5 Things I Learned Converting 500+ AutoCAD Details to Revit

I’ve been working on a big project lately. Not a fun project. . . but a big one.

My client has a lot of legacy CAD drawings and they want to bring those drawings into their Revit model. They’re working on the second phase of a large campus project. The first phase was done in traditional 2D CAD but they’ve switched to Revit for the second phase. Since a lot of details are similar, it makes sense to brings those drawings into Revit.

Now, I know you BIM purists are shaking your collective heads in disgust. “BIM plus CAD is just plain bad!” you say.

I disagree.

Done correctly, mixing BIM and CAD can save a lot of time. 2D drawings are really efficient. Why model something when you can communicate the intent in just a few lines and text. And if you already have these details drawn in CAD, it just makes sense to reuse them in Revit.

Sure, you could generate those details from the Revit model. In an ideal world, this would be the right approach. However, most firms have tons of CAD…