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Revitize Your CAD Details: Use Your Existing CAD Details in Revit

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Description

You've been using AutoCAD software to produce your drawings for some time, and you have a huge library of details. Now that you're moving to Revit software, what happens to all these details? You don't want to just trash them, and you don't want to recreate them in Revit. In this class, we'll look at the next step in your transition to Revit. We'll see how you can still use those details right in your Revit projects straight from AutoCAD. We'll explore how we can bring those existing details into Revit and have them be referenced correctly in our projects as if they were created there. We'll even look (when you have time) at how to Revit-ize your AutoCAD details to start building a true Revit detail library. So, if not being able to use your details is holding you back from switching to Revit—or you're just not sure how to do it—don't let that stop you. You don't have to throw them out—they're still good.

Key Learnings

  • Learn how to use AutoCAD details in Revit.
  • Learn how to use drafting views in Revit with CAD.
  • Learn how to Revitize an AutoCAD detail.

Speaker

  • Avatar for Tom Tobin
    Tom Tobin
    Tom Tobin is an exceedingly experienced Building Information Modeling (BIM) / CAD / project manager who has demonstrated the ability to lead teams of design professionals in the highly competitive field of architecture and building systems. An early adopter of digital technology, Tobin's strong technical qualifications have been built on a track record of years of hands-on use and implementation of technology in many diverse production environments. His background in industry helps him to optimize the use of design technologies to improve workflow and ensure a positive return on technology investments. Tobin has been involved with working on Space Management Solutions for naval facilities, and he is currently working with architectural firms, working with a wide variety of BIM projects. Tobin also holds professional certifications in both AutoCAD Architecture software and Revit Architecture software, & is a Autodesk Certified Instructor
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Transcript

TOM TOBIN: Well, good afternoon. And thank you for attending this session at Autodesk University. This class is "Revitizing your CAD Details." Believe it or not, your existing CAD details are still good. We can utilize them in Revit. So we're going to talk about the details in life and using Revit that are going to help us get through this.

So I know that this is one of the first sessions here, so sit back. I'm hoping I'm going to set the bar high for you so that you'll judge all the other classes that you take the rest of this week by this one.

Congratulations to those of you who have professional AIA members, and you want learning credits for this. Just by watching or attending this class-- that's right-- you get learning credits. So there's nothing better than getting passive learning credits as we go through, but hopefully you will still learned something new.

So let's talk a little bit about me. It's one of my favorite subjects to talk about. Now, so why am I here? So I have been actually speaking at Autodesk since '06. The only time I didn't was a couple of years that they were remote, due to COVID. So I've been teaching some classes in some form or another for quite a while now.

I actually started-- it's going to give you an insight as to how old I actually am, if the gray hair didn't show that enough. I actually started out on Ink and Mylar doing pen bar drafting. That's right, I started out hand drafting in the field of architecture.

I since worked on Intergraph MicroStation, which is kind of the same side of the coin, right? Slightly different, but. Bentley products. Went into something called Eris, which I would say would be, like, 1990s. Revit ran on top of Unix-- was really a good product for its time. I think it's still out there. Unfortunately, the last time I saw, it still looked like it did in the 1990s.

First version of AutoCAD ever touched, I believe is '10. And I immediately went into the add-on package for architecture, which became AutoCAD architectural desktop and then became AutoCAD Architecture. Even dipped my toe in the Esri world for a while, doing a little bit of ArcGIS.

Why is this important? So I started in hand drafting, and I've worked on several platforms over the course of my career. And when I made the movement into the CAD world and worked on these different platforms, I really believe that once you know one CAD platform, you know them all. So kind of working through it that way.

And I spent most of my career in industry, working in architectural firms initially as a draftsman production person, moved in more into the technology side, and became involved with being a CAD manager, BIM manager. This is actually my second time-- depending on how you count, might be my third time-- behind the consultant desk. I worked for Avtech solutions in the early 2000, which later merged and became Imaginet, which, who I'm with now.

In the '90s there, I worked in Ohio for a company called Northeast CAD, and that's where I was working with Eris. But as I mentioned, I spent most of my time doing exactly what you're doing and been on that side of the desk. So I've got some knowledge to bring to you and to talk about how we want to move forward and learn more about the product.

So some of the things we're going to learn today, we're going to understand how we can use the AutoCAD. Now, really it's any CAD details, but it's going to come from more of an AutoCAD viewpoint here. How we can use our existing CAD details in Revit; how to use the drafting views.

And probably should have updated this slide here a little bit because we're not only going to do it with drafting views, we're going to do this with plan and elevation views as well. So that's a little different. We're going to talk about importing and linking and how to revitize our details, our CAD details as we go through.

Now, just to let you know, this class is listed as an intermediate class, but it really borders on beginner/intermediate. So maybe it's some things that you may already know. Hopefully, there's going to be some things that you don't know, and that you're going to pick up on.

As with any class that we ever do, there are some housekeeping items in this video. You probably don't have to worry about this so much because you're sitting at your desk right now. But typically, we want to save the questions till the end, make sure that we're not disturbing other people.

We don't have to worry about that today. So let's go ahead and jump right into this. Again, this is "Revitize your CAD Details-- Existing CAD Details and Use Them Inside of Revit." I mean, ultimately, it's all about the details.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I actually have been teaching a class since 2006 at Autodesk University. And being a consultant, I've taught many other classes or lectured on other ideas. And the theme of just about everything. I will talk about-- I'll work this in some way or another-- and that's PMA, a Positive Mental Attitude.

This is something that my father really brought home to me big time as I was growing up. I was the youngest of seven. And believe me, when you're the youngest of seven, and you've got three older brothers, you need to have a good attitude about things. That's right.

So attitude is everything. And so because you're looking at how to use your existing CAD details inside of Revit, what that really means is that you're still sort of going through the transition period of moving your firm or your department into the Revit universe. And your attitude is vitally important.

You project architects out there. It's important. You BIM managers, it's definitely important, and even the end users. So if you have a bad attitude-- if as the BIM manager, you have a bad attitude, and you really don't want to do this-- you're doing this because you're forced to do it because the deliverable has to be in Revit-- your end users are going to pick up on your attitude, and you're going to be-- they're going to kick and scream all the way to it.

Same thing with the end users. If their coworkers see that they have particular problems-- a bad attitude can really catch fire. It's like that old song, "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch." And again, showing my age. And I don't know how many of you got the Osmond reference there, but we have to really pay attention and have a positive mental attitude in transitioning to Revit and how we look at this monstrous task of taking all of our existing CAD details that we have.

I mean, we sure do have a lot of them, right? If you're like any other architectural firm over the years, you've got hundreds of standard CAD details that you use from project to project. I mean, it's taken years to develop these and put them together. I don't want to just waste them, right?

I mean, now what am I supposed to do? I've got all of these details. I mean, do I trash them? I mean, well, yeah, I guess so. Well, no, not yet. And that's the reality.

What we want to get to is a place where we don't need them anymore. Our goal is to be 100% Revit at some point or another. Again, I told you that I started out manually drafting. And at that point in time, we had whole sheets of details that were in our flat files.

We had binders with details on acetate. We take them over to the copier and make a copy of them on sticky back. And then we'd stick them onto the plans and run them through our ammonia blueprint machine, for those of you who remember the old ammonia blueprint machines. But eventually, those went by the wayside. And yes, at that point, we had to absolutely redraw all of these and use them. We couldn't reuse really too much as we move forward, unless we wanted to do that whole sticky back thing.

But the reality is that these details are still good. They have some value to them. We've used them from job to job. They work properly. We know we may have-- hopefully, we have sort of a location on our server that has all of our standard details in it and in a couple of DWGs so that we can work through. So they still have value, and they still can be utilized.

One thing I want to make clear before we get into the nitty gritty of how we're going to do that is that what this class is-- I already told you that it's a beginner/intermediate. So it expects that how to use Revit, but you may not know everything on how to use Revit.

But we're also talking about 2D detailing only here. We're not talking about the details that we create from the 3D geometry, the model itself. We're talking about drafting views here, 2D information.

The 3D information is important, but it's a different class. It's a different subject that we could talk about. We're only going to be focusing on 2D approaches. So if that's not what you're looking for, I apologize. And you can find a different class. There's still plenty of time to hop into one of your other bookmarked classes.

I won't take it personally, unless all of you get up and walk out. I'll take that kind of personally. But we're looking at 2D solutions here.

So I'd like to impart a little bit of wisdom as we get into this. The first step towards change is awareness. The second step is, of course, acceptance. You guys are all aware of the change. It's an ever-changing industry, and I'm not just talking about the newest release.

What new releases did they change in here? What did they fix? What did they break? What I'm talking about when you're switching from one platform to another, that's a big change.

And you're trying to find out more. That's not only why you're in this class, but you're attending Autodesk University itself. And so this goes right back to that PMA thing I was talking about. This has to do with acceptance.

So we accept that we're going down this path. We're going to have a great attitude about it. And now we're going to have some fun, and we're going to learn some things, and we're going to get into this.

So I've got my CAD details. What to do, what to do, what to do? OK, how do I work with these? Again, we're talking about 2D details.

So there are three major approaches to how we work with our standard typical details within Revit, to get these CAD details into Revit. So we're going to talk about three basic approaches here-- really, three and a half or three and three quarters, all right?

So we have approach 1. We redraw them, OK? Just like I said when the industry moved off the boards onto CAD at some point or another, all these details had to be redrawn from scratch. So this is the perfect world.

Every firm has this kind of time. Like I said, I worked in industry for years. And I know that all we were doing is we would just finish up a job way ahead of schedule, and we would just be looking for something to do until it was time to leisurely start the next project and bring that in way ahead of time and under budget. And everything was worry-free.

Never any fires that we had to worry about. No. Every firm does not have this kind of time. I understand that. This is the perfect world. So if we have the time to do this, this would be great. It also would be really bad because that means I don't have other projects that I'm trying to get out.

I like to use a little magical word, and that's called intern-- intern, summer intern, OK? So you bring an intern in, and you can have them redraw all these from scratch. And then you're going to use detailed components.

You're going to use smart line details. You're going to do tagging. They're just going to be absolutely beautiful, way beyond line, circles, and arcs, OK? That's the perfect world.

The next approach is approach 2 and is to link them or import them, to use them as they are. I actually have two options for this one. That's why I said, this is really three and three quarters or three and a half approaches here. So basically, we can link these CAD files in, and we can use them kind of like xrefs as we work through this.

But I also have another option under that. That's sort of out-of-the-box, the way that Autodesk says we should do this. We'll look at that approach 1 and approach 2. They're like xrefs. But the reality is, is that we don't want to live with this in perpetuity. This is a short-term solution.

Using our existing CAD details is great, and I want to help get over the hump as we are moving towards a fully Revit implementation and full Revit office. OK, so this is just to get this out the door because we got to get this project done, and I don't have time to redraw a whole bunch of details that I already have drawn in AutoCAD anyways.

OK. Option 2 here is kind of exciting. I think it's going to be something that you haven't seen-- at least I hope you haven't seen before. It's a whole different approach as how to link these files in.

And then approach 3 is to actually revitize the CAD detail itself. It's not quite the perfect world as to where we are redrawing it from scratch, but this is a step above what we had to do again when we moved from the boards to CAD itself. We didn't have this option.

So we can bring in the CAD file, and we can trace over it. We can turn the objects into Revit objects, revitize ties the CAD detail itself. So even at that point, it has value to us. That CAD detail has value and how we can use it, and how we can help it turn into Revit details for us.

So we're going to look at all-- well, I'm going to say, all three of these approaches. But now that I said that, I'm immediately going to tell you that I just lied, and were not going to look at approach 1 at all. I'm not going to tell you how to draw a brand new detail.

You know how to draw a brand new detail. And if you don't, come see me after class, and we'll talk about it because you need some additional training as you move into Revit, OK?

We're going to start looking at approach 2. Approach 1 is the perfect world. We're going to draw the detail from scratch, and everything's going to be good, OK? We're going to start right in approach 2, and we're going to look at option 1.

Now, option 1 of linking, this is going to be more of the traditional method. If you're not aware, there is sort of a traditional method or best practices method as to how Autodesk thinks that maybe you should do this. Between option 1 and option 2. it depends on where you want to do your work.

Do you want to do your work up front, or do you want to do more work in the back end? I think in this approach, the work up front is a little more troublesome, little harder to work with. So in this case, we're going to look at this. We're going to be using drafting views and linking files here.

So here is option 1. And basically, I've got this little building here. And when we're working in AutoCAD, typically we have all of our details in one DWG. If they're of the same size, maybe we'll have them in other ones.

To use this method in Revit, this detail has to be in a DWG all its own. So that's what I'm talking about, work upfront. So if I've got a file that has a dozen or more details in it, I have to duplicate that and make it so I just have this detail in this DWG. So here it is.

And then I may purge out all the extra layers. I may want to check fonts. I want to do all kinds of stuff and make sure that this file is set just right, OK? So that's doing that work upfront as I was talking about.

So now when I come into Revit, I can link this one DWG into a drafting view. And so in this case, I have a line here in my factory showing typical control joint. So I'm going to go up to View.

Now this should-- some of you should already know how to do this. Maybe some of you don't. But I'm going to create a drafting view, and I'm going to give it the typical floor control joint name.

Now, what's important here is that when I set the scale, because I'm xreffing or referencing in this detail, and the scale was already set in AutoCAD-- this isn't annotated now. So I have to make sure I've got the scale set properly for this detail. So in this case, it is three quarters of an inch equals a foot. And I can go ahead and set that.

So it then creates my blank drafting view, as you would expect. If I were creating this detail from scratch, I would just simply start adding my annotation, my detailed components, and drawing this. But because I'm going to use my existing CAD detail, I'm going to go up to Insert, and I'm going to link it.

Now, I could import it. There are pros and cons to both of these. I'm going to tell you right now, Revit prefers that we actually link the file. As far as the interface or the procedure of doing this, it's exactly the same. So however I link it would be the same way I would import it.

We'll talk a little bit more about importing. We get what I call AutoCAD blowback when we import. There's pros and cons. We'll talk about that in a little bit.

You can see there's lots of different formats that we can link or import here. My last stint in an architectural firm, we were actually running MicroStation and transitioning into Revit, so we had DGNs. I can tell you from personal experience, even though I can bring a DGN natively into Revit, don't do it. Now, that was a few years ago. They may have fixed this, but it would bring Revit to a crawl.

So in MicroStation, there's a way to just say save As a DWG. So if you just save the file as a DWG, you're going to save yourself a lot of headache if you're working with anybody who's using MicroStation.

Now, typically when I link a CAD file, I usually like to preserve the colors. Best practices say turn it black and white so it looks like every other Revit detail. I like to preserve it, and I like to set my layers to be visible or specific. But I need to make sure if I do specific, that everything was drawn on the right level.

Again, that has to do one layer. That has to do with creating these things properly and doing that work upfront. So very simply, I've gone ahead and I've linked it. And it's shown right up, and there it is in my file.

You can see in the xref manager-- well, it's not an xref manager. But in my managed links that I can see it here, and I can do all the things I could do in an xref manager. I can reload it from. I can remove it. I can load others. I can tell it not to display or whatnot.

So now, for all intents and purposes, except for the fact that I can't edit this-- it's static-- it's like any other drafting view that has been created inside of Revit. So at this point, it's easy enough to simply just go in and create my detail.

Put a section in here, cross my floor control joint, make sure I'm using a detail. And make sure, though, up on the ribbon-- I always forget to do this myself-- make sure that you click the Reference Other View when we're doing this, OK? Vitally important.

All right, so we do that. Again, this is like any other drafting that you may have created. And I'm just going to go down and hit the typical control joint and put this in here. And then I double click, just like I would on any other Revit detail. And voila, there it is.

So I've got Revit functionality now with a CAD detail that I'm working with. So at this point, everything works the way that you would expect it to work. If I put it on a sheet, it's going to fill the head of the callout out properly the way that we would want it to. So all of this is pretty standard at this point.

So again, what we're looking at is the ability to use our existing CAD detail and bring it in to Revit. But the downside to this is that it has to absolutely be in its own DWG. Why is that? Because in a drafting view, I can't crop. And that's really the bottom line of this.

So that's why the DWG has to be in its own file, because, otherwise, if it's got all those other details in there with it, and I bring it into my drafting view, I'm going to see them all. I've got no way to change it. So again, it reacts just like any other Revit detail now.

If I remove it from a sheet, the head goes blank. I put it on another sheet, and the head updates. So this is exactly what I want to have happen here and how I want this bad boy to work.

Now, when I link, I can't really control how it comes in. So I may want this to look a little bit better in this view. So I can go to my visibility graphics, and I can override the way this looks.

Now, I could maybe do this with a view template and change some of these things, create an object style list. I'm using these same layers over and over again as they come in. But I can come in here, and I can edit this.

Now, I wouldn't want to have to do this for every single CAD detail I would bring in. That's why I would try to create some sort of mechanism, whether, like I said, it's a view template or whatnot. I am not a Dynamo guy, but we could probably create a Dynamo script that would take care of this for us.

And just because color means nothing here-- now, if I were importing it, I could have created a file that actually maps the colors to particular pens. We can do that type of thing. And so we can make this look pretty good as we're bringing this in. So just realize that there may be a little bit of work that you might have to do to this file after everything is said and done, depending on how you want to look at it.

One of the things I have learned is that, look, I did start out on hand drafting. And believe me, I believe that pen line weights are vitally important. I mean, that's just how I was brought into the industry. But the bottom line is, is that is it going to be built wrong if I didn't go through and change those pen weights? And I don't think it would have been, but that's up for each of you to decide what you want to do.

So that's approach 1. Or I'm sorry, that's approach 2, option 1. And so basically now, what we're looking at, we're going to look at approach 2, option 2. And this, I hope, is something new to you that you haven't seen.

That first approach, that was sort of a way that we kind of worked through that. Autodesk recommends that's the way you do it. But in this approach, instead of doing all that work up front, where we put it into a DWG, and maybe we blow away everything except for the detail that we want, and we copy it and clean up the layers and the levels and all that kind of stuff, depending on whether it's a DGN or a DWG as we're working through it, we can take care of all that up front; or we can do it on the back end inside of Revit using Revit tools.

And I think the tools in Revit for doing this are much friendlier, much easier. And I can bring in the whole enchilada, so to speak. So I don't have to put this in its own DWG.

But the caveat to this is I'm not going to be working with drafting views, because, remember, in drafting views, I can't crop. So what we're going to do here in the same building-- what we're going to do here is we're going to look at my DWG.

It's got multiple details in it, all inch and a half details here. These are JM details. I have another file that's got a whole bunch of inch-and-a-half head details in it. So if I were to do the first method, I'd have to break each one of these details out into its own DWG. Well, I don't want to have to do that.

Basically, what we're going to do-- and we're not going to use drafting views. Anything that would be a plan detail we're going to create a plan view for. And anything that would be a vertical detail, we're going to create a vertical detail.

OK, I've got all this worked out in the handout. So if you've already downloaded those handouts and looked at them, information is in there. So the secret to this is that we're going to create a new plan for you.

So I'm going to go to my views, Plan Views. And I want this to be on the first floor level. I just want everything to be on level 1. So I'm going to uncheck Duplicate Existing Levels or Views, and I'm just going to duplicate level 1.

Now, I could have just gone over to the browser, right, clicked, and duplicated it that way, but I just wanted to go through that process. So if you were not aware that you could uncheck that box in the Duplicate Views, you now are aware that you can do that.

So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to rename this view. And I'm going to rename it to be inch and a half doorjamb details, OK? So now I know that it's different.

The second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to change the scale of the view so that it actually is an inch and a half equals a foot scale. Now, this is for me, OK, because I like to work in my browser. I usually have some form of discipline for my organization, and whether I've edited or it's right out of the box.

But I like to keep things organized, helps me keep it straight. So I'm just going to duplicate the type. So it's a floor plan type. I'm just going to duplicate it. I'm going to call it details.

And that's just going to change its organization in the browser a little bit. So it's away from my floor plans because I don't want to mess my building up when I'm doing this, OK? So now I've got the view all set. I've got it at the right scale. All I have to do now is link in my jam details, all of them, OK?

So I'm just going to bring in the file that's got all those dozen plus details in it. And in this case, I'm not going to worry about doing the-- keep the colors the same. I'm just going to keep it black and white. That's fine. I'm going to do an extense. And there it is.

Now, here's what's important. I don't want this CAD file to be in my plan. In my case, I'm lucky. I've got a small little building here. And when the CAD file came in, it was way out of the way. So all I have to do is crop it down.

This, if you've got a big footprint to your building, you may have to move this CAD detail file. We don't want it to interfere with our design in any form or fashion. So now I've got it cropped down. I can look at it.

Now, here's the secret to this. If you haven't already guessed it, here is the secret. The secret is, is we're now going to duplicate this view as a dependent view. And that's just using basic Revit tools here, but it allows us to take this file that has dozens of details on it and basically create its own DWG like we were doing before. So create its own viewport.

So I'm going to duplicate as a dependent. I'm going to give it its name. We'll do this one as gyp wallboard door jam. And then I'll duplicate it as a dependent again. Again, I find this a lot easier to be doing this in Revit than to be doing this in AutoCAD and then trying to link at that point.

So we'll make this one the CMU door jam. So you're pretty much getting the idea now of how this works, right? So again, these are planned details. So we're just going to crop it down so we get the detail that we want now. So creating its own viewport for lack of a better term.

And then it is set, and it's all together. So here is my detail. Now, these actually came from MircoStation. That's why they look a little different here. I didn't go through trying to clean this up. Like I said, I should have, but I didn't clean this up. But you get the idea of how this works. So it's very straightforward, just sort of putting this together. And then I can do the exact same thing for the gyp wall board.

And like I said, I just find doing this inside of Revit was a lot easier than doing it in AutoCAD and trying to set things up and then create all of those detail drafting views and whatnot. So here's my detail. I didn't need to have the title because once I bring in and place it on the sheet, Revit's going to put those titles on for me.

So now that I've got these views created, it's as simple as going to my floorplan again. And I'm just going to create my detail callout. OK, so just come in. And this is basically Revit 101 again. As we are talking about it, we're just going to reference another view.

As we come in here, we're going to pick that view. And then as we pick that view, we are going to then place it, the callout, on our sheet, adjust it a little bit here. I should have made these that they don't say similar because apparently that bothered me when I was doing it, and I felt the need to remove it.

Double click on it. It takes me to that detail, and I can do the exact same thing for the Gypsum wallboard. So again, at this point, the real magic was is that we created the details as planned views. And then we can create the callouts accordingly doing that.

All right, so I said that we can also do this with vertical views. And this is the difference is that vertical details, so that we can use them to call out properly, they have to be created in a vertical plan. So that means either an elevation or building section of some kind.

Now, what I would have to do is I would have to go through, and I'd have to go back to my plan view and maybe put some elevation callouts in or another section. I've got that written out in the handout as to how you can do that and hide those and all that fun stuff. But the easiest way to do this is to simply come to your elevation view. In your browser, right click and duplicate it. OK, so I've just duplicated that.

And now I'm going to go through the exact same process as I went through with the plan views. I'm simply going to give it a new name. I'm going to change it, scale accordingly. I will go over and I will duplicate its type so that it's organized on my browser properly.

Probably did not need to leave the word elevations in there because it is going to put that prefix in front of it. But now I have that detail. And I can go through and create the additional details by linking in my head details, OK?

So this view is ready to have the CAD file inserted into it. So I'm simply going to go up to Insert again. This is what we've done before. And I'm going to pick the head DWGs. And I could have picked one that has multiples in it. That would be OK, too. It really wouldn't matter at that point.

Again, it's out of the way of my design, which is what I want. I don't want it in the way of my plan, my design, my building. So if I have to move it, I can. And I'm just going to crop this guy down just like I did before and continue on doing this same process.

So I can duplicate as the dependent, create that, then can go through and continue to create this, prop it down, give it its name, place it on a sheet, do the callout. I didn't think you needed to see how to do all that again. So it's all pretty straightforward.

But I think that's kind of an exciting way to do this. Now, It was actually sort of born out of the idea- and this would probably be a good topic for a class on that-- if you have a multiple apartment buildings that would be all sharing the same details, how do you get them all put into one site and then sharing those same details?

And so that was this idea so that you could have a separate detail file. And we're going to talk about that in a little bit here about creating a container file of our details, and then have them in each of those buildings. And so that was one way of doing it. I think it might be a good idea for another class, but it works with Revit details. That way, I thought it would work just as well with referencing in our CAD details.

So that is approach 2, linking the CAD details. Whether we use the option 1, where we do the work up front, and we sort of follow Autodesk standards of putting that DWG in its own file or that detail in its own DWG file. And then we create the drafting view, and we link it in that way.

Or we do approach or-- for approach 2, option 2, where we can bring all of those CAD details in. And we can do it using plan views and elevation views or vertical views, as the case may be.

And that brings us to approach 3, which is revitizing this detail. So revitizing the detail is like redrawing it, but it's using the existing CAD detail to help us get there. So basically, what I'm doing is I'm saying, look, here's that approach 1. Here's that CAD detail. It's in the DWG all by itself, although it doesn't have to be in one all by itself.

But the big trick here is that if you're going to do this in a project, do not do it in your active project. I repeat, do not do this in your active project. Because I mentioned that when you import-- and that's what we're going to have to do here.

You're going to import. You're going to get Revit-- or AutoCAD blowback, which is going to be extra line patterns in there and fonts and details. And unless you want to do a deep dive to try to get them out of your project, Rev is going to have to look at all that, and it's going to slow things up.

So what we're going to do is we're going to use your template. And I've created a new project. This is just a washing machine project. This is a junk file. This is just where I want to bring it into. So if I get extraneous stuff in here, I don't care.

So I'm using basically option 1 of approach 2. I've started a new project using my office template. I've created the drafting view. I've given it a name, and I've given it a scale. And now instead of linking, I'm going to import it. And

I have to import it. The interface is the same, but I have to import it because importing gives me a couple of more options here when I'm trying to revitizing something that linking does not. So I'm going to pick that same file that I brought in before. I'm just going to leave everything the way it is, make it visible layers only, and bring that bad boy in.

So here's my file. It's in my drafting view. Now, I have an option here, so we'll start with option 1. This is why it still has some value. Revit is going to let me trace it, and I can use Revit tools to do that-- like, use my pick line tool to trace this bad boy.

So all I have to do is come through, and I can just start picking Revit objects or the CAD objects, and it becomes Revit, all right? It's not terrible. OK, It is a little time consuming. And that also means, though, that I have to come in here and annotate it, make sure I pick the right annotation font size and start typing this stuff in.

And to be perfectly honest, that's way too much work for me. Coming from the hand drafting world, we did our best to find out how to shortcut everything. So I don't want to type all that in. Especially if it's already typed there in CAD for me, why can't I use that in some form or another?

So because I've imported this with-- I selected now on my ribbon-- I have the ability to do what most AutoCAD people love to do, and that is to explode, explode it. OK, so now I can explode this detail, all right? So I can take care of that.

I'm just going to delete this upper one so that I can just show you how to revitize the lower one. This is just about time, OK? So at this point, I've got a whole bunch of objects in here. This is the blowback stuff whenever you import something, especially if you explode it, all right?

So I've got all kinds of different objects in here. They're all AutoCAD. Revit is going to have to look at it. I'm just going to select them all. And you can see that it's got the layer name in front of it for all these lines. So I can go ahead and just pick these lines that are AutoCAD lines. And I can then just change them to Revit.

Now, I can do this all at once. I'm just going to make this simple on myself. I'm not going to worry about line weights, and I'm just going to make them all medium lines.

So just like that, I have created this, and they're all-- these lines are done. They're medium lines. And now I'm going to pick the crosshatch that came in, and I'm going to change it to a Revit-filled region. You can see that it actually has the drawing name in there, which I don't want to have, and I'm just going to change it to concrete, Revit concrete.

So very quickly, I am revitizing this detail, all right? Now, I can do the same thing with the text. It has the drawing name as well. I can select all the text at once, and I can change it to Revit text. OK, I didn't want to have to retype all this in, so this is much easier as well.

So now I'm just going to finish up cleaning up. Now, this is a simple detail. So this is pretty straightforward, easy to do. Some details are more complicated than others and can take more time. Again, intern. Use that word, intern-- can help you through this, all right?

I don't mean that as a punishment or anything, but it's a great tool for them to learn how Revit works, some of the Revit tools. Get your libraries up to date and get moving forward. So at this point, when I did explode it, it all exploded the dimensions all the way down as well. So I had to get rid of all of that line work. Simple enough, though, they just come back in and add some Revit dimensions.

So as you can see, very quickly, I'm able to grab these pieces, depending on what your office standards are, and create this detail or revitize this detail. As I said, it still has value, right? I'm changing it to be Revit now. So I don't have to redraw this from scratch.

So that is real value here that I'm still getting out of that CAD detail. It was still good, right? So here it is. I've completely revitized this detail. Now to make sure I usually put a crossing window around the whole thing, I look at the filter. And I make sure that everything I'm looking at is a Revit component of some type or another.

Now, depending on how I did this, typically, I opened up my junk file, my new file, in the same session of Revit that my project is in. I said, do not do it in your project file. So at this point, all I have to do in my junk file, or my washing machine file, is right click on the detail and then copy to the clipboard, and then come into my project file and just paste it.

It's going to say, hey, you've got text in here. It has the same name and size. I'll use the one that's in this file, which is exactly what I wanted to do. And there is my detail, a complete revitized detail that is ready for me to use inside of my Revit project.

Now, at this point, I can blow this file away if I want to. This is the one I just used as a temporary. I don't need to save it, unless you want to wash more details through it. So that is revitizing the detail. Didn't want to get too deep into this, but just like what we did when we linked the CAD detail before, I still have to come in here.

And before I place the detail section, reference another view, pick that view. And now we're good. And there is the detail, and I can place it on a sheet. So that is revitizing the detail.

So three main methodologies to how we want to do this, OK? Approach 1-- redraw from scratch to begin with, using particular detail components and try to make detailed lines so we can use tagging and keep everything. Give us opportunities for this to be as intelligent as possible, even though it's 2D. If you're using AutoCAD Architecture, you should already be familiar with detailed components and how that works. I actually think they might have them in AutoCAD as well. So that is pretty simple.

Approach 3-- revitizing that detail, tracing over it, turning everything into Revit objects. You could have added Revit detail components to that as well, or you could keep it line, circles, and arcs. In the end, we don't want just line, circles, and arcs for our details. But to be perfectly honest, there's nothing wrong with that. So we've done that.

Now, approach 2 was linking it in with CAD files. And we had two options in there whether we do the work up front or behind. So now that we've revitized this detail, let's look at creating a standard Revit project, or what I call a container file.

OK, so Autodesk calls them resource files. I call it a container file. But it is simply a Revit project that has nothing but your 2D details in it, OK? I love using container files. I recommend them for all your system families. I also have one that's got nothing but typical stairs that I use from project to project. Maybe you put your typical walls in there or whatnot. But this is an example of a typical detail file.

Also in here, I also have my typical schedules. They're empty, but it's the format and everything. So I've already organized them in here by what they are, whether they're ceiling details, door details. Then I actually place them on sheets as well.

And once I've-- this is the file. This is like the old binder that I said we used to have. This is the weigh station of all the typical details that my firm uses in the architectural designs that they create. So we can look at the different types of sheets with the different types of details, or we can go and we can break down the drafting views because these are all in drafting views. And we can look at those particular drafting views and see what state they're in and whether we want to bring them in and use them or not.

So this is a great weigh station. This is the goal. The goal is to have this container file with nothing but your 2D details in it. So once you have these in here, you could do that whole method of copying it to the clipboard, opening it up in the same session. That's way too hard again as well.

Revit has actually giving us a tool to do this. What they've done is, under Insert, we have the ability to bring in 2D objects from another project. So this doesn't even have to necessarily be that container file. It could be the last project. Maybe you made a one-off detail in there, and now you're going to have to use it again.

But what this does is it lets you pick the RVT or the Revit project, and it brings up this great little dialog. And so you can look-- you get a little preview of what we're looking at. So we can look at sheets. We can look at details. We can look at however we want.

Now, this won't do legends, just so you know. If you're creating legends, and you put them out in the file like this, it won't bring legends in, all right? Imagine it actually has a tool with that. And there's some other third party packages that have tools out there as well.

But I'm just going to bring in this whole sheet. I could bring in individual ones. I'm just going to bring in this whole sheet. I think sometimes bringing in more is easier. So I bring in this whole sheet. It's telling me I have these same objects in here.

What I like to use, the ones that are in this project. I'm going to say, yes, I do. I might get a little warning in the bottom-- says, hey, look, the center symbol. I didn't want to get confused, so we just renamed this one to center line 2. You can go through and clean that up if you want. I usually do. I don't like having those extras in there, but you don't have to.

So here's my sheet. This is my office. The title block should be the same. All I have to do is change the name or number of the sheet, maybe both. And it's ready to be inserted.

Or maybe I need to remove some of the details of the sheet. So I can remove them from the sheet, but they're not removed out of the project. Or maybe I don't need all of these in this project, so I can just go ahead and delete some of them out of my browser altogether. And then they're removed from the project.

OK, so here I'm just going to simply move my section marker over, look at my stair detail. And I'm going to create a callout. Is going to be reference another view. And I should change this to be a detail callout. I'm not going to bother doing that right now. You've seen that enough. You know how to do that.

It's already got the sheet number and the position on the sheet, which may or may not be correct, but that's as simple as doing that. So this is really cool. So creating container files, I think, are invaluable for working inside of Revit.

So again, just a little bit more philosophy for you. Any change, even a change for the better, is always-- and it is always accompanied by drawbacks and some discomforts. So you're moving into Revit. We want to get these details out of AutoCAD. This is a good change.

I got to tell you, moving into Revit, you may do it kicking and screaming. You may think that you could have done it faster in AutoCAD. Maybe in the short term, you could. But in the long term, you're going to find that Revit does so much more for you.

And then when we get these details in here, this is kind of like that last step to cross that finish line to get as much information in a Revit format as possible. And it does take a little bit of work. You can do the work up front, but we can redraw them, or we can revitize them.

Either way, we're going to have to do a little work. And either way, I'm going to leverage those existing details that I have because they're actually still good. They got good information in them. So that is all very, very positive.

So to sum this up-- again, I'm a big one on your attitude. PMA, a Positive Mental Attitude, it's everything. You've got a good attitude about what you're doing. A good attitude is just as contagious as a bad attitude. OK, actually, a bad attitude is more contagious. It takes a lot more attaboys to get over a bad attitude. But a positive attitude, it is infectious.

And remember, we're still going to get benefits out of those old details, whether we're tracing them, exploding them, and revitizing them; or in the short term, linking them in either using option 1 or option 2 of approach 2 of how we link them. They still have benefits.

But the end goal is to be 100% Revit, OK? So although I showed you how you can link these CAD details in, I think it's a great-- I've done it on many projects myself to get over the hump. But that's what it's supposed to be for, to get over the hump, to get this project out the door. But ideally, we're going to have 100% Revit. All the components are 100% Revit that's going to give us greater opportunities down the road as we work.

The right attitude really is everything. I can't stress that enough. I know it sounds like, hey, I thought I was going to learn the mechanics of how to create Revit details from AutoCAD. I didn't know I was going to get this whole thing on my mind.

But no, attitude is everything. It's really, really important. Keep an open mind. Take one step at a time. I don't know if you've ever heard the old adage of how do you eat an elephant. It's one bite at a time, right? How do you walk across the United States? It's one step at a time. So we keep an open mind, and now we're moving into this part of taking on our old CAD details and getting them into Revit.

So if this were a live presentation, this would be the part where I would be asking if you have any additional questions if I hadn't taken them through the session itself, if I were doing this live. This is also where I would tell you to please fill out your evaluations and enjoy the rest of the week at AU.

I hope you learned something here. I hope that it gave you a bar to set for what you should expect out of the other classes. Hopefully, mine will measure up. Officially, this does conclude the AIA continuing education program here. Again, make sure you fill out your evals.

And that's all, folks, where we're going to be at. Thanks again for attending my class, and enjoy the rest of your conference at Autodesk University.

______
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We use Facebook to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Facebook. Ads are based on both Facebook data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Facebook has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Facebook to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Facebook Privacy Policy
LinkedIn
We use LinkedIn to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by LinkedIn. Ads are based on both LinkedIn data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that LinkedIn has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to LinkedIn to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. LinkedIn Privacy Policy
Yahoo! Japan
We use Yahoo! Japan to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Yahoo! Japan. Ads are based on both Yahoo! Japan data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Yahoo! Japan has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Yahoo! Japan to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Yahoo! Japan Privacy Policy
Naver
We use Naver to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Naver. Ads are based on both Naver data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Naver has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Naver to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Naver Privacy Policy
Quantcast
We use Quantcast to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Quantcast. Ads are based on both Quantcast data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Quantcast has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Quantcast to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Quantcast Privacy Policy
Call Tracking
We use Call Tracking to provide customized phone numbers for our campaigns. This gives you faster access to our agents and helps us more accurately evaluate our performance. We may collect data about your behavior on our sites based on the phone number provided. Call Tracking Privacy Policy
Wunderkind
We use Wunderkind to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Wunderkind. Ads are based on both Wunderkind data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Wunderkind has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Wunderkind to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Wunderkind Privacy Policy
ADC Media
We use ADC Media to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by ADC Media. Ads are based on both ADC Media data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that ADC Media has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to ADC Media to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. ADC Media Privacy Policy
AgrantSEM
We use AgrantSEM to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by AgrantSEM. Ads are based on both AgrantSEM data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that AgrantSEM has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to AgrantSEM to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. AgrantSEM Privacy Policy
Bidtellect
We use Bidtellect to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Bidtellect. Ads are based on both Bidtellect data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Bidtellect has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Bidtellect to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Bidtellect Privacy Policy
Bing
We use Bing to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Bing. Ads are based on both Bing data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Bing has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Bing to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Bing Privacy Policy
G2Crowd
We use G2Crowd to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by G2Crowd. Ads are based on both G2Crowd data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that G2Crowd has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to G2Crowd to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. G2Crowd Privacy Policy
NMPI Display
We use NMPI Display to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by NMPI Display. Ads are based on both NMPI Display data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that NMPI Display has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to NMPI Display to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. NMPI Display Privacy Policy
VK
We use VK to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by VK. Ads are based on both VK data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that VK has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to VK to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. VK Privacy Policy
Adobe Target
We use Adobe Target to test new features on our sites and customize your experience of these features. To do this, we collect behavioral data while you’re on our sites. This data may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, your Autodesk ID, and others. You may experience a different version of our sites based on feature testing, or view personalized content based on your visitor attributes. Adobe Target Privacy Policy
Google Analytics (Advertising)
We use Google Analytics (Advertising) to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Google Analytics (Advertising). Ads are based on both Google Analytics (Advertising) data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Google Analytics (Advertising) has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Google Analytics (Advertising) to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Google Analytics (Advertising) Privacy Policy
Trendkite
We use Trendkite to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Trendkite. Ads are based on both Trendkite data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Trendkite has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Trendkite to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Trendkite Privacy Policy
Hotjar
We use Hotjar to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Hotjar. Ads are based on both Hotjar data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Hotjar has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Hotjar to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Hotjar Privacy Policy
6 Sense
We use 6 Sense to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by 6 Sense. Ads are based on both 6 Sense data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that 6 Sense has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to 6 Sense to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. 6 Sense Privacy Policy
Terminus
We use Terminus to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Terminus. Ads are based on both Terminus data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Terminus has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Terminus to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Terminus Privacy Policy
StackAdapt
We use StackAdapt to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by StackAdapt. Ads are based on both StackAdapt data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that StackAdapt has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to StackAdapt to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. StackAdapt Privacy Policy
The Trade Desk
We use The Trade Desk to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by The Trade Desk. Ads are based on both The Trade Desk data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that The Trade Desk has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to The Trade Desk to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. The Trade Desk Privacy Policy
RollWorks
We use RollWorks to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by RollWorks. Ads are based on both RollWorks data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that RollWorks has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to RollWorks to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. RollWorks Privacy Policy

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