Mixing AutoCAD with Revit

Introduction

Sometimes there is the need to mix CAD with Revit. While this is never the ‘ideal’ situation when looking to complete a project in BIM, it can pose some advantages if implemented properly. This includes taking advantage of the coordinated overall drawings and auto-naming Revit gives you, while also potentially utilizing your office CAD details that may have already been created elsewhere.

You can also use this method to ‘buy’ yourself some more time before you can devote resources to converting your CAD blocks/detail library to the appropriate details/families, or potentially utilize this as a strategy going forward while keeping CAD a part of your workflow.

Concerns & Notes

Graphics

Because you will ultimately be printing from CAD as well as printing from Revit, you will be printing to PDF from two different locations, and this has a tendency to create different graphics. This is two fold, because CAD and Revit have a tendency to output different styled graphics in the translation to PDF (think hatches, sometimes CAD can create a lot of artifacts). Secondly, it means you will be doing double work, potentially needing to create stylized tags for both CAD and Revit. You will need to either create your CAD standards in Revit, or create the standards in Revit and potentially export to CAD. Regardless, it will be a constant challenge (and potentially not achievable) to get the line weights and exact graphics to match up perfectly.