BricsCad BIM and Revit compatibility

Stephen ....

I work in construction (building services engineering) and am seeing that AutoDesk seems to have the monopoly with BIM. I have some big work opportunities opening up, but the prerequisite is that I use Revit.
I have been using BricsCad for some time now and absolutely love it! Prior to that, I had used AutoCad for around 20 years. In the end, I felt that AutoDesk became very overpriced, I did not like dealing with the company and their subscription based only platform was just the end for me.
With most of the large scale construction projects that I am seeing are being done in Revit by the Architect and associated Building Services Engineers, I am wondering if BricsCad are developing to handle this and be compatible? I am hoping that BricsCad will develop their software to a level where someone like me can simply open a Revit produced file and then run with it. I am hoping that BricsCad can do this quite soon also. The Revit market is quite significant and the thought of me having to learn and purchase Revit software is just not palatable at all.
Is there anyone else out there in a similar situation to me? Can you please share what you are currently doing? Maybe Bricsys can chime in and share what they are planning to do with Revit competition and compatibility?
Thanks!

RubenDBricsys

Hi Stephen,

I’m glad to hear that you love BricsCAD!

Ideally, every architect and engineer should have the freedom to choose the design software that best fits their needs, and still collaborate flawlessly.

We are firm believers and advocates of OpenBIM (that’s why we have one of the best IFC import/exporters out there), but we are aware of the situation in the market.

That’s why we also invested heavily in supporting Revit .rvt and .rfa file import into BricsCAD BIM.
In V22, you can already import geometry, compositions, 3D views, … while filtering on Category, level, … (see here), and this for Revit versions up to 2021.

And we continuously keep on improving and extending our .rvt and .rfa import.

I’m interested in hearing about your experiences with .rvt/.rfa import. What are you currently lacking to be able to collaborate on such projects?

And could you use IFC in such projects?

Happy to hear your thoughts!

Ruben

Stephen ....

HI Ruben,
Thanks so much for the response.
I work in the construction industry and the drafting software seems to be strongly driven by Revit.
Is BricsCad developing the software to a point where the software can open and work on Revit files?
At this stage, I have not done any importing of IFC. I think the expectation on me is that I am able to just open and work on a Revit model and collaborate with other Engineers, Trades and Architects on the same model.
As mentioned, I am not a fan of Revit at all, but it is looking like I will need to learn and then purchase this software if I want to join in on some of the larger projects.
Hopefully BricsCad is developing this aspect and will offer an alternative?
Thanks!

evandermaarel2448

Rueben,

Any chance you could update the link as it no longer works in your comment?

chris@dvengineering.co.uk

So far (on smaller projects) I've been able to import revit models and add structure to them in BricsCAD BIM, not sure how it works the other way around - I presume the IFC export will work OK at this time - If you're doing building services, would you not essentially xref the revit file and build yours separately, then provide your data file for collaborators to reference as an IFC they should specify the IFC parameters within the project documentation

The more you can do to stay in your comfortable working environment the better, Revit may have the monopoly, but they are certainly not the best on the market and the workflow is terrible. Having worked with Revit since 2005 and AutoCAD since 1997, I can confidently say I prefer BricsCAD and junked AutoCAD and Revit without regret & so far all of my historic Revit project models have imported OK

RubenDBricsys

Hi all,

Sorry for the late reply.
Indeed, the link is broken. This one should work: https://help.bricsys.com/document?id=165079163379

We know that many of our users have to collaborate in projects where other BIM tools are used. That's why we invest heavily in interoperability. Our first focus is still the OpenBIM workflow, where IFC is used for exchanging models between different BIM tools.
This works quite well for many tools. But we are aware that this workflow is sometimes limited by the quality of the IFC import and export of other BIM software.
By providing an .rvt Revit import, we try to serve those users that are facing these limitations.

Export of .rvt files is currently not supported, though.

But with the tools that we provide, .ifc import/export + .rvt import, we do allow for many workflows, including the ones Chris described.

Hopefully, this can help you participate in those larger projects. And let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Kind regards,

Ruben

Stephen ....

Thanks for the reply Ruben. The link still seems to be broken though.
Did you have any updates on when things might be more compatible with Revit? In the industry that I work in, there seems to be a strong push for Revit. I even see Tender documents stating that unless the drawings are completed in Revit format, you cannot work on the project.
I MUCH prefer BricsCad, so I am hopeful that development will continue with BIM and compatibility will eventuate to the extent where I can open up Revit files and go to work.

RubenDBricsys

Hi Stephen,

This link should work: https://help.bricsys.com/document?id=165079163379
And information on how to import Revit Families can be found here: https://help.bricsys.com/document?id=165079163380

This should allow you to import RVT projects. Exporting RVT projects is currently not possible.

I can't give you any more updates right now, I'm afraid. But when I do, I'll keep you posted.

Best regards,

Ruben

Tom Foster

Bricscad, like many other CADs esp dwg format ones, are waiting for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Design_Alliance to fully solve the Revit import/export challenge - won't be long now

Michael Mayer

> for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Design_Alliance to fully solve the Revit import/export

I am looking forward to Navisworks support.
Meanwhile I get these more often than RVTs or IFCs.

Likely because these projects are too big/crappy to
open all trades at once on a non Cray Super Computer ....

Stephen ....

RubenDBricsys said:

Hi Stephen,

This link should work: https://help.bricsys.com/document?id=165079163379
And information on how to import Revit Families can be found here: https://help.bricsys.com/document?id=165079163380

This should allow you to import RVT projects. Exporting RVT projects is currently not possible.

I can't give you any more updates right now, I'm afraid. But when I do, I'll keep you posted.

Best regards,

Ruben

Thanks Ruben!

Stephen ....

Tom Foster said:

Bricscad, like many other CADs esp dwg format ones, are waiting for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Design_Alliance to fully solve the Revit import/export challenge - won't be long now

Does this mean that there is coming a day where BricsCad Users can click on an RVT file and open it and go to work?
Fingers crossed on this, because currently I am being penalized by not having Revit.

Stephen ....

Michael Mayer said:

> for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Design_Alliance to fully solve the Revit import/export

I am looking forward to Navisworks support.
Meanwhile I get these more often than RVTs or IFCs.

Likely because these projects are too big/crappy to
open all trades at once on a non Cray Super Computer ....

Ultimately I think it will be a great day when the playing field is even and we can work with Revit files, Navis files, IFC files without there being an issue due to being a BricsCad User.

Tom Foster

Stephen .... said:

Does this mean that there is coming a day where BricsCad Users can click on an RVT file and open it and go to work?

I don't do this myself, but is that not already possible? Well, Import, rather than just clicking on the file.

Stephen ....

Tom Foster said:

Stephen .... said:

Does this mean that there is coming a day where BricsCad Users can click on an RVT file and open it and go to work?

I don't do this myself, but is that not already possible? Well, Import, rather than just clicking on the file.

I don't think this is do-able yet? The projects that I see more and more of in the construction industry seems to be Revit dominated and I don't think I can yet open Revit files and work with them in a manner that will be compatible with the Revit users.

Tom Foster

That's right - you can import/open and work with Revit files, but can't yet re-export them (or export any dwg file) back to Revit. AIUI that's what's currently awaited.

Wiebe van der Worp

Two years later…

I assume there is still no interest to support RFA export directly. Am I right? I couldn't find any information about this at Open Design Alliance, hence.

zoomer

I assume there is still no interest to support RFA export directly. Am I right?

Not RFA.

But RVT.
I think it came with V25.

Wiebe van der Worp

Thanks for pointing me in that direction. I noticed this at https://help.bricsys.com/en-us/document/command-reference/e/export-command?version=V25&id=165079076736 :

=====
Geometry-only is available for export to RVT format.
When export the model as a Revit project (RVT file), the entities are exported as Direct Shapes with classification.
=====

From Autodesk: "DirectShape is primarily intended for importing shapes from other data
formats such as IFC or STEP where not enough information is available to
create a "real" Revit element."

I tend to draw the conclusion that offering an IFC project to a Revit user this way is a partial solution from the view of that user.