product focus
Revit Structure
2012
by: Sean Woods
How Revit Structure Benefits the Construction Estimator
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he Building Information Modeling (BIM) community is expanding to embrace the concept of total project delivery. One avenue of interest is sharing the Autodesk® Revit® Structure model with the construction estimator for bidding purposes. This article investigates the translation from Revit Structure to the estimating software Timberline by way of Autodesk® Quantity Takeoff (QTO).
The adoption of BIM into the workflow of the modern structural designer has changed the norm. I have personally experienced immense time savings in project design utilizing the RISA 3D exporter and contract document generation. Although I have seen the light, the next question is: How can others in the design and construction community also utilize BIM to improve their workflow? One of the many possibilities relates to utilizing the BIM model in estimating practices. Traditionally, the estimating process has 36 www.augi.com
required a familiarization and accounting of the proposed building, as well as the materials required by the field staff to construct the project. This method is necessary to form a bid, yet it is inherently prone to human error. To avoid these potential errors and omissions, designers have wondered whether this newly formed BIM model in software such as Revit Structure can translate to Timberline, popular spreadsheet-based estimating software from Sage. Fortunately, there is a workflow that promotes this beneficial sharing of information.
The Translator
The stepping stone is Autodesk QTO, which can translate 3D BIM elements to a series of descriptors and quantities in the takeoff. QTO offers flexibility with traditional 2D project functionality, as well as 3D BIM projects. This flexibility provides the possibility for an all-encompassing tool in the estimator’s toolbox. Projects can be received in a number of formats, and the estimaDecember 2011