I want to start this post by getting straight to the point. Mike Caudle, I apologize for coming across as harsh in my response to your comment on the PDF post. Was it intended to be serious? No. Was it meant to be satirical. Not so much. Sarcastic, definitely. Humorous, for sure. The problem with digital media of course is that you can’t read facial expressions in text, and hearing sarcasm via printed word is like having a mechanic diagnose your engine over the phone; it just don’t happen. So for coming across in a manner as unintended as it was taken, I apologize Mike.
That being said, I also want to apologize to anyone else who has been offended by the “dramatic” posts that have been appearing lately. I made a decision to let my blog be my voice on what I feel is happening not only with the projects I am involved with but also with what I see happening in the industry. Fortunately, that means I’m going to be posting my opinion on several things. Unfortunately, that means I’m going to be posting my opinion on several things… see what I did there? I can’t ask everyone to enjoy or agree with my opinion, but I can request that it be discussed in an honest protocol; if I seem out of line with what I say in regards to how it works in real life, feel free to post something, start a discussion, LET IT BE KNOWN THAT I AM WRONG!!! However, know that if you reply, there’s a good chance I’m going to respond. Most likely in a manner similar to your response
I certainly do not wish to lose readers just because my opinion is against a majority of my readers; even though I think if you’re more than a reader but also a watcher of the videos you already know I’m a fairly sarcastic SOB. However, I also feel that the things I have to say need to be said. They help other people know they’re not the only one out there thinking the same thing. They help people do their job better; and I know this for a fact. So I will continue doing so at the risk that I lose some of my readers.
Oh, and Mike: I know you said you’re not going to be reading any more, but the next TotD will be devoted to you, sir! (so if you know Mike, please let him know when it is published since he won’t know that it has been published.)
Till then…
Sincerely,
.Carl Gibson
6 responses to “Public Apologies…”
Nobody knows about ruffling feathers while telling people they are wrong, more than me… LOL. Having said that, however, i think whats more improtant than apologizing, is actually explaining what you think an ideal workflow in that situation is. I mean, if youre going to offend, at least do it while leveraging some knowledge on the people.
For Instance: Your post (the original one) is dead wrong in the assumptions that the only reasons people are using PDF’s are for the reasons you mentioned. Ive been stuck with PDF’s (on countless jobs), due to: SCANNED IN hand drawn documentation from the early century (rastered, not vector PDF’s), advarsarial relationships between the client and previous service provider, which means scanning paper documents, Not HAVING CAD or Revit files (happens when buildings change hands all of the time), and so on and so forth.
Now, regarding that i see several ways to proceed. 1. Come up with a way to hack the raster PDF in to a DWG. (If you suggest that as your better workflow than a raster image scaled in revit, ill know i should stop reading too). 2. Point Cloud scanning of the existing facility and not using the PDF’s at all. 3. Hand measuring the building. 4. use other software to vectorize the documents in to “something” you can pull in to revit. (ugh…)
Number 1 is a nasty hack, that produces a DWG that is far worse than scaling and approximating off of an image. Number 2 is a practice we actively do, and work on, but lets face it: It can be cost prohibitive. And before you wax poetic about explaining to a client that the “value gained exceeds the cost of the laser scan” understand that real contractual obligations sometimes mean that if you CAN do it from an image, you do it from an image. Or 3… You go field measure the building, old school. Not fun on a 20 story building.
So that leaves us with whichever option you were “willing to show his clients,” but not share as a TIP, in the ToTD thread. Care to share? =)
You can pop over and use my Dog House when ever I’m not in it……
Recent lesson learnt, don’t refer to those nameless individuals that don’t appear to know exactly what they are doing as Numpty’s they come out of the wood work and take great exception to the friendly term being used ;0)
They obviously think that the hat fits by raising their heads above the parapet (Wicked Grin) Nuff said before I’m back in the sin bin
I think what he meant was is that using anything other than cad files can lead to severe inaccuracies, errors, dimensioning problems, what have you, early in the process, which can lead for going back, redoing stuff, and losing valuable time to get cd’s out the door.
In summary, by having a cad format file, which too might have some inaccuracies… its far less daunting than using anything but. Also… by this method lets say if you load in a jpeg…. or you save a pdf as a jpeg… jpegs are VERY easy to move in Revit… and if the file is across multiple users – there is bound to be a mistake.
Ideally the best way to say it: “You have to go slower to go faster.”
I couldnt possibly disagree with that assessment more. Having done it all of the ways mentioned above, i see FAR more problems coming from tracing CAD files, than from tracing images, or even READING PDF’s and remodeling manually (which, by the way, is the due diligence we owe our clients, in my humble opinion).
You may say *this stuff doesnt happen* but in the last few months ALONE ive seen CAD files from: Architects, engineers, subcontractors, owners, leasing agents, etc… All plagued with: Overridden dimensions, sliding scales of accuracy, different scaled drawings that were not done of the same base file (hence dont relate and are dimensionally unsound), have dims to nodes that arent tied to lines, have the wrong lines dim’d, and even one: Where a DIMENSION was on a WITNESS line of a grid.
BTW, still patiently waiting for the Tip of the Day on the *best* workflow… For the real world. =)
I’m glad this ruffled a few feathers!.. now it’s my turn.
In my original post, there was never an assumption made that the only reason people use PDFs are those mentioned. The only assumption made is that people were reading the article because they wanted to bring PDFs into Revit, and then went further to describe probably about 95% of the people who ask this question. If you don’t want to bring PDFs into Revit, you are automatically disqualified for belonging to this group. Would you disagree that people who want to bring PDFs into Revit do not understand that all they are doing is importing a file that is just a shell for another file?
Scanned in drawings (raster) in a PDF format are nothing more than a graphic wrapped in a format that allows the file to be read across multiple platforms. Why would you bring the PDF in over just the image? If it’s a raser PDF.. that means there’s a CAD file somewhere OR it’s been converted into vector. If there’s a CAD file somewhere, you end up with someone else’s stab at CAD standards; and if it’s a converted vector, well do you really want that in your model anyhow?
Regarding the options presented, no CAD, no Vector, some hand measuring (if required, but hopefully not if it’s an existing building right? I mean they had to build it somehow.), see above. There was a 5th option presented which is exactly where I was going, and I even like how it was put: “Due Diligence”!
The TotD that I’ll be making may come across as a bit facetious but in all seriousness it’s exactly how I would model any building that’s handed to me in a PDF format. By the time you get the PDF into cad/image, the cad/image into Revit, find all the inaccuracies and finally fix all the inaccuracies you could have easily been downing that carona on the beach because you simply modeled it how it was documented and then you understand the building better to boot (instead of understanding the documentation).
Honestly, I think bringing ANYTHING in to Revit to “trace” from can cause serious issues in accuracy. I certainly would not boast that having a CAD file would be a sure fire way of making the process go faster; as Aaron points out, there’s plenty of people who do CAD who don’t know how to do CAD and that’s most likely the source of the CAD file you’re trying to import!
In regards to this legendary TotD which will be stating how I would do it.. would you believe me if I told you instead of making the video tonight, I was in the process of buying a Kirby?
Just wanted to clear that up: So- in your original comment on “How to use legacy drawings in Revit,” your answer of “Have your clients call me so i can show them how” would mean that you told the client “I wouldnt do it that way period.” Just wanted to check, since the original retort (reply) inplied you had a better method of actually doing it, rather than not actually doing it. Glad we cleared that up. =)