Using Bluebeam For Sketching

The recent Bluebeam article, How to Use Revu for Sketching, offered readers a few steps to utilize Revu in a way that usually isn’t capitalized on: sketching. While Revu is generally used for “eliminating paper, streamlining document review and management, and marking up and communicating intricate design changes,” it can also help to standardize a firm’s sketching capabilities. It can save time and money to utilize something you already have for something that you still need to do, which is why you may want to look into taking advantage of this capability of Revu if you’ve purchased it. Some assets in Revu that can be useful for sketching are:

Setting up templates
Building out custom tool sets
The snapshot function
Maximizing the markup tools

Use this link to download a 30-day free trial of Bluebeam Revu.

The Revu snapshot feature isn’t just for formal plan documents. If you have your sketch templates already in place, you can use the Revu snapshot feature to “create custom symbols from drawing content on the PDF.” Once you’re done, you can save them in your custom tool set (which you can build out so that your normally used symbols are ready for you there).

With the snapshot function, you can “capture the details in a given plan and put it onto a blank PDF using your sketching template in Revu.” If you’d like to communicate proposed detail changes, add new plan components, or sketch out and mark up drawings, then this is the tool for you. The article even describes it as a “slimmed-down CAD environment.”

With your markup tools, you have the ability to sketch to scale, which ensures that “your sketches are more detailed and accurate than those done on paper.” All you’ll have to do is change your markup properties, create some custom line styles to use and “use markup alignment tools to create sketches.”

Jyotiba Patil, a BIM MEP Revit Specialist at design firm HDR, mentioned that sketching with Revu, and using Bluebeam in general, is “just easier.” In fact, most of the company’s sketches start there. Over the years, HDR has worked on projects such as the Guangzhou R&F International Hospital, the York University Neuroscience Laboratory and Research Building, the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and the Chatfield Reservoir Reallocation Project. With the help of Revu tools, the process of sketching became “faster and more [efficient]” for HDR, Patil said. “From the client’s perspective, I think one thing they appreciate is that quick turnaround.”

Are you interested in taking your projects to the next level? Try Bluebeam Revu eXtreme for yourself with a full working version on a 30-day free trial. If you find that eXtreme has too much horsepower for your team, you can test drive Revu Standard or Revu CAD. Take the opportunity to see firsthand how Revu enables increased collaboration and will help you get more done in less time. When it’s time to convert that 30-day trial to a subscription or perpetual license, contact Applied Software and talk to a Bluebeam expert about your firm’s specific needs.