Most importantly, REHAU understands the benefits of providing their customers with building information modeling (BIM) tools to help them do their job better and more efficiently.
BIM @ REHAU
“BIM lays the groundwork for long-term success.” – REHAU
Navigating through their website, it’s clear that REHAU understands the importance of BIM. On their Technical Resources for Engineers and Designers page you’ll find technical documentation, downloadable BIM content, and custom tools. These fantastic resources are provided to help REHAU customers on their journey in BIM implementation.
“BIM describes the working method, but for its execution appropriate software tools and above all product data of the manufacturers are required. REHAU offers its customers the required BIM content from a variety of REHAU products that can be used in different BIM platforms.”
It’s worth noting that, in addition to Revit, REHAU provides content for multiple BIM and CAD applications, which is a testament to their commitment to BIM as a technology and process rather than any one application.
REHAU’s Revit Content on UNIFI
Yes, REHAU’s website has an amazing section dedicated to BIM, but did you know that their content is also hosted in their UNIFI channel? Our Revit add-in enables enhanced usability of Revit content. Key features include single-click to load families into a Revit project, filtering families by metatags, searching for fittings by parameter value, batch loading families, type catalogs, and more.
This is just a handful of UNIFI’s features that improve efficiency for our customers. If you would like to learn more about UNIFI, reach out to us here.
But enough about us, let’s take a closer look at some of the content that REHAU provides to their customers via their UNIFI channel.
Pipe Fittings
REHAU initiated their BIM content efforts in 2016 with their focus set on core components of radiant floor heating systems. With that being said, it’s no wonder that there is a full line of pipe fittings available to their customers on UNIFI.
These pipe fitting families are more than one would expect from a manufacturer (no offense, manufacturers). These families just might prevent BIM managers from recreating this content as they typically do.
For example, many MEP engineers prefer to present their pipe, duct, and conduit as a single line, rather than 3D geometry on their construction documents. In Revit, pipes turn into a single line when viewed in either coarse or medium detail level. Similarly, pipe fittings in a coarse or medium detail level view is expected to display an annotation symbol rather than the 3D extrusions of the valve.
The images below demonstrate how REHAU has built their manifold, pipe, and pipe fitting families to support this need. On the left you can see an example of how these families are displayed in coarse and medium detail levels, while the image on the right demonstrates fine detail level. As this is an often overlooked feature for inexperienced Revit users, REHAU has proven to have a deep understanding of their customers’ needs by providing tools to support their workflows.
Yes, Revit’s performance will improve with less surfaces and 3D geometry in your view, but pretty pictures are worth a thousand words so here’s the same model in a shaded 3D view set to fine detail level.
Revit Templates
In addition to dozens of families, REHAU also provides Revit templates on their UNIFI channel. Within these templates, users will find that REHAU has provided critical tools for piping design in Revit such as pipe families and schedule views.
The Pipe Fitting Schedule is essentially a bill of materials which includes quantities, part numbers, bend angles, and more. This another efficiency boost for REHAU customers, as schedules such as this would typically need to be created from scratch. By providing this to their customers they are potentially saving their customers time on projects.
This is just another example of a standard that REHAU provides to their customers to aid in their BIM adoption.
It’s worth mentioning that UNIFI supports the storage of pipe families and schedules independent of a RVT or RTE file. Additionally, our platform can store drafting views, materials, and more.
Conclusion
While these are only two features that make REHAU’s BIM efforts stand out from the typical manufacturer, there are many more benefits to checking out REHAU’s Revit content on UNIFI.
For the full experience, log in to the UNIFI web portal and navigate to the Subscription Center. Once you’ve subscribed to REHAU’s channels, your team will have access to all of REHAU’s high quality BIM content.
Not a UNIFI customer yet? Contact us here for a free trial.