Workflow from Revit Lt

Ideas & Requests
1

Dear D5 Staff,

Could you please - please - please try and improve the workflow from Revit Lt to D5 Render?

I realise that may be a difficult task as I am sure Autodesk would be resistant to helping as they prefer users to pay AU$3,000ish per year for full Revit, and therefore make it difficult to export correctly from Revit LT. My Autodesk conspiracy theory stems from the fact that once upon a time, exporting from Revit 2010 to .fbx format included all of the materials and therefore there were no issues using a ‘non-plugin’ rendering software package such as Lumion. Autodesk seems to recommend ‘Enscape’ for Revit as it is a ‘plug-in’, and therefore can only be used by paying for full Revit. Somewhere between 2010 and 2019, Autodesk destroyed the export to .fbx function. I have asked Autodesk to restore the export .fbx function, but their answer was to purchase Full Revit
ha ha
good one, thanks a lot.

With Revit LT, you currently have two choices. either:

  1. Export models with smooth curves (ie: smooth cornices, baths, tapware etc, etc), but composite elements (eg: Brick Veneer Walls with plasterboard on the interior and brickwork on the exterior) will be one element with one material.
  2. Export models, where composite elements such as brick veneer walls have separate materials (ie: export as .dwg ‘Polymesh’, as opposed to ‘ACIS Solids’) but all curved elements will be segmented.

Neither of these options are ideal.

I have tried exporting Revit LT to every file format available within the software and using Simlab Composer to convert each of those to every file type that D5 accepts. So far, I have come to the conclusion that the best way get Revit LT files into D5 is to export as an IFC file (so that materials are recognised), and then use Simlab Composer to convert the IFC to an .fbx file (Other types, eg: .skp file had UV Mapping issues.).

So, in future, will you be looking into improving the workflow from Revit Lt to D5? Ideally, it would be nice if you could convince Autodesk to restore the export to .fbx function. Otherwise, a .dwg, .ifc or even .dwf import option would be good.

With kind regards,
Leah

1 Like
2

Hello, we are considering to support dwg or dwf files, but I am not sure when this feature can be developed.
I can understand your feeling, but we have no way to support Revit Lt, because it doesn’t open API, and we are not able to develop a plugin based on it.

Regards,
Oliver

3

Hi Oliver,

Thank you so much for your response.

Ideally, it would be great if Autodesk simply restored the old export to .fbx function so that there would be no issues exporting from Revit LT and then importing into a variety of rendering programs including D5. I was very happily exporting .fbx files from my Revit 2010 version and importing them into Lumion 9. As soon as I upgraded to Revit 2019, I could no longer import those files into Lumion 9.

Future support for .dwg or .dwf files would be a great start even though not ideal. .ifc export would actually be more beneficial as it maintains material names and allows for smooth curves (even though it will not split composite walls into different materials). A .dwg export will not retain material names, whereas .dwf will retain the material names (however .dwf will not allow for smooth curves). Smooth curves are more important, therefore a .dwg export would be better than .dwf. I am now constructing my exterior walls as separate elements, placing windows and doors into the internal skin and then using the ‘Wall Opening’ tool to cut a hole into the exterior brickwork. I have had to adjust all of my door and window families so that they don’t flex with the thickness of the wall. ie: I have to create a new family parameter to type in the thickness of the wall. That’s a lot of work, simply because Autodesk decided to alter their .fbx export function.

I hope this helps fellow Revit LT users. Could anyone let me know if they have a better solution, because I would really like to work with Revit LT + D5 Render.

With kind regards,
Leah

3 Likes
4

Hi Leah,

I am wondering if you’ve found a way to work around this in the last few years? I am using Revit LT and I can see that you can export to .fbx now but when I import into D5 the whole model appears as one element, so I can only apply the same material to the entire model.

Any ideas are welcome :slight_smile:

5

Hi, just to know , you can’t import a .rvt into max, from revit LT ?,
for now it’s the best solution , then export as .obj you keep material and geometry,