Revit^® Architecture 2008: Not just a name change

Over the years of using Revit I have always been impressed with Autodesk's ability and desire to continually improve the software. With the current major release right around the corner they have proven once again that they listen to their users and are always looking to continually enhance the features of Revit. One of the first changes you will notice is that Revit is no longer just called “Revit®.” Allow me to introduce Revit® Architecture 2008.

Aside from the obvious visual changes the developers of Revit Architecture 2008 haven’t disappointed with this release. In this article I would like to share with you a couple of the more than 40 enhancements that have been added to Revit Architecture 2008.

Element and Category Visibility Control
Permanent Hide of Elements or Categories in View
With past releases of Revit we never had the ability to permanently hide an element or a category. Well, now you can. One of the first things that you may see is that there have been some new commands added to the “View Control Bar.”



The first command that we will go over is the “Temporary Hide/Isolate” command. Just looking at it, one might say that it looks no different than it has in earlier releases. To discover what’s different about it, let’s select a family to modify its visibility.

Once I’ve got the family highlighted, I can now use my “Temporary Hide/Isolate” command. Once selected you will now see the change, what once was “Isolate Object” is now “Isolate Element” and “Hide Object” is now “Hide Element.”

You now have the ability to permanently hide an element in a view. In the past you may have tried to use this feature to hide something, thinking that it wouldn’t print, only to find that after you ran the print job, the element was there. The other new command now available is “Apply Hide/Isolate to View.” Once you choose one of the four commands you will have the opportunity to apply that command permanently to the view. I have selected “Hide Element.” After doing so, the “glasses” now turn blue instead of the red that we were used to seeing. You will also notice that you now have a blue border around the perimeter of your drawing.

After I select “Apply Hide/Isolate to View,” the blue box and blue glasses disappear.

The center door has now been permanently hidden in this view. To be able to see it again or see what elements that I have hidden in this view I simply select “Reveal Hidden/Elements” (light bulb). Once I have done this I will get a magenta border and any elements that were hidden are also magenta, you will notice that the glasses turn magenta as well.

Once I have done this I can now select the element that is hidden and change the visibility of it for that view. Once I have chosen the element I simply right-click on it and the customary dialogue box appears with some new options as well.

If I wanted to hide the entire category in this view I would select “Hide in View” and choose “Category.” If I wanted to unhide the element I would of course select “Unhide in View” and choose “Elements.” I now have the ability to override the graphics of either an element or a category in the view, and again you could do this by right clicking and selecting “Override Graphics in View” and choosing either “By Element,” “By Category,” or “By Filter.”
 

This page last edited on Wednesday, September 17, 2008