Confessions of an AutoCAD junkie

Like most good Colorado children, I learned to ski at a fairly young age. By the time I was five or six years old I could take on most of the mountain, and together with my older brother, Josh, explored the slopes from blues to blacks. Over the years we grew more and more confident in our abilities and conquered more and more terrain.

When I was about nine Josh made the switch over to a new sport called snowboarding, and of course I had to follow suit. Suddenly, I went from conquering the mountain to being at its mercy. I found myself in the humbling position of riding the “bunny slope” all day, staring at all those harder slopes I knew I could be cruising down had I simply not chosen this crazy new tool. I felt like my equipment was holding me back. I knew how to take on the mountain on skis, why should I relearn how on a snowboard? It is perhaps due more to my brother’s (gentle) urging than anything else that I made it through that first day.

Now, twenty-something years later, I’m still on a snowboard.

Recently, our family architecture firm made the decision to transition from AutoCAD to Revit. Surprisingly, the move triggered in me some of the same emotions I had on the slopes all those years ago. I again found myself on the “bunny slope”, feeling like my choice of equipment was holding me back. I knew how to do this in ACAD, why should I learn it again in Revit!

Luckily I’ve been able to spend the past month assisting in the design of a very large multifamily project that is being completed all in Revit. Working in a larger team, with people who know the program and can share insights no training will give you, has been much like by older brother urging me not to give in. Through this experience I have learned to overcome any deficiencies in my Revit skills and now feel like I’m starting to rival efficiencies I once achieved in AutoCAD.

So after years of a powerful addiction to ACAD, I’m starting to break away, to clean up my act. It feels a bit strange to say this, but I’m hereby pledging allegiance to the state of Revit. I’m on board.

Here are a few thoughts on my recent conversion and on Revit vs ACAD in general:
-Groups = blocks, Families = dynamic blocks.
-Although there is no command line, keyboard shortcuts can compensate.
-Visibility/Graphic overrides are similar to VP specific layer properties.
-WHY NO SELECT PREVIOUS??
-Having to hit the ctrl button to select multiple elements drives me crazy, but at least shift still deselects.
-Activating a view on a sheet is similar to maximizing a viewport in paperspace.
-Scheduling, annotations (tags, keynotes, etc.) and coordination between drawings is a thousand times more effective in Revit than ACAD.

And finally, my favorite thing thus far about Revit? Two words: Section Box.

Happy modeling!