Water Wars: AutoCAD Plant 3D Versus Revit—Unleashing Design Superpowers

LUIS ROSAS: Hello and welcome to Water Wars, AutoCAD Plant 3D versus Revit, Unleashing Design Superpowers. My name is Luis Rosas with CDM Smith.

ROBERT ECKDAHL: And I'm Robert Eckdahl with Black & Veatch.

LUIS ROSAS: Through our experiences and talking with clients, we have learned that we all have the same question, which is the right software to use? It is so confusing to choose the right one. We're going to talk about the pros and cons of these applications to see where they tend to fit best for a given project.

When we look at these two applications, we may ask ourselves, why did Autodesk release two applications that do the same thing? As we will see in this case study, that is not a true statement. This presentation is not intended to be an endorsement or recommendation to choose one application or the other. It is focused on information and our experiences related to the capabilities of these applications for evaluation based on project requirements.

These are the objectives for this session. We're going to do our best to share our experiences so everyone can gain the awareness of the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of these applications. We're also going to show some differences in using these applications to make the appropriate choice for your next process mechanical project. We have much more details in the class handout, so please make sure to reference that as well.

Here are some of our credentials. CDM Smith was founded in 1947 and we now have over 5,000 employees. We're a global, privately owned engineering and construction firm providing legendary client service and smart solutions in water, environment, transportation, energy, and facilities. Our core values are integrity, shared commitment, initiative, teamwork, and excellence.

These are some of my accomplishments at CDM Smith. But my passion is right here on the bottom bullet. I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, volunteering my time at church, saltwater fishing, and playing cornhole, also known as bags.

ROBERT ECKDAHL: Black & Veatch. Black & Veatch is a global engineering and construction firm that started in 1915. Today, we have nearly 11,000 professionals and an annual revenue of $4.3 billion. As the government and environment industry lead in a virtual design and data solutions team, I have responsibility with all of our government water utility projects that we support. My hobbies are too numerous to mention some of them, but the one thing that is common between all of them is that each one seems to be a little bit more expensive than the last.

LUIS ROSAS: All right, let's dive in. When making decisions on whether to use plant 3D or Revit for process mechanical design, it is important to understand the differences between these two applications. Understanding the pros and cons of these softwares allows you to make informed decisions early in the game, setting the path for successful engineering projects.

Plant 3D is a specialized BIM application tailored specifically for process plant design. It offers a comprehensive set of tools and libraries dedicated to process mechanical piping, equipment, components, and P&IDs. On the other hand, Revit provides a broader BIM platform encompassing various disciplines beyond process mechanical, such as architectural and structural.

The choice between the two depends on the project requirements. Plant 3D might be the preferred choice for projects heavily centered on process mechanical design where its specialized tools can offer greater efficiency and accuracy. Revit shines on projects that demand interdisciplinary collaboration and holistic BIM coordination as it provides a platform to integrate various disciplines for a comprehensive project understanding.

Allow me to tell you our story. This story will take you through our journey of when we implemented Plant 3D back in 2017 at CDM Smith through today. Don't, worry this will be the CliffsNotes version. Refer to the handout for the full story.

Through initial testing with the 2017 release on our local computers, we found out that collaboration with other offices nationwide led to poor performance since the project was on a network share. We then decided to implement a virtual machine environment for staff to use. This improved the collaboration effort, but latency was a factor from time to time, and more prevalent in our oversea offices.

About a year later, we implemented the 2019 version integrated with Autodesk BIM 360 Teams. This marked a significant turning point on how we approached process mechanical work since we were able to move away from the limitations of working in a virtual machine environment. The collaboration with BIM 360 Teams allowed us to work on our local computers with project contents in the cloud. That was obviously a huge improvement for collaboration on the same project with our staff offices across the globe.

Today, we have over-- today we have all of our Plant 3D projects hosted in Autodesk Construction Cloud Environment. Needless to say that work sharing across the globe is no longer an issue for us. However, our initiative was not without its portion of challenges.

One of the biggest issues we encountered was that Plant 3D did not have a complete library of pipe specs for water and wastewater projects. This was a start of a big effort to gather the standards, specifications, rules, and guidelines about pipes for process mechanical in the water and wastewater industry. We had to generate detailed spreadsheets to keep track of our progress.

Working closely with Autodesk was also really helpful because they provided the proper guidance and support to improve Plant 3D to meet our specific needs. Today, we could say that our Plant 3D process mechanical specs cover a wide range of the pipes needed for our water and wastewater projects. Let's talk about some of the specialized features that are found in Plant 3D.

Plant 3D is built for process piping design, offering a comprehensive range of tools tailored to the intricacies of industrial projects. It is particularly designed for industries for complex piping and pipe and equipment layouts. It aligns well with the need for precise representation of intricate process systems typically depicted in the P&IDs.

Plant 3D excels in generating isometric drawings and project reports. ISO Generator does a great job to create this documentation. The geometry is not to scale, which helps to see the contents clearly and breaks the pipes as needed to accommodate.

The process pipe data can easily be utilized from the intelligent P&IDs to set the size, service, spec, and tag onto the components being modeled. This workflow allows for consistency between the model and the P&ID.

Plant 3D has a pipe and fitting ortho annotation feature that pulls the information directly from the project's database. It can reference point clouds and integrate with new work pipe models on projects where new and existing pipes are in the same areas. Plant 3D models can be referenced into Civil 3D site plan files directly and used by site designers to capture pipe connections and structure outlines for yard piping.

Now just like any other application out there, including Revit, Plant 3D is not always perfect. Here are some examples. When working on a multidisciplinary project, the Revit files are not native to the plant 3D environment and therefore the reference files going out and coming in from Revit need to be manually updated. Due to the file format differences, we are required to export DWGs out of Plant 3D so Revit modelers can bring it in as a file background. Also, a DWG export is required from Revit so all other disciplines can be referenced in Plant 3D.

Since the 3D model files are separate from ortho files, the ortho views need to be manually updated when model changes are made. Depending on the complexity of the view, the ortho update can be time consuming. Ancillary text and line work, such as wall hatching, concrete hatching, column grids, broom labels, et cetera need to be added manually to each of the ortho sheets. Robert?

ROBERT ECKDAHL: As we shift gears here, we'll talk a little bit about the history of where we've been within Black & Veatch towards the progression to Revit. If I step back all the way to the late 1990s and the early 2000s when my career began, of course, everything was still 2D AutoCAD.

Very early in the 2000s, we started using Architectural Desktop for architectural design, but it was very limited in just that one discipline. If we go up to 2005, that's when our team started leveraging AutoCAD building systems, which is the prior name to AutoCAD MEP, to produce process mechanical, and really all disciplines were represented in our design models at that time.

It was early in the 2010s when Black & Veatch started leveraging Revit to produce the architectural and structural elements of our designs, and then following in 2012, we started using Revit for the mechanical side. This would be inclusive of both the building mechanical as well as the process mechanical elements.

It's 2016, we had a nice new project start up that we decided to try out and pilot BIM 360 teams. It really was intended just to be a pilot of incorporating multidiscipline models, that is, to describe models on a water project where we may have multiple structures, we would have one project file for the entire structure of every discipline.

This greatly reduces our workload in managing those data sets, but we tried it out as a pilot. And frankly, we haven't looked back. Obviously, BIM 360 teams has evolved into BIM 360 Docs and now into the Autodesk Construction Cloud. So all of this development has led us to where we're at today, where we're continuing to try to converge computational, analytical, and spatial information.

From a Revit standpoint, I copied the a screenshot of Autodesk's website because I love how simple it's stated. It just says, if you can imagine it, you can design it in Autodesk Revit. When I think of Revit, I think of the simplicity that it is to take generic shapes and forms to make them parametric and to add information that makes the I in BIM's so robust.

It really is a tool for modeling. It's great for capturing design intent. Where Revit may not lack the specificity of Plant 3D for process design, it is frankly ultimately almost impossible to model anything in Revit.

You model in Revit, elements are spatially and dimensionally coordinated by that relativity. We have a shared reference point that allows us to understand how one facility, even on a wastewater plant, again, where we may have multiple facilities, how they all correlate to each, other and to communicate and collaborate on that very easily.

One of the things that it comes to documentation of Revit, I think about how information is conveyed on a drawing. And one of the things that I've really been advocating here locally is I really think about drawings now as reports of data. They're views of the model, yes.

But there's one element inside that database, one record. Again, if you take that database-based mentality, it's one record in that database for that object, and no matter where you change it, it's updated automatically everywhere else, whether it be on drawings, in reports, et cetera.

Because of this, it allows the ability to-- if you model correctly with good design intent, you can really make rapid updates very quickly. So as our design progresses, and as maybe some other considerations happen in project design, we need to make some changes or move something around, it can actually happen very quickly. And again, a change in one place it's reflected in all the drawings immediately.

So when I refer back to that timeline, one of the things I showed, there's various forms of rendering that we've employed through the years, too. And when I think about the rendering capacity that's built into Revit natively out of the box, it's pretty amazing how simple even the older generations of Revit were.

Obviously, the cloud rendering capability with the Autodesk-hosted cloud rendering services even extends that. We can get a lot of great graphics out very quickly with a low bar to bear to get there. But as I say, that's not all. Obviously, Revit, in the more modern releases, the newer versions, are delivered directly with Twinmotion, which further expands on that capacity for visualization.

Beyond that, there's a lot of third party extensions too. One notably that Autodesk now owns is the Prospect VR tool that's part of the old Iris VR technology. Those third party extensions make that rendering fast and simple. Or in that case, VR even. And that lowers the bar to bear, makes it affordable, and makes that technology accessible to use.

And I think about the user interface, I mentioned that it's easy to use. It's intuitive. It's easy to learn quickly, too. So when we're trying to add resources to a project that may not have a lot of Revit experience, it's pretty easy to pick up.

When I think about different disciplines in Revit between the structural, architectural, and even the process mechanical, the fundamental principles of creating content are all the same. The biggest difference is a couple of pipe connectors. Allocating some of the information like pipe system types and things like that may be a little bit more nuanced, but still very simple to learn. These tools are consistently applied to a variety of elements through the entire product.

Because of the widespread adoption of Revit in the AEC industry, in that marketplace, when we need-- when it comes times to where we need to grow our team and to look outside the walls of Black & Veatch, it's a lot easier to find the breadth of resources that already have Revit experience. One of the things that I think is interesting about our marketplace in my 20 years of experience is how much we're partnering with our peers in the industry to deliver projects for our clients. Whether they be teaming partners or subconsultants, Revit has a foundational aspect with the workshare capabilities to coordinate and collaborate with all of those teams very seamlessly.

That example with the BIM 360 project I showed, we actually had a model that both us and that teaming partner were working in the same model at the same time on different portions of the building, and doing all discipline. So it wasn't really a disruption. We worked really well with it. That's pretty amazing to have that high-trust environment to work in.

And then I already mentioned it in the context of visualization, but just beyond that, there's just a tremendous library of application extensions available for third-party plugins that have specific niche capabilities that really can address maybe a specific productivity thing that can just exponentially increase your efficiency. And it's really fun to look at what capabilities are out there to do different things that maybe we haven't thought about.

One of the areas that I think about when I think about that robust Revit API that allows that extensibility to Revit is the API that's open to the Autodesk platform services. This is a really robust API that Black & Veatch has taken advantage of to build an interface. It's a web-based environment that allows our team members, regardless of their Revit knowledge or not, to be able to access project information in real time as things are changing.

So what we're doing is where plant 3D connects information at the model point, we're connecting our P&IDs needs to the spatial model through this utility based on the platform services and creating an interface where you can click on or select an example like a blower, and it'll show you where that's at on the P&IDs as well as where it's at in the master equipment list.

This makes information that has historically been difficult to share across geographically disparate project teams and allow everybody to have access to that information in real time, very quickly, easy access to that information. This builds a lot of confidence in our engineering teams to make sure that there is a tight symmetry between our spatial model and the schematic information that's produced.

LUIS ROSAS: Great. Thanks, Robert. As we have seen, choosing the right software is a critical decision that impacts project efficiency, accuracy, and collaboration. These topics are intended to help you select between AutoCAD Plant 3D and Revit based on your project needs and priorities.

We're going to see who has the advantage on these topics. Some of these were a close call and others were a clear win. Now as a disclaimer, these tables represent our opinions based on our journeys and experiences. You might have a different result based on your experiences and abilities to customize the application to meet your project needs.

For pipe catalogs and specs, both systems require adding content from the out-of-the-box install. Plant 3D has a better integration for pipe specifications, which can help users avoid conflicting connections and systems. Revit has a robust sharing capacity through unify, which is simple to use and add content into.

Plant 3D is well-suited for large scale industrial projects with complex piping and equipment layouts. Revit is ideal for integrated building projects with process systems, HVAC, and structural components. Plant 3D integrates seamlessly with AutoCAD and Navisworks, enhancing collaboration among multidisciplinary teams. Revit facilitates collaboration between architecture, MEP, and structural disciplines, promoting holistic project coordination. Revit has the win here with the multidisciplinary aspect.

Plant 3D is tailored for industries like water, oil and gas, and petrochemicals with specialized tools for process piping design. Revit offers versatility for various industries, including building services and MEP design. Plant 3D provides extensive parametric options for creating detailed process components and custom pipe specifications. Revit offers parametric modeling for process systems, along with other building systems, enabling integrated design.

Plant 3D offers tools for isometric drawing generation, material tracking, and pipe routing. Revit is equipped with tools for clash detection, building performance analysis, and comprehensive documentation. The objects used in Plant 3D's P&ID environment are intelligent. They contain data attributes such as size, service, spec, and other process related information.

This data can be leveraged for generating reports and 3D models. This data-driven approach enhances accuracy and reduces errors during both P&ID creation and 3D modeling. Schematic views in Revit can be used to create simplified diagrams that represent process flows, but these views lack the specialized tools and components that Plant 3D has to offer. We gave Plant 3D the edge on this one because the coordination between the model and the P&ID happens out of the box.

Plan 3D focuses more on technical representation, offering limited visualization and rendering capabilities. Revit empowers realistic 3D rendering and visualization, aiding design communication and stakeholder engagement. Plant 3D may have a steeper learning curve due to its specialized tools and industry-specific terminology. Revit offers a user-friendly interface and resources, making it more accessible for designers that are familiar with Autodesk software. It is relatively simple to use and learn, and lots of new hires coming out of school already know Revit.

ROBERT ECKDAHL: We spent the bulk of our time today talking about our experiences that have led our respective organizations to make the choices that we're in that have put us into the position where we're at today. I think it's time for us to change gears and think about how innovations and as technology focuses on information, adjust, maybe, our way of thinking, or could at least be influencers towards the future state of mind for the water and wastewater market.

Some of the answers that I think about, some of the questions that I ask myself, are what are the impacts of the technology And this innovation that we're experiencing, this digital transformation to our owners? What are the impacts to other consultants, people that we may be partnering with, people maybe that we're competing against? But what are the impacts there?

What are the impacts to the contractors that are working in the marketplace? What are we seeing in that avenue and how are they maybe rethinking how they're approaching project execution? And then finally, what are those long-term influences from Autodesk that really shape maybe our way of thinking, or maybe open our mind to new ways of thinking?

One of things that I think is a big driver in the water marketplace, and I guess I should back up and preface that, that a lot of what we're talking about is about the US domestic water market. Certainly, internationally, different market conditions may apply and it may be a little bit different. But these are some of the things that I've been recognizing and thinking about as I pursue my own work.

So one of the big ones is alternative delivery methods. Obviously, design-build has been around for a while, but I've really seen a big strong convergence of clients in the water marketplace approaching projects with collaborative delivery execution models. This is fantastic, I think. It's exciting. But one of the things that it does bring to the table is a conversation around preconstruction collaboration with those contractors and understanding what levels of development we're taking our information to, where they may want to pick it up and carry it forward, so on, and so forth.

As we produce more rich information in the design development process around BIM and around our models, I think that that really conveys well into some of the other emerging solutions that we see in the water market. Things like artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and sensor data, smart water networks, and even maybe post the development of that after we've got a bunch of history, generative design and how we reuse that information to take the next step forward.

One of the ways that I see the influence is-- the maturity that we see in water contractors progressing in their own use of BIM for construction. Obviously, other marketplaces, programs for developing hospitals, schools, courthouses, things like that, commercial buildings. BIM's been around for a long time and they're really fluent at how information can go from design to factory to field in a very seamless way. But it seems like the water market has been a little slower to that.

And recently, I think I've seen more contractors really accelerating in that space, and especially with that preconstruction services mindset. They're using the BIM models to do more with site planning and understanding the implications of accessibility for equipment and around the site. Very complicated things are going on there and they're getting a lot more planning happening through a BIM model now.

Trade and vendor coordination is another really strong area. We're seeing contractors that are issuing a BIM specification as part of the trade partner agreement, where even some of the other trades that we would typically or historically say that they're to be field routed, they want to understand exactly where that contractor is going to put something so that they can coordinate and collaborate with those guys on that.

And obviously, that's going to lead to digital fabrication. I think that one of the biggest opportunities in the water market today is modernizing the submittal review process. And BIM would be a great way to handle a lot of that, even from an engineering side.

When I think about the owner's side of things, we're going past the engineering team with an owner and into the operations and maintenance teams, thinking about how the model can integrate with what we're handing over. So in the past, where our traditional deliverables are CAD documents that have been converted into PDFs, they're static documents. They don't get updated.

Sometimes they might be in a file cabinet that nobody knows where the information is, et cetera, to a more digital handover. Leveraging the BIM information as data and pumping that together and making that convergence I talked about earlier to solutions like digital twins so that the value of BIM extends well beyond design and construction, but really has efficiency value in operations, and training, and staff maintenance operations. Great stuff.

So maybe just a little bit of wishful thinking here. Obviously, we've talked a lot about Revit and Plant 3D today. A lot of how we use the tools that Autodesk provides is built on how they continue to develop and evolve the solutions that they make available to us.

One of the areas that I think is really fascinating is the collaboration for Civil 3D tool that the Civil Infrastructure Team has been working on. And I think that continuing that thought process and that mindset of element accessibility within the cloud could be phenomenal for us in sharing information between yard piping and inside the building. I think that'd be great stuff.

Where Plant 3D excels with the specification-based information and pipe ISO generation, obviously, it's really-- I don't want to say impossible, but out of the box, it's not natural to create pipe isos out of Revit. So a utility like that would be phenomenal for us.

Mentioned our platform that we had built to collaborate between the equipment list, the equipment data out of Revit with P&IDs with the spatial model. I think it would be fantastic to see a cloud module, maybe an ACC, for data management and equipment reporting, again, making that more accessible to everybody.

One of the areas I think that there's tremendous opportunity is with the Unify acquisition that Autodesk had recently. It may have even been up to a year ago now. It's been a little while, but I think that Unified brings a lot.

We use it, certainly, to share our content and elements for our models. And I think that opening up that, or making it connected to ACC with the project permissions and the project structure would be a fantastic way for us to share that content with our teaming partners when we are working together, trying to deliver a very synthesized project for our client.

I mentioned generative design a little bit in the last slide, or recently, but if you're not familiar with Transcend, I think that the partnership that Autodesk currently has with Transcend is fantastic. And I'm really excited to see what that solution can be in the future as we continue to build more data and how the market can evolve around that.

Finally, I think we need to continue to work on enriching digital twin solutions like Tandem. We've been doing some things with Tandem on our end and I think it's great. I saw the first releases of Tandem and they've really done a lot since then in a very short time.

And I'm really excited to see what Tandem can bring. But just in general, the notion of digital twins and what our clients-- what the water marketplace can do with having that much kind of access and interface with the information that's vital to them, I think it's a game changing thing. So this is really exciting.

LUIS ROSAS: So who is the winner? As we have seen here the answer is, yes. It really depends on your project. We have provided some guidance here to help you make the choice between-- based on your project needs. With the proper effort and configuration, both applications can generate process piping.

As mentioned at the beginning, this case study is not intended to be an endorsement or recommendation to use one application or the other. It was focused on information and our experiences related to the capabilities of these applications for evaluation based on the project requirements. Before starting a project, ask the crucial questions we have covered here to help leverage the applications as needed to get the appropriate result for the project requirements.

Selecting between Plant 3D and Revit depends on the nature of your projects, industry specialization, collaboration requirements, and the scope of your design. Again, both applications can generate process piping. Consider your team's expertise, project goals, and long-term strategy to make an informed decision that aligns with your organization's objectives. And remember, on your next design project, be innovative.