The Etransmit tool in AutoCAD is used by our teams when packing or sending information to the owner or client. Revit does not have a standard tool for etransmit however there is an add-on created by the Autodesk Lab. 

Product Link for Download
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/revit_etransmit/ 

With eTransmit for Revit, you can:

§  Copy and detach a Revit model and associated files to a single folder for internet transmission. This removes the typical error messages when you copy central files using the operating system.

§  Locate dependent files automatically and include them in the transmittal folder, helping to reduce the possibility of error. All dependent files are automatically converted to use relative paths so the dependent files can be located by the model.

§  Choose to include related dependent files such as linked Revit models, CAD files, DWF™ markups, decal images, and external keynote files. You can transmit any Revit (.rvt) model that has been upgraded to be compatible with a 2012 Revit software product.

§  Transmit models that are using file-based worksharing or server-based worksharing. eTransmit for Revit will also work with non-workshared Revit models.

I apologize for the lack of post over the last few months.  In our defense, we have been mad busy and the BIM push has been crazy as well.  But, now that we have settled down into the initial shock and change introduced by Revit.

 Last year Ross & Baruzzini created the official “R&B BIM Committee” a group of Revit users from each department who meet monthly to discuss procedures and ongoing questions to keep the Revit push on track.  We took all of our current issues, as well as our user group feedback, and created an “outline of needs.”  We then contacted our trainers and gave them our list to create a three-day training session that would cover all of our needs.

This allowed us to tie up all of our loose ends, such as standard templates, sheet sets, automated scheduling and Revit 2011 nuances.  

This was a great next step in our commitment to Revit.  I cannot stress enough the importance of having your standards and templates in place before project kickoff.  Trying to fudge things at the last minute to make the sheets print correctly, knowing that the model integrity has suffered, is not acceptable. Proper templates, standards, family view sets and a BIM execution plan are necessary if you want to consider your organization a BIM shop. If not you are only producing 3D AutoCAD documents. Why bother with BIM if your organization is clearly not getting the point?

What is the next step?  Once the initial training is complete and everyone is up to speed with the new product’s systems and tutorials we will take the next step, bringing your BIM to the next level?  Once all of your templates and tools are in place you can focus on the process. A BIM Execution plan will help you with this process.

For the past couple of years we have been partnering with a company in Florida called CADD Centers, Gregory Arkin being our key contact.  You may know him from his blog www.Revit3d.com.  For those of you who know Gregory, he is very passionate about his work, which happens to be anything tied to Revit and BIM. Once we started training with our new partners at the CADD Centers, everything started clicking (literally). We began by training our users the Revit basics with a three day on-site class for which we flew the trainer to St. Louis. We then followed up with an advanced class, as well as a Revit Family creation and editing course. 

Once the training was complete we were at a crossroads:   Trained users, but no project to start. Our Revit team met monthly to try to determine projects that we could target, but were struggling with the Owners, Clients and Designers on various items. The project was either too big, too small, too complex, or not complex enough.  We just could never get the go-ahead until recently. 

We have just completed a full Revit MEP project partnering with SOA architects. The project was a great success that I would like to share with you. It has been over a year since the original Revit training.   Our Revit team was working on families and training models to stay involved, but we had no actual projects, so most of the hands-on training was lost or forgotten.  We had to do something to get everyone back on track short of retraining the users. We contacted Gregory at CADD Centers of Florida and discussed our solution to have the trainers online with a live webcast while working on the billable project to save us money and time, and by only covering the areas we needed. 

 The plan was implemented, and the training (or work sessions) was scheduled for the beginning and end of the project. This way, we could get started on the project and have time to create a list of problems or areas that need to be addressed to maximize our time with the trainer. We would have another remote session again at the end of the project so we could address all of the outstanding questions to ensure that the final deliverables were complete.  

With Joe Vivirito running the sessions from the CADD Centers side, the process worked very well. Joe is another passionate individual who is driven by Revit knowledge and challenges. If you have a problem, Joe will find an answer. For collaboration purposes, we put all of the users in a conference room with a phone and projection screen so Joe could share his computer screen with us. With these simple capabilities, Joe was able to spend three days helping our guys through the Design Development phase of the project to get everyone’s deliverables out the door.  This was a great approach; we were not only learning, but doing, while on a billable project, hence creating a small return on investment. We then repeated the process with an additional two-day training webcast for the final document review before the project went out the door. The overall process was a great success due to the dedicated MEP Revit users along with the partnership of CADD Centers, proving that choosing the right Revit partner really makes the difference. 

• You can recreate that detail from scratch in Revit
• Import the 2D detail and draw over the top in Revit
• Import and explode the 2D detail
• Import and modify the layers to work better inside of Revit