Autodesk Revit Architecture - Modeling

Modeling

The Revit work environment allows users to manipulate whole buildings or assemblies (in the project environment) or individual 3D shapes (in the family editor environment). Modeling tools can be used with pre-made solid objects or imported geometric models. However, Revit is not a nurbs modeller and also lacks the ability to manipulate an object's individual polygons except on some specific object types such as roofs, slabs and terrain or in the massing environment.

There are many categories of objects ('families' in Revit terminology), which divide into three groups:

• System Families are pre-made by Autodesk and customization is limited
• Loadable Families / Components can be built from scratch
• In-Place Families which are like loadable families, but cannot be saved out of the project in which they are made.

An experienced user can create realistic and accurate families ranging from furniture to lighting fixtures, as well as import existing models from other programs. Revit families can be created as parametric models with dimensions and properties. This lets users modify a given component by changing predefined parameters such as height, width or number in the case of an array. In this way a family defines a geometry which is controlled by parameters, each combination of parameters can be saved as a type, and each occurrence (instance in Revit) of a type can also contain further variations. For example, a swing door may be a Family. It may have types describing different sizes, and the actual building model will have instances of those types placed in walls where instance-based parameters could specify the door hardware uniquely for each occurrence of the door.

In 2011 Dynamo was released in beta form allowing first glimpses of directly programming the behavior of hosted components through a drag and drop node interface. This is similar to the way the visual programming language Grasshopper 3d works on objects in Rhinoceros 3D.