We on the Revit team have often heard interest from architects and landscape designers who use Revit for site work and landscape design. In the last few releases the Eagle Point team have addressed some of these requests with Siteworks for Revit®. It provides architects, landscape architects and designers functionality within Revit Architecture to shape the terrain around their building designs using grading tools to model pads, parking lots, streets, sidewalks and retaining walls. Siteworks integrates well into the Revit user interface and uses native Revit families, components and toposurfaces, so designs become part of the overall model without the need to transfer between design systems. All of this is done through a consistent Revit experience.
One nice thing about Siteworks is that you find significant time savings through the use of dynamic editing tools that provide the ability to change grades, elevations and move grading components while automatically reshaping the underlying toposurface – in order to better communicate design intent to civil engineers. And because it is all done in Revit, volume and quantity reports are easily viewed using native Revit commands. Here is a quote from Matt Snelling a Senior Associate Landscape Designer at HOK Architects:
“Architectural teams at HOK have been on the Revit platform for several years, and within the Planning Group, our members have done groundbreaking work in adapting Revit for use in urban design and planning. However, until recently we have struggled to bring landscape architectural projects into Revit. We're looking to Siteworks and LandCADD to smooth the transition to Revit and help us tap into the power of information modeling for all of our projects. We see a lot of potential in the software, and Eagle Point has been a great team with which to work.”
Here are some of the strengths of the Siteworks for Revit:
- Providing an early-stage design tool for architects to communicate conceptual design ideas about the building site to civil engineers, who will complete the detailed site design with professional civil engineering tools like AutoCAD Civil 3D
- Incorporating grading features directly into the Building Information Model to visualize the building site and quickly iterate conceptual designs
- Allowing architects, landscape architects and planners to convey design intent and help facilitate collaboration with all project stakeholders including owners and civil engineering firms
Take a look and get more info at Eagle Point website: www.eaglepoint.com/siteworks then comment here on what you think of it, I am interested in your thoughts and comments about the product. Also I am interested in your feedback on the format and content of the post so I can make sure it is interesting and helpful to you.
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My initial thoughts are that Autodesk could have easily incorporated these and better capabilities into Revit as has been a huge request for several years. One thing I had hoped that Eaglepoint would have provided would be better and parametric 3D trees. Using RPC trees and calling it a landscape design tool seems like a joke. The package seems way overpriced for what you get. Your review should look at the specifics of what you get, not the selling points.
Posted by: John Anderson | January 12, 2011 at 03:59 PM
I've been using Siteworks for Revit, off and on, for several months now. While I can say that it is full of potential, I must also add that it is not yet fully developed.
Siteworks can do simple things fast and easy, like raising a pad (with cut/fill slopes) on sloping terrain. Or, laying down a street with curbs, gutters and sidewalks on flat or evenly sloped terrain. What I have struggled with is the "real world" grading situations found commonly in hillside development; and complicated, non-rectilinear parking lots with drainage features and multiple intersecting islands, etc.
The developers at Eaglepoint are working hard to catch up with Revit users' pent-up desire for site tools. Hopefully, soon, they will hit their stride. Two things that I would really like to see are: better integration with the way Reviteers think, and better use of Revit's native sketching tools.
Posted by: Graham Briggs | January 13, 2011 at 12:56 AM
John - Thank you very much for your comment. I know that many users share your thoughts on the need for improvements in the Revit Site tools. The issues as with all things in life is priority, time, etc. What Siteworks does is to meet that need. I have met a number of people from Eaglepoint and they are very serious about the product. I will make sure to pass your comments to them.
Graham - It is great to get real world feedback from a user of the product. As I promised John I will pass your comments to Eaglepoint. I would also strongly encourage you and all software users to communicate and engage with developers. Our software only gets better when we get input from our user base. On a side note one of my next posts is about how apps can integrate better into the platform and why it is important. Stay tuned and once again thank you both for your feedback.
Posted by: Emile Kfouri (Blog Author) | January 13, 2011 at 10:35 AM