How Revizto helped White Arkitekter Pioneer Interactive Visualization in the Swedish Market
Discovering Revizto
I first discovered Revizto at the Revit Technology Conference 2014 in Dublin. There were several classes that highlighted game engine based technology so I wanted to see what the buzz was about.
In Revizto's class that Arman Gukasyan delivered, I immediately was able to see the potential for our work on hospital design. Hospitals are a very complex building type, and having better tools to communicate our design to our clients would be a major advantage. I was also excited by the possibility of being among the first to take interactive visualization into the Swedish market in a big way.
Views on Revizto
Revizto has been quickly adopted at all levels of the design process to give our designers, managers and clients an easy window into the BIM models. We use it to share the spatial qualities of our designs, and simplify the communication of complex rooms and functions in a way that drawings can't do. Revizto allows us and our clients to interactively feel what it is like to be in the spaces we are designing.
Revizto is focused on the process of design and communication, rather than high-end visualizations. The focus on user-friendly UI is very important, as we can confidently share the model with our clients, who tend to be beginners with 3D tools. Internally we also have some architects, project managers and engineers who are less tech-savvy, and giving them a simple visualization tool is great.
If I can take some liberties to suggest some changes, I would say that the improvements we need are all about rooms. Room objects are the most important centers of information in our workflow, and having passive awareness of the room objects while in Revizto is the improvement I am looking forward to most. Also it would be great to have a way to save and quickly add email addresses for sharing the models. Some kind of saved lists would be nice.
Using Revizto
I work in the healthcare sector, and Revizto is a natural fit for such a complex building type. I personally have one large project underway now, however the Revizto technique has spread quickly to our other projects and offices across Sweden. In total we have in excess of 200,000 sq meters of projects using Revizto.
We are 15-20 architects and designers, another team of project managers, and a massive team of medical professionals taking part in the design process. Revizto allows us to collaborate with many different layers of people. For example, we have shared the models with the artists who are creating artwork for the hospital, so they can better understand the spaces. We are also sharing the models with the clients’ project managers for use during project meetings, and with the eventual users of the building: the doctors, nurses, and medical technicians. Our clients love Revizto. They are very enthusiastic about being able to “feel” the spaces that we are designing for them.
Speaking of the most essential tools and features, the export feature is a major plus, which allows us to publish new models every week for internal and external use. The quick and easy methodology of creating Revizto models is crucial and allows for iterations of the model to be updated regularly. Sharing via the cloud is also a major plus. The Software as a Service business model allows us to “sell” the Revizto technique both internally and externally easily.
We’re also planning to use the Issue Tracker heavily, as we will turn our Revizto model over to our clients for a 3-week review period. During that time they will be creating and syncing large amounts of comments back to us, and we will follow up in the Revit models in turn. It is shaping up as a new centerpiece of our work with our clients. Our project leaders believe strongly in the methodology, and in fact, it reduces our workload with regards to the number of drawings that we need to produce.
Undoubtedly, Revizto has enhanced the effectiveness of our collaboration. We have engineers and project managers in our team who are not Revit trained, but they are easily able to check and measure the model using Revizto. With Revizto, we have definitely taken a step ahead of our competitors, and shown our clients that we are technology and methodology leaders in the market. I don’t think that advantage will last, as I expect Revizto to spread in the market…
