It has always been well-known that Revit is not an ideal design modeling tool due to its rigidity (especially with system families). There are workflows that can help you to overcome this problem but it doesn’t provide an ideal environment to create complex shapes for your parametric design. That’s why a lot of the designers rely on the Rhino-Revit workflow.
These are some of the workarounds to use in Revit for your complex geometry forms: adaptive components for modeling external families; Dynamo visual programming; FormIt standalone software which is a SketchUp-like environment developed by Autodesk.
But why not choose the best tool for every task and implement it into a single workflow? Use Rhino to create complex design shapes, then transfer geometry into Revit for BIM and documentation. Software compatibility and interoperability is still a challenge for design software, including CAD and BIM software. Rhino is a pure geometric modeler, you can create any shape but it doesn’t know what that shape is (wall, floor, roof, etc.), like Revit would.
If you are working with system families in Revit you will be very limited in modeling irregular forms. Also you will find many constraints when developing component families and mostly when you try to join complex geometry elements. Some geometries that are very hard to do in Revit are elements with non-regular distributions and elements with non-parallel surfaces. Also the development of complex topographical surfaces or geometry with organic shapes is really difficult. You can find many benefits when modeling in Rhino for your Revit projects.
There are several workflows that solve the interoperability problem between Rhino and Revit:
- Data Exchange Connector for Rhino. Data Exchange is the Autodesk’s solution to share data between Revit and other Autodesk and third-party apps, via the Autodesk Construction Cloud. This Forge-based technology enables you to publish granular data, called Data Exchanges, to Autodesk Docs, and then load it into another app. You can easily update and reload these Data Exchanges. In September 2022, Autodesk released the beta version of Rhino Connector.
- Rhino.Inside.Revit. Rhino.Inside is a technology that actually embeds Rhino in another applications’ memory space, including Revit. It is a free, open-source product developed by MCNeel (the creators of Rhino). Rhino.Inside.Revit translates complex geometry from Rhino to Revit. With Rhino.Inside Revit users can leverage Grasshopper as their preferred computational design tool.
- Import/link Rhino geometry in Revit (3DM, DWG or SAT file). Rhino geometry is used just as a reference element. It is non-editable, and only for visualization purpose. You can link or import geometry. If you plan to delete or reload (update) geometry, the better option is to link it. Also if you don’t need it in 3D you can consider to link/import it just in the current view (check option “Current View Only”) not the whole model. There are three possible scenarios:
- Import/link directly in Revit. Import directly in Revit environment.
- Import/link into an In-Place Mass. Import into an In-Place Mass and then convert it to Revit’s native elements (such as roofs, floors or walls).
- Import into an external family. Import into an external family so you have all the geometry control.
- Conveyor plugin (formerly Rhynamo). Conveyor is a paid plugin that translates the geometry from Rhino to Revit but with its own workflow. Conveyor allows Revit to read the Rhino file format directly. It provides a simple interface that allows you to select Rhino files, selectively import different objects from the Rhino file and import them in as native Revit objects (depending on their classification). You can refresh Rhino files at any time. With Conveyor you can save Revit project in 3DM (Rhino file format), then import it in Rhino to create geometry. Conveyor is installed in both applications Revit and Rhino, and adds several Grasshopper component packages. It is designed to work together with Rhino.Inside Revit, extending its capabilities.
- Speckle platform. Speckle is a free, open-source platform that works as an external database. Speckle integrates with Revit, Rhino, Dynamo, Grasshopper, and other BIM/CAD software, via connectors. Connectors are plugins for those software that allow you to send/receive data using Speckle server. You will need to create a free Speckle account and to install connectors for Rhino, Grasshopper and Revit. Then you will be able to send and manipulate Revit elements in Rhino, send Rhino geometry into Revit as native Revit elements (such as walls and floors), use Grasshopper to create complex elements (such as Adaptive Components) and update Revit parameters.
- VisualArq plugin for Rhino to export IFC files. IFC is an interchange file format for exchanging data between BIM software. Also it adds BIM features to Rhino i.e. turns Rhino geometry into informed objects. This means you can create BIM models, produce 2D documentation and quantification directly in Rhino.
