Autodesk Revit Preview Guide - MicroCADD

Autodesk Revit

Preview Guide

Introduction

The Autodesk® Revit® 7 building information modeler is a powerful design and documentation system that works the way architects think about buildings. It vastly improves both the coordination and quality of project documentation. And it improves business by enabling building professionals to work more productively. The bottom line is competitive advantage for architects, builders, and others who work in the building industry. In the Autodesk Revit parametric building model, every drawing sheet, every 2D and 3D view, and every schedule is a direct presentation of information from the same underlying building database. As you work in familiar drawing and schedule views, Autodesk Revit collects information about the building project and coordinates this information across all other representations of the project. The parametric change technology in Autodesk Revit automatically coordinates changes made anywhere—in model views or drawing sheets, schedules, sections, plans, renderings … you name it.

Autodesk Revit supports all phases of the building process, preserving all information from beginning to end. The same model that is rendered in design generates quantities exported to an estimating database after construction documents are prepared.

This Preview Guide covers the concepts and features introduced with Autodesk Revit 7. For a complete overview of Autodesk Revit generally please see www.autodesk.com/revit.

www.autodesk.com/revit 1

Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide

Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1

Contents................................................................................................................. 2

Works Like an Architect Thinks .................................................................................. 3

Autodesk Revit Building Maker ................................................................................ 3

Modeling and Design Tools ..................................................................................... 4

Enhanced User Interface ........................................................................................ 6

Coordination and Quality in Project Documentation ....................................................... 8

Autodesk Revit Parametric Components.................................................................... 8

Revisions ............................................................................................................. 9

Legends ............................................................................................................. 10

Offset Sections ................................................................................................... 11

Schedules .......................................................................................................... 11

Better for Business................................................................................................. 12

Autodesk Revit Worksharing ................................................................................. 12

Network Installation ............................................................................................ 13

Reporting and Data Sharing .................................................................................. 13

Presentation and Visualization ............................................................................... 16

Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 17


Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide Works Like an Architect Thinks

Intuitive editing, building modeling, and site design tools in Autodesk Revit 7 ensure that you spend less time learning the software and more time designing.

Autodesk Revit Building Maker Autodesk Revit 7 eases the design process with enhancements to tools such as walls and curtain walls, structural components, and site components. In addition, Revit has made advancements in the creation of components and strengthens the relationship between the exploratory nature of conceptual design and design development with the introduction of Autodesk Revit Building Maker.

Building Maker is a flexible and responsive conceptual modeling and design environment linked to the Autodesk Revit building model. Unique among software tools, it enables a cumulative understanding of the relationship between expressive and built form as the design develops. The designer develops conceptual models independently and maps them to building model components as the design progresses, working fluidly between the conceptual model and the building model. Design intent and detail are captured at the moment of conceptualization.

Building components can be created by selecting massing or generic model faces. The following components can be created directly from a conceptual massing model in Autodesk Revit.

• Walls: Create from any vertical face

• Curtain wall systems: Create from any face

• Roof: Create from sloping and horizontal faces

• Floors: Create from floor area faces

Although these elements are not locked to the faces, they do remain associated and can be automatically updated as the underlying conceptual model changes.


Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide Modeling and Design Tools

Intuitive editing tools, building modeling and site design tools ensure that you spend less time learning the software and more time designing.

Stacked Wall Types

New to Autodesk Revit 7, the stacked wall type more easily describes cases where wall thickness changes at different building heights. Stacked walls can be composed of walls with different widths. These subwalls can also be scheduled for easy quantity takeoffs.

Curtain Walls

Flexible, intuitive curtain wall tools make designing any curtain wall easy. Autodesk Revit 7 enhancements include profile-based mullion types, wall panel support, and improvements to curtain grid lines.

In this release, curtain systems can be placed on any type of face. In addition, curtain walls can also be embedded in regular wall types. The new graphical curtain grid layout tool supports regular and irregular spacing.

New Wall Tools

Autodesk Revit 7 includes a new toolbar to directly draw walls, convert linework to walls, or convert faces to a wall. Other

enhancements include the ability to automatically fillet walls and linework by selecting the Radius option from the toolbar.



Structural Features Engineers and architects use the structural tools in Autodesk Revit for design and documentation.

New tools such as joist systems, beam setback controls, brace controls, and column-grid attachments streamline this process.

Enhanced Site Tools Autodesk Revit provides several tools for creating site plans: Toposurface, Graded Region, Property Line, Pad, Parking Component, and more.

Site tools help communicate realistic site conditions in documents. Use the Autodesk Revit site tools to

• Understand how building placement affects grading

• Understand site setback relationships

• Understand relationship of landscape to the building

• Sketch organic site features and walkways

• Eliminate time spent counting and documenting parking

• Enter property line data using surveyor’s units

• Sketch centerlines and curb lines in plans

• Place and schedule parking stalls www.autodesk.com/revit 5

Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide In Autodesk Revit 7, new subregions are sketch-defined areas hosted by toposurfaces that appear in toposurface schedules. They have names, materials, and areas, and can be moved and edited.

Parametric Modular Design

In Autodesk Revit 7, groups better support repeating units, which is ideal for designing specific building types such as offices and hotels.

Additional Sketch Tools

To help in the design of parametric components, sketch tools have been grouped and now include a new Polygon tool for greater design control.

Enhanced User Interface

Autodesk Revit software’s intuitive user interface makes it easy to use. The Autodesk Revit window is arranged for straightforward navigation. All toolbar buttons, for example, are labeled, so that the function of each button is clear.

Autodesk Revit uses familiar Microsoft® Windows®

conventions. For example, the menu bar across the top of the window includes standard menu names such as File, Edit, and View. Use of these standards accelerates learning so you can start designing immediately.



View Display Settings

Each of the views in your project has display settings that help visualize your project. The display setting is view-specific, so you can have different views of your building with different display settings. The figure to the right shows the difference among the settings.

In Autodesk Revit 7, each view window has view controls on the bottom left. They give status feedback and allow direct manipulation of View Scale, Level of Detail, Shading, Model Graphics Style, Crop Boundary, and Hide/Isolate controls. The following table provides details on each of these tools.

Tool Function Tool View Scale Change the scale of a view on the fly with

predefined or custom scales. Level of Detail Change detail level from Coarse to

Medium to Fine.

Shading Change shading from Wireframe to Hidden Line to Shading to Shading with Edges.

Model Graphics Style

Toggle 2D and 3D vectorial shadows in OpenGL views.

Crop Region The crop region defines the boundaries for

the view. Use these controls to easily turn the crop region on or off.

Hide/Isolate Temporarily hide a design element that’s obstructing a view, or isolate an element for complete design focus.



Coordination and Quality in Project Documentation

Reduce coordination errors with drafting and documentation tools that help to ensure that construction documents are always accurate and up-to-date. These tools help create integrated construction documents by taking full advantage of the building model. The result drastically reduces the amount of drawing needed, saving time and ensuring document coordination and quality. In addition, Revit has made enhancements in the creation of content with enhancements in the Family Editor and Family Types in addition to the introduction of Autodesk Revit Parametric Components.

Autodesk Revit Parametric Components

Revit Parametric Components are an open, graphical system for design thinking and form making, a powerful way of expressing design intent at increasingly detailed levels. Use parametric components to generate the most elaborate assemblies—including intricate iterative, algorithmic, and behavioral characteristics—as well as the most elementary building parts. No programming language or coding is required. Any relationship can be expressed directly in the system.

Take advantage of the Family Editor, a graphical editing mode that enables you to create parametric components (called families in the software) and to easily create or customize just about anything, even doors, windows, and annotation types.

Parametric components include the ability to nest families. In Autodesk Revit 7, nested families are parametrically controlled to create interchangeable subcomponents. This makes possible, for example, a door with multiple transom and hardware types that are reflected in the displayed geometry.

Other enhancements to parametric components include the addition of parameter types, reference lines, and angular dimensions that make it easier to resolve complex conditions.


Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide Revisions

Autodesk Revit 7 supports revision numbering by project or sheet. Making a revision is easier with three new tools.

The first tool is revision clouds, which can be tagged, exposing information such as revision numbers.

The second enhancement is the addition of a global Revision Table, which lists all revisions in the current project. New revisions can be created or, in some cases, merged with existing ones.


Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide For each revision, you can enter information such as when the revision was made, to whom the revision was issued, and a brief description. In addition, you can toggle visibility of all revision clouds of a specific revision number or designate a revision as being issued.

Once a revision is marked as issued, revision tags cannot be modified in any way (with the exception of visibility), meaning that the revision clouds themselves cannot be deleted, copied, moved, or edited.

The third component of revisions is the Revision Schedule. These schedules automatically record all the information from the revision clouds that appear on the sheet. To ensure accuracy, these schedules cannot be modified within the sheet itself.

Legends

The new legend view type enables creation of symbol legends without adding elements to a project. Any model, annotation, or system family element can be displayed. A single legend view can be placed on many sheets.

Fully associative legends ensure that the graphic symbol display stays coordinated.


Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide Offset Sections

Sections and elevations are computed on demand in a fraction of the time required to draw the sections by hand or with traditional CAD. Work in any appropriate view of the building,

including sections and elevations.

In Autodesk Revit 7, sections can be segmented to create “jogged” section views.

In addition, when section boxes cut through model geometry, the resulting cut face is capped. In coarse views, a user- designated poche material fills the cut. In medium- and fine-scale views, the compound layer structure is displayed in host elements.

Schedules

You can create many different schedule types for Autodesk Revit parametric components such as doors and windows. Schedule information is automatically extracted from the properties of these components.

Schedules are computed on demand, dramatically reducing the time required to create and edit schedules. Timesaving functionality includes associative split schedule sections, selectable design elements via schedule views, formulas, and filtering.

In Autodesk Revit 7, properties ranging from title and column headers to gridlines provide greater control over a schedule’s appearance.

The customizable schedules can include any of the standard system-supplied properties or up to 24 user-defined properties. You can then add these schedule views to drawing sheets or export them to a spreadsheet program using a delimited text format.

The schedules are also associated with the building information model; if any change in the building affects the schedule, it instantly updates. In fact, you can change information in the schedule, and your building model updates accordingly.



Better for Business

Use Autodesk Revit software’s integrated project model approach to streamline design collaboration Autodesk Revit Worksharing, improve productivity, and reduce errors in any work environment, from single-person to multiuser design projects with extended design teams. Win business with improved clarity and completeness of design presentations and visualizations. Take advantage of new business opportunities with extended reporting and data sharing functionality.

Autodesk Revit Worksharing

Revit Worksharing distributes the power of the parametric building modeling environment across the project team. Worksharing provides a complete range of collaboration modes from on-the-fly simultaneous access to the shared model, through the formal division of the project into discrete shared units, to complete separation of project elements or systems into individually managed linked models. Worksharing enables the team to choose the best way to collaborate and interact based on workflow and project requirements.

Design Options

Develop and study multiple simultaneous design alternatives to make key design decisions. Present multiple schemes to your clients easily.

Each option can be substituted into the model for visualization, quantification, and other data analysis to inform decision making. In Autodesk Revit 7, a design option can be set current for editing simply by selecting the appropriate design element. Also, when a design option is deleted, the user is notified of the associated views that are affected.

Worksets and Element Borrowing Enhancements

Much like xrefs in AutoCAD software, worksets enable multiple users to work on a single project by dividing a building into logical parts (such as an interior layout, furniture layout, exterior shell, and structural layout) and assigning owners to each.

Each team member can then check out a workset and work independently in that workset by manipulating specific elements such as doors, walls, or windows. When work is complete, that team member checks


Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide changes into a master project file, which also includes changes from other team members.

Element borrowing is similar to AutoCAD software’s Refedit feature. It improves work sharing with on-the-fly access to elements across worksets by reducing editing conflicts in multiuser work teams.

Enhancements in Autodesk Revit 7 include right-click access to worksets and element borrowing.

Network Installation

Easily manage licenses with tools such as license borrowing. This feature also works in network environments that include installations of AutoCAD and the Autodesk® AutoCAD® Revit® Series. In these situations, the License Manager determines whether a stand-alone installation of AutoCAD or an installation of AutoCAD from the AutoCAD Revit Series has been borrowed, ensuring that every possible license is being used. Autodesk Revit 7 also supports distributed and redundant network license server configurations.

Reporting and Data Sharing

To take advantage of existing data, you may want to exchange information between Autodesk Revit and other software packages. Autodesk Revit supports 2D and 3D DXF™ and DWG formats, DWF™ format, and MicroStation® DGN® format.

In some instances you may want to import 2D or 3D geometry, such as a site or an HVAC layout, and use this information to create your Autodesk Revit model. You could then link your project to the 2D or 3D file that you imported. If it ever changes, you see the change in your model.

You may also want to export your model. You can export view sheets or entire drawing sheets in any of the supported formats and open these files in the appropriate software. For example, you might want to send your Autodesk Revit project to a subcontractor who does not use Autodesk Revit.



ODBC Export

ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) is a standard database access method that provides a vendor-neutral common ground between applications and databases.

Autodesk Revit can export ODBC-compliant data. After you have chosen a data source, Autodesk Revit populates database tables with data from the current project. Autodesk Revit creates one database table listing all instances and another listing all types of model elements in the project. Additional tables are created for levels and rooms, listing instances only, and for assembly codes, listing each uniformat assembly code in the project.

In Autodesk Revit 7, shared parameters have been added for export to ODBC databases, such as design options, project information, room information, and phasing.

DWG File Export

Autodesk Revit imports, exports, and links your data with the industry’s best DWG compatibility. Native support for DWG and DXF formats assures fully compatible data exchange for smooth coordination between team members, including engineering consultants. In Autodesk Revit 7, identical instances in a Revit view, such as furniture components, are written as instances of the same block DWG and DXF exports.

DGN File Export

Use the Output to MicroStation DGN feature to ensure smooth coordination between team members. In Autodesk Revit 7, identical instances in a Revit view are written as instances of the same cell definition in DGN exports.



Import Improvements in 3D Solids Autodesk Revit 7 enables import of 3D solid geometry, except for general NURBS (nonuniform rational b-spline) surfaces, from applications such as AutoCAD software, increasing collaboration opportunities with users of other CAD applications.

DWG File Import

Additional functionality includes Layer Query and Partial Explode of imported DWG files as well as the ability to orient imported DWG files to Revit views.


Autodesk Revit 7 Preview Guide Presentation and Visualization

Integrated rendering and other tools provide on-demand presentation material as an added benefit, without additional work by the team.

Autodesk VIZ 2005 Support

In addition to the native rendering and animation capabilities in Autodesk Revit, you can also fully realize your designs with Autodesk® VIZ 2005. Import Revit-produced 3D DWG files into Autodesk VIZ 2005 (via plug-in), complete with Revit materials, to create stunning photorealistic interior and exterior renderings.

RPC3 Support

Autodesk Revit 7 supports ArchVision® RPC™ image-based rendering for unprecedented realism. Revit 7 supports RPC 3 content, including cars and office clutter. If RPC 3 files are used, Revit elements include the expanded set of RPC 3 properties as well.

Section Perspectives

Use section perspectives to aid in explaining design intent. This flexible tool complements other features in Autodesk Revit 7, including hidden-line and shaded views, vectorial shadows, capped section boxes, and silhouette edges.



Vectorial Shadows

Using advanced model graphics, nonrendered views support shadow casting, as shown in the following figure.

Vectorial shadows work in 2D and 3D views, improving the quality of your presentation graphics.

Conclusion

Autodesk Revit 7 has provided ways for improving ways for architects and designers to continue to work the way they think with additions like Autodesk Revit Building Maker, improve their quality of work by eliminating coordination mistakes in construction documents or providing enhancements for content creation with Autodesk Parametric Components, and continue to better the architect or designer’s business by providing ways for better interoperability and provide a variety ways to share work with a project team with Autodesk Revit Worksharing.

Autodesk, Inc. 111 McInnis Parkway San Rafael, CA 94903 USA

Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, DXF, DWF, and Revit are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

© Copyright 2004 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.


Autodesk Revit Preview Guide - MicroCADD

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