Revit 2011 New Features - Platform and Architectural

April 8th, 2010 looks to be the release date.  Here are the features.

Overall Platform Improvements

• Improvements to the Visibility Control of Worksets in Workshared Files

  • “Visible by Default” Enhancements - This allows you the ability to override the visible by default setting of the workset IN EACH VIEW.  I believe this can also be applied to view templates, so now we have better control over which worksets we want to show, and I can see the ability to be more creative in using worksets for object visibility control.
  • Manage Linked Revit File Workset Enhancements
  • Linked File Workset Visibility Enhancements

• Improvements to Revit Linked Model Functionality

  • Applying View Filters to a Linked View
  • Tagging Elements in a Linked Model

• Improvements to AutoCAD Export

  • Unified framework for display, print, and export

• Improvements to Family Editor

  • Interactive exploration of parameter values in Revit Families (ability to change the parameter in the dimension string without having to go to the family dialogue box each time).
  • Locking labeled dimensions
  • Reporting parameters (this is a huge new feature, has a few limitations, but will set a new precedence for how we are able to use and pass information from families to other families and projects, particularly valuable in hosted families where it is necessary to get the thickness of the host for calculations downstream)

• Improvements to Parameters (pretty basic stuff related to defaults and groupings in the Types dialogue box).

• Improvements to Temporary Dimensions

  • Remembering witness lines
  • Family labels (ability to apply a label via right click to a permenant dimesion in the family editor and conceptual design environment).
  • Controlling Temporary Dimension Appearance

• Improvements to 3D Alignment - You can now align to virtually anything in 3D space which is a huge, long awaited improvement

• Improvements to Selection

  • Select All Instances in Project or in View

• Improvements to Text Notes (these improvements are a start, but far from what we need in a "Text Editor."

  • Enhanced Leader Attachment (right and left attachment settings, similar to multi-leaders in AutoCAD)
  • Enhanced Text Notes Options (box around text, bulleted lists, and a few other minor improvements)

• Improvements to Sheets

  • Creating New Sheet List Rows and Associating Multiple Placeholder Sheets (now you have the ability to create sheets and now show them in the Project Browser.  This is nice for Template set up as well as inserting "dummy" consultant sheets into a project for the Sheet Index, and not having to deal with them in the project Browser).

• Sheet Guide Grids

• Improvements to Floors

  • Setting Span Direction for Metal Deck Floors

• Improvements to UI

  • Repeat Last Command
  • Properties Palette

Revit Architecture Feature Summary

• Conceptual Design Environment

• Improvements to Conceptual Form Making and Editing Tools

  • Solid-Solid Cut
  • Dissolving Forms

• Improvements to Revit Linked Model Functionality

  • Improvements to Surface Rationalization
  • Treatment of Surface Borders

• Adaptive Component

  • Generic Template and Adaptive Component - This improvement is an animal I have barely touched, but allow me to say, it is pretty huge for parametric modeling and creating custom stuff.

Other Notable Enhancements

• New Visual Styles

  • Consistent Colors - I think the idea behind this development is that elevations could be set to this for exporting them as rendered elevations.  There was always a complaint in the past about elevations not being consitently colored for side to side, which is not standard architectural practice, even though it is real world accurate.  I don’t believe shadows work in this view type.
  • Realistic Textures - Ability to see textures without Rendering, similar to what you can do in Sketchup.
  • Ambient Lighting - aka Ambient Occlusion now can be viewed in Revit without Rendering.  Nice soft shadow effect where two objects meet.

• Solar Studies - Sun Path Simulation

  • This is a very cool new feature.  Basically, you can now see the Sun Path and adjust it graphically.  I think you may be able to export and print this as well, but I don’t remember for sure.

• "Modeless" Properties Pallete

  • This means we can now have instance properties of an object up all the time, similiar to AutoCAD.  Makes it very helpful for those of us with 2 screens, as properties of an object can now be up all the time.

• Removal of the the 4 core Rendering Limit

  • Yup, you can now render to as many cores as one machine can hold

• Better us of Multi-core machines during Open and Save

  • This is very cool.  I have noticed Revit open large files much faster, and my Quad core machine using almost all it's processing power during certain parts of the open file process.  This also applies during reloading links and makes this much faster as well

• Custom Elevation Tags

  • This is a long awaited, and highly requested enhancement.  It's still not quite up to snuff in my opinion, but it's almost to the point of full customization of the tags (main problem is still having rotated text I believe.)

• Removal of the 2 mile limit (errors received and funky behavior) for imported CAD files (now extended to 20 miles I believe).

I may have missed some things, and will try to make a separate post for Revit MEP and Revit Structure New Features.  If you have any questions, or would like to see screenshots of any of these features, I'd be happy to make further posts.  Enjoy and Happy Reviting!