Revit 2012 New Features part 1

Well, one of our favorite times of the year is finally here… The Autodesk 2012 software lineup, including Revit Architecture 2012, Revit Structure 2012, and Revit MEP 2012, has hit the streets and we’re eager to help all of our  users get up to speed as quickly as possible on all the great new features and improvements. All of us here at CADsoft Consulting have some great educational events planned to teach these new features and get you productive in a hurry.

As with any release, there are usually a few big changes or new functionality, along with a lot of little tweaks and improvements that often go unnoticed. The fact that some things go unnoticed is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s just evidence that a tool now works the way you always wanted or expected it to. It may not get a lot of fanfare, but you may still find yourself smiling when you use it and think smugly to yourself, “Hey, Autodesk listened to me. That’s just what I asked for!”

Well with Revit 2012, I certainly found some of those features. Some of my specific wants have been met and some things I didn’t even know I wanted are now included and I can’t imagine going back to the old way. As usual, I’ve been part of the beta team, so I’ve been able to put Revit 2012 through its paces for a few months, and while there is always room to grow (and still some of those things I’ve wanted that haven’t been built yet), this release has a lot to offer.

Here are a few of my favorite Revit 2012 new features

In today’s post, I’ll focus on the topic of Collaboration, with more posts to follow throughout the week.

Enjoy! I think you’ll find some great new features of Revit 2012 that will make your day.

Revit 2012 Worksharing Enhancements

The display in Revit has been modified to allow us to easily color code elements based on the Workset they belong to or the user they are editable by. This alone is an amazing timesaver that lets you see how your worksets are organized at a glance, as well as understanding who is working on what.

Best of all, however, is the addition of … drumroll… pop up Editing Requests!

Pop Up Editing Request Window

At long last, we have the feature users have been begging for since worksets were introduced — a request that users will actually see! Now, when you need to work on an element that is owned by someone else, you can put in an Editing Request, as before, but now, on that user’s machine, in the lower right corner, they will get a message that pops up that allows them to accept the request. Brilliant! No more lonely nights spent pining away at your Revit system, hoping and praying that someone would grant your unnoticed editing request.

Thank you Autodesk!

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on new tools for sustainable design.

Have fun with Revit 2012.

Autodesk Revit MEP 2012 New Features

I can count greater than three dozen enhancements in the 2012 release of Revit MEP, not beginning to count the platform-based enhancements for all three Revit products.  Here are just a few:

Sloped Piping

New tools assist in laying out pipe slopes with automatic calculation, read-out for invert elevations and on-screen tooltips.

Duct and Pipe Placeholders

Placeholder design has always been an early design stage recommendation, but at times can be difficult without the ability for system assignment and other engineering information.  With the new placeholder objects early stage layout can focus on design more than fitting choices and other modeling concerns.  Placeholders can be tagged and checked for interferences.  When ready, a tool to convert placeholders to more detailed objects is available.

Insulation and Lining for Ducts and Pipes

Easily and quickly add insulation and lining to entire runs and utilize interference checking with these elements.  Ducts will also adjust sizes when using the sizing tool of duct segments that include lining.  Many more features have been added or enhanced such as Revit Server for multi-site, multi-user collaboration, point cloud support for visualizing scans, systems and system browser improvements, parallel pipe and conduit runs, and much, much more.

We’ll be looking at more of the specifics as we get to explore them.

Please join us April 20th, for our Virtual Launch showing many of the Autodesk 2012 product releases.  Just click the link provided below.  Hope to see you there.

http://bit.ly/fFsMTo

Navisworks Manage 2012 New Features

This year, I’ve seen the greatest number of additions and improvements across all of the AEC products compared to past releases.

Clash Detection Enhancements

The tool that may be valued the most in Navisworks Manage sees great improvement to support our project review cycle process.  No longer do we have to create a separate Excel spreadsheet and update it
manually to track each clash and record its responsible party.  We now have an effective and editable HTML report that can be loaded in Excel and shared with the team quickly.  Assignments can be made
immediately for each clash while performing the review to populate this spreadsheet report.

Improved Revit Interoperability

The Switchback function now operates with Revit products to allow a more immediate review cycle with in-process review model updates.  New construction modeling capability in the revit products will also
come across in Navisworks, as well as, properties of areas and volumes, and linked files.

New Appearance Profiler

This new tool allows custom overrides for color and transparency to better differentiate systems and components in your models.

Multisheet 2D DWF support and Project Browser

2D documentation can be loaded into a new project browser to aid easier navigation and wayfinding.

Navisworks Freedom Adds Measuring Tools

Are you having team members who don’t own Navisworks Manage participate by using Navisworks Freedom?  Freedom now adds the capability for dimensioning and gathering area calculations, not just model
navigation and review.

There will be more to come as we explore other new features and enhancements with this great review and management tool.

Please join us April 20th, for our Virtual Launch showing many of the Autodesk 2012 product releases.  Just click the link provided below.  Hope to see you there.

http://bit.ly/fFsMTo

Renumbering Rooms in Revit – Coming soon from the Autodesk Labs

I should be keeping an eye on Autodesk Labs more often.

This site has several great plug-in or add-ons. Many of these features have been improved on due to user feedback and become part of subsequent versions of Autodesk products. In addition to plug-ins and add-ons, the Labs offer technology previews of standalone products such as Project Galileo, a standalone conceptual design tool for infrastructure planning on urban planning project.

We have run into workflow issues where in the normal course of iterative design changes we need to easily renumber rooms in the manner that remains consistent with the flow of the floor design. Many instances where users need to add and remove rooms create instances where we need to renumber rooms either systematically from a schedule or by selecting in the plan view and changing the room number dynamically without the constant warnings that room a number matches another room(s). So, I wanted to point out a forthcoming plugin for Revit from Autodesk Labs.  This site at Autodesk Labs – Plugin of the Month is showing as teaser Room Renumbering for Revit that is coming in March. Apparently we have been waiting for this functionality to be part of the Revit product. Like most of us, I don’t have the full details of the forthcoming plug-in, but keep watching this site and when it arrives in March grab it by creating a user account and reading the fine print. I will be watching and participating in the review of the plug-in myself.

These offering are not intended for production use, and if you do so, please keep in mind it is at your own risk. Additionally, be sure to understand many of these technology review offerings might have a limited time frame that they will operate and user feedback is solicited in order to improve on the products and plug-ins.

10 Easy Steps to Conceptual Energy Analysis

As many of you already know, I’m a big Ecotect Analysis fan. Over the past year I’ve had the pleasure (well, mostly a pleasure) of helping hundreds of designers in the US and parts of Europe use this tool to improve the performance of their buildings. That being said, I’m also the first to admit that the process of creating an efficient BIM that can be used for energy analysis is far from perfect. At times it’s time consuming, and other times, it’s just frustrating. Even after getting the hang of it, the process could certainly be improved.

Well, the good news is that our great friends at Autodesk have been hard at work to improve this process and to lower the barrier to entry to start using analysis on all of your designs. The tool they’ve developed is the Conceptual Energy Analysis plug in and the best news is that it runs right inside of Revit!

I’m sure you’ve already heard of it, and maybe even checked out some of the videos Autodesk has posted on Youtube. But, just to show you how easy it is to start using this great tool, I’ve put together a list of 10 easy steps to jump start your building analysis.

This application makes it a snap to upload a properly formed thermal model to the Autodesk Cloud, making use of the Green Building Studio web service to perform whole building energy analysis but without the pain of submitting it to GBS yourself. The analysis is fast, easy, and turns out some awesome charts and graphics to help validate your design decisions. Get up to the Subscription Center right now and give this tool a whirl!

There you have it. I know I told you there were 10 steps. The 11th pic is not a step — that’s your results! Enjoy them. See, I told you it was easy…

Bonus Tip:

You can use Ecotect with the model the Conceptual Energy Analysis tool builds. Simply click Export and choose gbXML. Import it into Ecotect and you’re ready get down to business with an incredibly clean and well constructed thermal model!

1. Export to gbXML from the Results and Compare dialog.
2. Import the gbXML into Ecotect and perform your analysis with an incredibly clean, efficient, and well constructed thermal model!

Amazing! Thanks, Autodesk.