings we find that are made as roofs and how many floors have been used as roofs and as ceilings, and like--

PRESENTER: I've seen escalators as railing families.

DAVID JOSLIN: Yeah, that sort of thing, like if at all possible, use the proper category, because that makes it a whole lot easier for us.

PRESENTER: Well, that actually brings up a good conversation on escalators. What would you classify that as? Because you wouldn't want it to be generic content, but is specialty equipment good?

PRESENTER: Yeah.

PRESENTER: Or like you know, should it be something else?

PRESENTER: Conveyance.

DAVID JOSLIN: Yeah, because I don't think there's a conveyance category in Revit yet. But I would say either a generic model with a subcategory used. Like subcategories or like the greatest hidden secret in Revit. They need to be used more.

PRESENTER: That's a good point.

DAVID JOSLIN: Or specialty equipment with like a subcategory. And depending on what you want your model to be able to do, there's like some tricks with what's hard coded in Revit, because specialty equipment won't cut in sections and things like that, whereas the generic models will.

PRESENTER: The generic models will.

DAVID JOSLIN: So depending on how you want it to look, pick between those two. But using the right category, using subcategories. And if it's not there, we can't count it. So some things that we'll often see that get skipped are like soffet walls, like the faces of the soffet wall, because someone's only looking at it in the plan or in the ceiling plan. So they'll draw all the ceilings.

They're like, yeah, I marked that as separate elevations, but you go flying around in the model, and there's a huge gap right there. So little things like that can sometimes throw stuff off. But the big ones are using the proper categories so we can find it. And if it's not there, we can't count it.

PRESENTER: Yeah.

DAVID JOSLIN: So even if it's just a box that says it's a chair or something like that, is better than nothing or just like importing a 2D CAD thing which, slight tangent, but back on something that was talked about before in terms of how manufacturers are building the model is do it in Revit. I don't want to see something from like 10 years ago done in CAD that's been imported into Revit and is now being passed off as a Revit family.

[APPLAUSE]

I think I struck a chord with that one, which I know is like one of the biggest things for you guys in terms of model size, because if it is CAD-based or another thing that's been imported into Revit, those are the worst offenders for model size and bogging down the model.

PRESENTER: I find that also what's true is, even when you-- because a lot of with manufacturers, they have fabrication models. So they do it in Inventor or SolidWorks, and there's this great little export that exports with SAT file, but then the SAT file can be embedded into a Revit file, and here you go. And that just makes it large and clunky.

And you can't change-- like if it's something that has multiple colors, you can't change the color of it. There's all kinds of problems. So it's almost like I'm sorry to tell you, but it makes better sense to the designers to have the design-ready model built as a Revit element separate from their fabrication model.

PRESENTER: Yeah. And we need to communicate that, because believe me, I work with a lot of manufacturers. And they think that that's fine, because it seems fine to them, because they don't know Revit. They don't have to deal with it, right? So they think that. So that's something that we need to definitely communicate.

PRESENTER: Yeah. And there is a time and place for that model or the shell of it. And sometimes, like when that's the only thing available, we'll make use of that. But ideally, if the manufacturer is providing this content, they can have that one. But then make one that's all Revit geometry.

PRESENTER: Yeah. How about details? You know, the plan details. I mean, a lot of times they're going to try to bring those in from a DWU file, right? Because they have those from 20 years ago. Is that a hassle as well? How do you guys deal with those? Would you rather them do it in Revit?

PRESENTER: Heck yeah.

PRESENTER: Yes.

PRESENTER: If we're going to use it.

PRESENTER: Yeah. If we're going to use it. Yeah.

PRESENTER: Yeah.

JIM CONGER: Yeah, obviously not all products. What would you say the biggest types of products that need that detailing for plans?

PRESENTER: Working in small detail package or something like that. I mean, penetration objects probably, that's penetrating, whether it be walls or roofs, things like that most likely would need like a nice install detail package. That would be nice to have in Revit, that they can include in the projects. It would be my opinion.

PRESENTER: I think that's where, going back to the estimating question that you asked, if someone says, boy, but I just took it all out of the model, that's where the design team is pretty sensitive, right? Because there's things we need to get shown in scale view on the floor plan, and you don't know how many penetrations there are when you do that, right?

So we have a detail that shows this fire-rated penetration, and it's a detail. You can't say, oh, there's 642 of those in the model, because we're not going to model-- we're not going to take that detail and insert it into every one of those locations. We're going to draw a detail just like we did before and say where you penetrate the floor, this is what happens.