Revit Enscape to Max Vray Export/Import

[VelvetElvis]

Has anyone else tried this workflow from Revit? I'm curious on your thoughts. On the initial test, this way seems to be the future for exporting from Revit because it gets around the BIM360 issue and how it can't import linked Revit models. However, on this pilot project I'm using this on the render times seem to be a lot longer than expected. I don't have a base Revit import to use as a benchmark to say that indeed the Enscape to Vray export may be the culprit. I do notice a lot more of the imported geometry is unwelded from the Enscape export, not sure of that causes longer times or not.

A few other observations:

1. Is there a way to preserve the name from Revit? Currently, everything comes in with no resemblance of naming structure. This makes it difficult to select objects by name to combine or filter, IE select all curtainwall mullions. I like to keep everything separated on import then combine objects as needed and being able to select by name helps with this. This also helps if you need to simplify a file after importing and deleting things such as coat hooks.
2. Will there be combine by options in the future? I like the fact that it doesn't combine by material only as our Revit models are typically a jumble of generic gray materials and forcing a combine by material workflow would fracture our pipeline. But it would be nice to give users the option to keep everything separated or combine by material and maybe other options like family name or type.
3. Could there be an option when exporting to automatically export out linked Revit files as separate exports? I absolutely LOVE this feature of D5 that it does this as it makes scene management so much easier.
4. Quadrify or hide the triangulation on meshes when importing? This isn't a huge deal, but the OCD in me doesn't like to see heavily triangulated meshes on import.
5. Optimize mesh on imports? Currently, when you import Revit via the import option in Max, there are some mesh optimizations that you can use that really help tone down some of the mesh-bombs that come in due to how Revit creates non-square geometry such as rounded columns.

[dimitar_panayotov]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! We will take your ideas into consideration.

1. Currently preserving the name is not possible. But it is one of the things for improvement on our list.
2. Preserving hierarchy is also a known challenge. Nevertheless, it is not an easy task, especially when we have different host applications with their own scene-managing features. And it's also related to point 1.
3. This idea will need further investigation. Thank you for the suggestion.
4. Revit has parametric modeling tools. It also has the ability to triangulate the geometry internally and when exported to some formats. So this is a property of Revit, not Enscape. Enscape just uses this information and saves it into the .vrscene. On the other side, the plug-in responsible for the geometry in .vrscene can consist only of triangles and this is what we import. So basically there isn't a moment when the geometry exists as quad mesh.
5. We rely on the information coming from Revit and it is saved already in .vrscene file as a GeomStaticMesh.

[VelvetElvis]

Thanks for the input, that's very helpful. I guess I'm going to go back to importing Revit into Max via the import tool for the time being. Not having access to names is an absolute deal breaker. I've never seen a Revit file clean enough to just import and easily continue to work on. Almost every real world Revit file is an mess because of Revit's own issues. Our projects are large in scope, ie hospitals for example, so being able to deal with exported geometry from Revit in a efficient and clean way is a high priority for us.

When importing a .vrscene since it imports as a mesh object, could there be an option to run the invisible triangle option that you can run on mesh objects? I did this manually and it cleaned up the meshes, in a visual way at least.

[dimitar_panayotov]

"When importing a .vrscene since it imports as a mesh object, could there be an option to run the invisible triangle option that you can run on mesh objects? I did this manually and it cleaned up the meshes, in a visual way at least."

Using F2,F3,F4 might be more appropriate for optimizing the lines in the viewport. I'm not sure if there could be a universal value that could serve a whole scene unless you want to remove all lines, which is basically F4.