When asked 'does Revit do Landscape Design?' some will immediately say 'No!'. They are quick to point out it's 'limited' site tools. But I think we need to ask 'limited compared to what?'. AutoCAD doesn't come close to the overall drafting efficiency that Revit provides. Plus, AutoCAD has no automated site tools and it's 3D tools are definitely 'limited'. How about Sketchup? Sketchup has a similar 3D toolset to AutoCAD, granted it's graphics are much nicer. Still, both Sketchup and AutoCAD slow to crawl when dealing with large file sets. AutoCAD Civil 3D is a wonderful tool, it handles large files and has excellent 3D and BIM tools. Civil 3D should be the tool of choice for landscape architects, problem is it's relatively hard to set up and use.
So to what are we comparing Revit's tools? To Revit mostly. All of us in the Revit community have been asking for improved site tools in Revit from day 1. This is mostly because of the potential we all see. Has Autodesk done anything about it? As of today, not much. Yet Revit's 3D and BIM site tools are better than AutoCAD and Sketchup and are easier to use then AutoCAD Civil 3D. So can Revit be used for landscape design? Yes, landscape designers and architects are using this tool around the world with success. Below are some examples:
Revving up for Revit, Building Information Modeling for Landscape Architecture
Kudela and Weinheimer Landscape Architecture
Site Engineering for Landscape Architects
By Steven Strom, Kurt Nathan, Jake Woland
BIM AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE - IMPACT AND ISSUES
Posted on July 12, 2013 by Stephen Blacklock
Landscape Architecture in BIM
A Landscape Architects Revit Blog
Autodesk Revit Architecture...for landscape architects?
Nice collection of links, thanks Jay!
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave. What are your thoughts on this topic?
ReplyDeleteImplemented Revit in one landscape firm. Has been successful and able to easily quantify things. Had to use a few workarounds and some tricky families but certainly doable. Have to remember though those using AutoCAD have many custom applications to aid the process...
ReplyDeleteI think it can be done too. I don't see anything special that CAD users are doing that couldn't be done in Revit. By building functional content that achieves your design, visualization and documentation objectives, I strongly believe Revit can be a whole lot more productive in this area. The big hurdle is commitment :)
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