Bluebeam Revu for the Design World

Bluebeam Revu is one of the most used software systems in the construction world. It handles QTO, estimating, redlining, as-builts, and even file collaboration between office and field with a simple to use interface. With all those features, you can see why it’s ubiquitous in the construction arena, but in the design world, it’s often overlooked as just a “construction tool” which is a huge mistake. Bluebeam

Revu has some incredibly useful features for architects and engineers that can save you a lot of time and make it easier to interact with clients, design partners, and contractors alike.

In this article, I want to cover a few of the tools that are focused on making life easier for those of us in the design world. I can’t cover them all, because Bluebeam has a host of tools that we all need at our fingertips, but I want to touch base on the ones that can have the largest, and most immediate, positive impact on your daily work process.

BATCH SIGN & SEAL DOCUMENTS

How long does it take you to sign & seal a set of documents? What if you have more than one signer? For most of us, it means printing a set on paper, walking it from office to office, then scanning the signed set (losing both time and resolution!) before printing out copies. This can take hours and cost hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars each time you need to re-issue or revise a set. With Revu, the entire process can be done on-screen, across your entire PDF set, adding seals and signatures (and yes: both digital and physical signatures) to every document in seconds. You can even apply the seal/signature to multiple locations, rotations, and on different sized sheets. Imagine being able to approve an environmental report, the survey, traffic plans, and the architectural design set using different signers/licenses, all with a single command. With Revu, the draftsperson just adds digital seals where needed, then the signer logs in and their digitally secured physical signature is added on top of the seal for every sheet in the set. These can even be saved and re-used again for updates and revisions. How’s that for saving time and money?

DOCUMENT COMPARE & OVERLAY

Document Compare How often do you need to see what the differences are between two files? What about doing conflict resolutions, or just verifying different systems line up where they’re supposed to? Sure, those are things that can be done in CAD, but they take a good bit of time, and you need to know what you’re doing or you risk damaging the design files. Wouldn’t it be better to just use PDF’s and let a system like Bluebeam identify the conflicts and areas of difference within the files? Not only can Revu do that but it can even add rev bubbles and highlight the areas of discrepancy. In terms of overlaying PDF’s, you can compare and color code up to twelve (12) different PDF’s all at once. It’s the easiest way I’ve ever seen to make sure your plumbing, HVAC, structural, and electrical systems work together without going thru extensive CAD gymnastics and that’s assuming you can even lay your hands on the DWG files from the other designers on the job! You can even batch process these tools, so you can compare hundreds of files all at once, and that’s something you just can’t do in a CAD system.

HYPERLINKING DETAILS AND SPECIFICATIONS

With Revu, you can make sure builders can easily access and refer to the correct details and sections of your specifications by automatically hyperlinking all your callouts on the plan to the appropriate pages of the construction set. Revu can automate this project to detect all your page

callouts and link to the specific pages or you can manually create links directly to specific details or notes in any other PDF document. Remove any questions about where/what to refer to on your plans and ensure that your design is being fully understood. The thing I like best about this is that the links work in any PDF viewer, even if your client/contractor doesn’t have Bluebeam themselves. The links use standard PDF code, Bluebeam just makes it much easier to generate them and point people to the important data in your design.

Bluebeam Studio

SHARING FILES AND COLLABORATING ON DESIGNS

How many times a day do you get requests for the most recent version of a file? How often do you get bids, RFI’s, or (worst of all!) installation problems that come from out-of-date construction documents? Your staff can spend hours each day, just searching for and emailing the current versions of the files on your projects. One of the best features in Bluebeam Revu eliminates those issues. Bluebeam Studio is included with every Revu purchase. Studio is a cloud-based file hosting and collaboration site with unlimited (yes, you read that right) storage so you can simply print all your PDF’s out to that location and share the link to all parties on the job so there’s never a need to email files ever again. People you invite to view/share the files don’t even need a licensed version of Bluebeam to access and work with your documents, they can just install the free versions and have the full set of Revu tools while they’re accessing your Bluebeam Studio account. Bluebeam Studio will host files of any type, not just PDF. That means you can host entire projects with specs, bids, contracts, and anything else you want in Studio. On top of all that, Studio has built-in collaboration tools so that up to 500 people can work on a document(s) simultaneously from anywhere in the world. That means you can see markups, photos, and comments from the field while you’re sitting in your office a hundred miles away and you can respond in kind. Not just that, but Studio will track every comment and change, telling you who did it, when, why, and what the result was. That level of control and issue tracking is vital for those of us working in the design space. We can use Studio as our primary communication and project control tool for dealing with everyone from the client to the trades and even approving agencies.

These are just a few of the features that make Revu an ideal system for designers. There are hundreds of others in this system that can really make a big difference in your daily work. Couple these with the fact that over 80% of the construction firms in the world use Bluebeam and you can see that it’s an ideal tool for bridging the gap between design and build. When you’re delivering intelligent, dynamic, information in a format that’s accessible to all stakeholders on the job and the GC and/or trades can easily work with and understand that information using tools they already have, that’s a game-changer. It’s great for traditional D-B-B style projects but if you’re working on integrated project delivery (IPD) jobs, a tool like Bluebeam is invaluable for collaboration and enhanced communication.

Jim Coppinger is an owner at ZenTek Consultants, the nation’s premiere technology consultant for the design/build world. Jim is also the host of The CADDle Call podcast, the leading broadcast on all things design and construction technology related.