SketchUp vs Revit
Many people ask me about SketchUp’s capability to work within BIM environments, so I decided to create this video in which I compare two nearly identical models, one created in Revit and the other in SketchUp, both exported to IFC format. I also submitted both models to the buildingSMART International validation service.
The video is in Spanish. Hopefully, YouTube will provide accurate subtitles or voice dubbing. (Still processing English audio at this moment…)
Thanks for this. I’ve been studying the comparison for a long time. Autodesk have an iron grip on the construction industry in Ireland where I’m from- It’s Revit all the way in both college and drawing offices. I couldn’t get an English translation in YT, so I did got this from the video transcript and Deepl
People often ask me if it’s
possible to work in a
BIM environment with SketchUp, and they always
refer to Revit. So, what
I’ve done is create two simple models,
one in Revit and the other in
SketchUp. I’ve tried to make them more or
less the same. You’ll see that they’re not exactly the same,
because I tried to copy the dimensions from one to the other,
but somewhere along the line I didn’t do it quite right.
Neither model is super professional;
they’re quick models, the modelling time is very similar,
so let’s look at the IFC export that has been done for each of them.
Let’s see the differences and let’s see
what we have from each of them.
We’re going to see the differences and we’re going to see
what we have from each of
them. To do this, what I’ve done is I’ve
put them in a viewer, well, I’ve
put them on a CD, I’ve put them in Trimble
Conneet and I have one here that is from
Rebit and another that is from
SketchUp. So, what I’m going to do
is select them and view them
directly in the 3D viewer.
Right, what I’ve done is, um, I’ve moved the one here
from SketchUp a little bit
so that you can see both of them together, and
then we’ll take a look at what
has come from the IFC of each of
them. Eh, this one here is the one that comes
from Revit and this one is the one that comes from
Sketchap. I should mention that in Sketchap
I work with, eh, different colours,
quite bright ones, which allow me to
generate the plans or deliverables, eh,
in an easy way. Eh,
I could add textures to make them
look like
Let me tell you that in SketchUp,
I work with different colours,
quite bright ones, which allow me
to generate the plans or deliverables
in an easy way. I could add textures to make them
look like Revit, but it’s not a
requirement, it’s something specific to
my modelling style and not to SketchUp
itself. If we look at the models,
you can see that here,
this one has the site number 001,
the project, that is, the building says
default, no, sorry, this is the
site.
Eh, well, this must be the site. This
must be the building, these are the
building stories. Eh, I don’t know why it says
default. I think it had a name. Here
the same thing happens, the default side, default
building, the levels do have
names. I really don’t know where
it comes from, but anyway, I don’t
think it’s the most important thing.
If we take level one here and isolate it,
we see that we have level one here. If I take
level one here and isolate it, we see that we
have something similar. And the same thing
happens with level two and level two. Okay, well, if we
restore the model, we can see that
within each of the
levels, in one way or another,
all the elements that have been
modelled in both the Revit model
and the SketchUp model are present.
Okay?
You can see that here, well, the names
are a little more organised, because
the way of naming is
more specific in SketchUp and Revit, If we make, for example, a
section, we see that we saw that
the ceilings are modelled, apart from the
slab, there are the modelled ceilings. Eh,
this form of visualisation is because
the spaces are overlapping. If
we take it and say that we don’t
want to see the spaces, the
model looks quite, eh, more curious.
We see that, well, we have our
doors, our partitions, our windows.
In other words, here the material I’ve
given it is not a translucent material.
Well, that’s one thing I could improve
when modelling. Eh, I told you that the
modelling time is very similar. It’s
true that it took me a little longer to
model the Sketchap one, because
I tried to make the windows that
were in Revit the same size in Sketchat,
with the sill at the same height, and that
took me a little longer.
I should mention that I took the first
window that came in the architecture template
from Revit, that is, I modelled without
any finesse. Is that
right? For example, I realised here that I put
this wall upside down. Well, the joints
probably haven’t been reviewed, that is,
it’s a model that has been modelled to
compare one with the other. I’ve taken
the same care with SketchUp as I did
with Revit, and as you can see, the models
are quite similar. OK?
Eh, let’s reset the model and
let’s continue looking at things.
Hey, let’s reset the model and
keep looking at things. Well, this
is the structure of the IFCs.
Let’s fold each one of them
and see what else we can see.
If we look at the layers that
come up, let’s go and let’s go, eh,
let’s select them all, let’s
hide them and let’s see what
comes up from each of them. Well, this
one here, eh,
let’s see,
this one here, I don’t know what it has.
I’m going to hide them. Hidden. Okay. And now
I’m coming to this one here.
This one has nothing. Well, this must be
from the spaces. If I activate the
spaces again,
okay? Indeed, this one comes from the
spaces.
This one here is the ceilings,
they must be the columns. I don’t know what
I did here, to be honest, I took some
architectural pillars and, well,
it wasn’t the best decision. The
doors,
the floors,
the windows,
the curtain wall panels, the
what appear to be the curtain wall
studs,
the walls, and these look like the
facade walls in SketchUp. This is what
the vertical cladding is, the
vertical plastering.
I used the same material for all the floors,
the ceilings, the
pillars,
the slabs, the façade, just the part
of the block,
eh, sorry, here this is what
the interior walls of Revit are, the
sanitary ware of SketchUp, eh, this is the
geometry drawn in, let’s say, what
would be the equivalent of layer zero, eh,
the sanitary ware of Revit, the tr
Revit sanitary ware, SketchUp cladding,
SketchUp interior partition walls and
SketchUp spaces. It’s at the layer level.
Let’s turn them around. Right, let’s
reset the model and take a look at the
links here. We don’t have any tasks or
views, right? Let’s go to the organiser.
In the organiser, what I’ve done is create In the
organiser, what I’ve done is create a
kind of set of rules so that it picks up
the equivalences between one
and the other. So, let’s
start, for example, by looking at the classes.
And as you can see, well, there is a difference
between the classes of each of
them. If I take this and tell it to
isolate, well, Sketchap takes
the curtain walls and treats them as a
single unit.
If we isolate the toilets here, I don’t
know if it was my mistake, I put it as
flow, I could swear I put terminal flow,
but well, maybe I was wrong and
put flow element. Eh, member and FC
member, they will be the uprights of the
curtain wall and FC Space. As you can see,
here I also realised that I hadn’t
discounted the pillar. My mistake,
but a modelling error, not an export error.
FC Plate. Well, the walls, that is,
the glass of the curtain wall,
the pillars,
the slabs. Here’s the difference.
Well, the slabs are modelled as
Well, the slabs are modelled as
composites. Here I modelled the floor and the
ceiling separately.
The doors, as you can see, well, here, eh,
as the second-level contours are exported,
eh, each of the
doors must bring The doors, as you can see, well, here, eh,
as the second-level contours are exported,
eh, each of the doors must have its own partition.
The coverings, well, here the coverings
only come on the ceilings, and here,
as coverings, the ceilings are modelled,
the floors are modelled, and
the exterior cladding of the façade is also modelled.
The The
plaster is like covering. Flow
terminal, well, flow terminal
comes with its own space for the
second level outline. Eh, the
windows are the same and the walls, well,
here the walls are quite similar.
If we look at the material,
well, we see that there are differences
between how the material is exported
SketchUp and how it exports the material in
Revit. Eh, if you notice, eh, when I
assign a material in SketchUp,
each of the things eh has a
different colour. This means that the
block eh, for example, eh, the
material that I use to identify
the types of partition or the types of
translation, well, here it detects it as
IFC material. However, in Revit,
I think there are many things that
come depending on how the material has been
taken within
each of the parts of the
elements that are modelled. And as you can see,
there are many things that do not have
the IFC material assigned.
If we come here to the
names, this is a grouping by
name, by class and by model. Well,
here you can see that it is the most varied
Well, here you can see that it’s very varied,
because here are the names
of the families and here are the names
that have been given to each of the
elements. This would be,
for example, the office, and let’s see
something that comes from Revit. Let’s see
if the spaces are here.
Right, basic wall. Let’s go to this
one here. Right, this wall. And this
wall has windows, and each of the
windows has a different name, because
it’s exported with the Revit ID. Let’s reset the model and
see what else we can find
here. Eh, I’ve also done this
classification. Eh,
well, what I’ve done with this classification
is eh a rule that only takes
the areas of the spaces. Let’s see,
for example, the areas of the spaces.
Let’s go here. Eh, let’s go
here and eh, I have the
surfaces,
okay? Eh, visible objects and we have
here, well, Revit, each of the
spaces are here, I don’t know, I think
that here the space instead of
the name has taken the number, the
space number, and there are all the
elements that it has associated with the
spaces.
Eh, in Sketch, well, in Sketchap we have
here, eh,
in defoldor.
M,
okay, what I wanted here is I’m going to
this here, I’m going to put the class and
I’m going to select only, I’m going to
select only the spaces, I’m going to
isolate them.
Okay, here I have the spaces, which was
what I wanted to analyse. Well,
eh
I don’t know why I have this here. Ah, well, that
the class
m the
m the class
I don’t know why Revit appears. Well,
these are the things
that are theoretically assigned to each of the
spaces. Ah, no, here
they are. Okay, these are the things
that are there. I’m going to isolate this.
Well, it must be, okay? These are the
spaces, okay? Here are the spaces, because
each one has its own number. You can see that
we have the net surface area of each
of them. 358.96
and in SketchUp we have 356.65
because I’ve made some partitions
a few centimetres or millimetres
wider or something, but anyway, the
surface area will be pretty
similar, I imagine. This one here, if we look at the
information,
the surface area
is 5.44
5.44
and this one here is
5.44. As you can see, the surface area is
the same. Here I have the value that
SketchUp puts in numeric format and this one in
stream format with square metres
similar to this one. All these values
can be retrieved by any
measurement software
with IFC. And I don’t know what else we can see.
Let’s reset the model. I think
we’ve done some sectioning.
Well, we can change the visibility a little bit
so you can see.
Well, what do we have here? Let’s see
the cutaway plan again. And
well, this is what we have. If
we deactivate
the spaces, eh,
if we deactivate the spaces, OK? They are
very deactivated. I don’t know, this must be
from eh from the overlap of the
cutaway plane, but well, as you can see, the
models are quite similar, the
IFC export is quite similar and
except for the colours The IFC export is quite similar, and
except for the colours or materials that
I applied myself, which came from the
default families that I chose,
there isn’t much difference. And
well, this is what I wanted to see.
As you can see, there is no
big difference between the two. Well,
the information that Revit exports is
greater because it includes a lot of
parameters that come by default in the
families, but if you modify something in
the family, not everyone modifies them.
And here, the And here, the
information that comes in is the information
that we really want to
include.
As I said, I haven’t modelled with
particular precision. What I have
done is check the Building Smart validation service
and I’ve entered
both IFCs, and there you have the pros and
cons. The
step syntax is okay for both. This is
the one from Revit and this is the one from
SketchUp. The diagram, well, there’s
a little problem here in the one from
Revit. The one from SketchUp seems to be
fine. Neither of these two
passes. They’re probably problems with
quick modelling. This one
here passes in Revit. This one here,
this little triangle, I think it’s because of the
georeferencing that SketchUp doesn’t do.
That means that if it were georeferenced,
we would probably have three out of four,
but as you can see, well,
the proof is that at least 50%
pass, both of them pass, and there’s no big
difference. As for what the
IFC standard is and what the good ones are,
the viewers, that is, the elements that
each of the models exports.
What I can do is
share, I can and I can
share the link. I can
share the link. I’m going to copy it, I’m going to
put it here and
I’m going to share it with any user
who has the link. I’m going to set an
expiry date. Let’s set it to, for
example, a week.
Eh, let’s put it
here
and let’s click on share. I’m going to
copy the links
and I’m going to paste them here so that I can
share them later. Keep in mind that
well, that until November is 16th
of November and so that you can see that
this here, let’s give it, for example,
that we want to open a new private window
and we’re going to come here
and
we’re going to paste the address here,
eh? Control V
and we see,
well, that it’s not the same because it’s a
version, that is, it’s a model, it’s a link
that is generated for free, but
you can see each of the
models separately and see, well,
you can see the sections,
we can see information about
some of the elements. Eh, well, you
can see the information that exports
the one and the other. Well, I’ll
leave it in the description of the
video in case anyone wants to, eh, in
this week, see something of what
each of the models contains.
And that’s all. As you can see, eh,
I think the difference from one
model to another is not exaggerated. And
the price of each As you can see, eh,
I think that the difference between one
model and another is not exaggerated. E
the price of each of them, because the
truth is that it is. And for
people who need to do
normal, simple modelling,
as you can see, Sketchap
is up to the task, in my opinion,
and you can do great things with
Sketch. Well, see you in another video.
The above is my sketchy copy paste from Deepl- I was limited to 1500 characters at a time which is why things are not exactly flowing- But hopefully it’s understandable.
It’s now in English too. Youtube made the audio in English possible.
When I specify English the captions disappear for me.
Yes I did that but when I did the titles just disappeared for me. Very strange.
Wow I got flagged for “spam” for posting the translation. I was only trying to help. I’m sorry guys- I promise not to provide translations in the future. 
hmmm probably because it was a very long and oddly formated message. someone might not have understood it was a translation
if you want to avoid the anti-long message police, you should try the “hide detail” mode :
select your text, and click there
OK got it, thanks.
Wow, I’m sorry. I know your intention was to help. I hope that it was something automatic and not someone who bothered the translation.
Why not try the Speckle way? It’s the easiest way to exchange data between CAD, BIM, and 3D design tools. All you need are Speckle connectors installed in both applications you want to share data between—and that’s it! You can send and receive data as easily as selecting the objects you want. Plus, you don’t even need SketchUp Studio to do it.
I’m not exchanging data between softwares. I’m exporting my model to a standard exchange format. And I don’t need SketchUp Studio for that.
Speckle doesn’t exchange all the data attached to the SketchUp components, only a few of them, IFC does.
