Manufacturer Do's and Dont's

The following is what will become a growing list of best and worst practices for and by manufacturers, who create and provide Revit content (primarily MEP), taken from actual manufacturers' web sites. If you see something here you want your manufacturer or Vendor to read, feel free to point them to this page. If you are a user, or a manufacturer and you want to add your opinion, or you have a question, or something needs further explanation, leave your comments and I will address them. But remember, this is neutral territory, so outside of naming yourself if you wish, please no name dropping or bashing. Let's keep it anonymous and professional. 

________________________________________________________________________________________

First up is a cut & paste from an actual web page that's still up today (6/18/10), where the manufacturer offers the two following types of Revit content - one of which breaks a cardinal rule of never leaving ACAD solid geometry in a Revit family file. The "DO" is in green, and the "DON'T" is in red.

3D Revit Family Files

These files are 2010 Revit family files with MEP connections where appropriate that have been created natively within Revit as non-hosted family files. These files can be used on their own or nested together into other family files.

3D Imported Revit Family Files

These 3D imported Revit family files were created by importing our 3D .dwg models into a Revit family template and saving the .rfa file.

These are a mix of different 2010 Revit family files. Some of these files have MEP connections defined while some do not. Some of them may be wall-based and some of these will be non-hosted. We have moved away from creating these type of files but we have decided to keep them here in case they can be of any value to you"

Moral: It's great that they're not doing this any longer, but leaving the "imported 3D dwg" files available on the site means that anyone who unwittingly downloads any of these files into their Revit project, is risking crashing that rvt file because it's a known issue that Revit does not like native dwg content left in its family files. It's fine to model over a dwg solid in the family editor, but then you need to delete the geometry from that rfa file before you load it into a project file.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's one about overmodeling: 

Do: Keep the model geometry as simple as possible - no more than is needed to make your product recognizable. Make your family files dimensionally correct, and make the connectors, the category and parameter information, type information, and properties as robust as you can.

Here is a closet carrier that I modeled, and ironically, some friends of mine said even this is more detailed than is needed. They said I could have just modeled a rectangular cube and put the connectors on it.

Here are a couple from two different manufacturers...

  This one's a great example of over-modeling (way too detailed). 

Here's one (also over-modeled) that came in sideways (modeled on the wrong plane), probably by a third party developer, since the manufacturer would certainly realize this is incorrect. Plus they've also shown the All Thread. No one needs or wants this extra geometry bogging down their Revit project file after you have fifty+ of these loaded. 

  

And last, here's a toilet with the trap modeled. This is WAY too much geometry that will only increase file size and slow down model performance, and ultimately cause users to shy away from using it. If you must show the trap for some reason, draw it or indicate that it's there with detail lines. Dear Manufacturer, you have to stop and ask yourself, or your clients... "What's the point of modeling the trap, or the seat?" You're already designed in, i.e. the designer is already sold on your product. You never put this kind of detail into ACAD dwg blocks, did you? Of course not, because you couldn't - blocks were 2D. But you achieved success with simple 2D blocks - mere outlines, every time you got spec'd!

Goal #1 for a manufacturer is to get spec'd. You achieve that by a) making a good product that's enticing to an owner or engineer, AND b) by developing content of that product that's enticing to a cad DESIGNER. If you want to show your trap (which is the bread and butter, proprietary genius that makes your product the best around) then show it in a jpg photo of the actual product, in the thumbnail link to that family file. But when you open the family file, now you want that family file to be enticing to the designer, and enticing = simple geometry and robust information, i.e. B-I-m. So again, if you're going to have a heart attack if you don't show that trap on the model, then use detail lines to draw it on the side, and use detail lines on the bowl rim to show the seat.

If you don't think this really matters, think again. I have had users tell me on not a few different occasions (at expos and the like), that "We're tired of waiting for quality Revit content, and whichever (manufacturer) is first out the door with it, we're going to flat spec 'em." The first couple of times I heard it, I thought it was a rant - an empty threat. But after the third time, I realized it was true. Why? Simply because time still = money.

Comments

[Steve Germano]

Amen,

As a content manufacturer hired content modeler this is the number one thing I tell them... KEEP IT SIMPLE! File sizes are much more important then pretty graphics because in the end its the engineer who has to deal with large files that bog down the model.