Mapping The Differences Between Revit Drafting and CAD Services

The design process is critical in architecture and construction because it leads to the adoption of constructability principles, as well as the reduction of waste and time. It functions as a component that anticipates problems on the construction site and promotes continuous improvement on construction sites.

Consequently, to create a design that accurately reflects your vision, you must use the best design tools available. Furthermore, using the right tools for designing ensures that you get detailed schematics of the project, allowing you and your team to collaborate easily.

Revit drafting and CAD services are two such design tools that can assist you in creating the most intricate designs. Both are widely used by businesses for building design and tracking a set of construction documents.

They both have been around for quite a while and they have different tools and features that can help you work on your projects.

In this article, I will be drawing a comparison between Revit drafting and CAD services based on their origin, purpose, and modeling capabilities.

Origin

In the year 1982 AutoCAD became a huge breakthrough when AutoDesk released it, since then the program has been constantly updated and its latest versions are distinguished by their capabilities of cloud storage and their compatibility with portable devices. Today, CAD has become very important in technical drawing and design program

On the other hand, about 20 years ago Revit was introduced and it became a new phenomenon because it operates differently. It can provide you with realistic simulations for any design needs and even go beyond simple drafting by enabling the creation of intelligent building models in a virtual environment.

Purpose

CAD can be defined as a digital drafting tool and you can use it to draw each element separately on a projection, a facade, or a sector. You will get as much freedom as you want because the graphics are not related to each other. You can also use CAD for drawing, documentation, 3D modeling, and visualization.

Revit is a powerful software with which you can create 3D models for projections that include the physical properties of the building elements and the interaction between the building components. This means that if you make changes to a design plan, the change will be reflected on the actual model and the change will also be updated on all the drawings accordingly. This is one of Revit’s main strengths that allows you to complete projects quickly.

Modeling differences

As highlighted earlier, you can use CAD and Revit to make drawings and models which can be further applied for real-time construction or even 3D printing.

CAD is a powerful 2D software that gives you a lot of freedom over the designs you are drawing, it allows for several methods with which you can manipulate geometry and create accurate designs.

Along with 3D functionality, CAD also has many tools that can help designers and architects translate their imagination and share it with the real world. However, CAD was not built for this purpose, but due to the changes and updates it went through over the years it has evolved to incorporate the design of 3D models to meet your needs.

Conversely, Revit is quite different in many ways, it is focused on the concept known as BIM or Building Information Modeling, which is when you use the tools to create 3D models of buildings and other concepts used in construction.

It does not offer the same degree of freedom as CAD, instead, it offers real-time information. What this means is that when using Revit you will receive data on different elements of a construction project, how they interact with each other, and even the price estimates. It also provides you performance analysis of your model in real-world conditions

Summing Up

Both Revit and CAD are powerful design tools because if you use them properly they are highly effective in what they do. They offer a lot of features that you can use to focus on different design aspects.

CAD is great as a drawing and drafting tool whereas Revit is more geared toward object-based design and analysis. CAD is more suitable when you require 2D and 3D functionalities and compatibility across different platforms which is much better than what you will find in Revit.

But Revit is also good for drafting and designing and offers a more holistic and systematic approach with better workflow and modifications that you can update for big projects or meet deadlines.