My apologies to all who requested info regarding lisp routines and had no reply from me. I guess I just had other fish to fry.
I am in the process of learning Revit, but have a feeling that I might be too old to catch on to this fish.
It is an amazing program in some ways, any fool can put together walls, doors, windows and roofs.
The fun begins when you want a roof that is not just a slab of butter (easy), but a composite made up of tin, purlins, and wooden trusses. Can be done, as shown below:
This is the same building I had a go at 4 years ago, see
http://wlecouteur.blogspot.co.nz/2010/01/autocad-to-revitnotes-of-autocad-user.html
I have made slightly more progress this time, but things are still taking way too long, which will definitely be my unfamiliarity with the software. It took 7 and a 1/4 hours to get the basic shell up and going with a start on the floor joist layout made, which compares favourably with the 4 weeks it took to do the whole job in 2D Autocad, I made the decision way back then to keep everyone happy and use 2D. Bad decision. It takes forever!
Things I like about Revit are:
1. Make a change in one thing and everywhere it appears gets updated automatically. If you have ever made changes (what? a draftee who never made any changes?), then this alone is worth all the pain of getting your thinking in line with the designers of Revit.
2. Any sectioned items are hatched automatically with the appropriate hatch pattern.
3. You can make up the equivalent of an Autocad block, but it is in 3D. You then change its parameters when inserting it in a drawing. For instance, I made the trusses above, then just adjusted the span and slope to fit this location. Laying them out is a bit more frustrating.
Things I am having trouble with (abeit in a very low state of proficiency):
1. Sometimes you cannot just change the size of a family, say a window width, Revit will let you do it then spit the dummy after it fails to work.
2. The famous "You are not putting this in at the correct level for this view".
It is not good that at this stage of it's development, you have people still wondering how to fix this.
Would it not be nice to have a thing that told you what level you were putting things in at?
(Yes, the panel on the side, silly.)
3. Yup, you sure can dimension whole walls at a time. Just try deleting one of the dimensions though. According to the experts on the net, just hover over it and hit tab, then delete. Does not work for me.
4. How do you get an endpoint of a line that is vertical to snap to a nearby point?
5. Why do you have control over material hatching only in coarse mode....what about fine????
6. Ok, you can have visibility of certain items, so for instance if you were doing floor structure, this is great: Just turn off all walls and floors and draw in timber framing. The problem arises when you have a mixed timber and concrete floor and you put in a concrete block wall....
7. Sometimes it does not regenerate other views after a change.
Anyway, I now have a book on Revit (thanks, Robin!), so magical things might happen....
