Revit Architecture 2012 – Top 10, What’s New and Enhanced

Revit 2012 includes a number of enhancements and a few new features that solve some of those day-to-day nuisances.

Revit 2012 contains a number of new features and many enhancements to all the Revit family of products and a few specific to Revit Architecture including energy analysis, point cloud support, parts and assemblies. There are a few not so flashy, but will be well appreciated.

Work Sharing Enhancements:

Workset Visibility controls that can be saved in the view template.
You can use worksharing display modes to visually distinguish:
    - Checkout Status. The ownership status of elements.
    - Owners. The specific owners of elements.
    - Model Updates. Elements that are out of sync with, or have been       deleted from the central model.
    - Worksets. Which elements are assigned to particular worksets.

The worksharing display mode commands are available on the View Control Bar after worksharing has been enabled in the project.
Disable worksharing to turn a workshared model into a non-workshared model.

Construction Modeling:

Revit supports virtual construction modeling workflows.
Revit categories support two construction modeling workflows:
· Parts. You can divide a model element into discrete parts that can be independently scheduled, tagged, filtered, and exported. You can also divide a part into smaller parts. Parts are automatically updated to reflect any changes to the element from which they are derived. Modifying a part has no effect on the original element.
· Assemblies. You can select any number of element instances to create an assembly. The elements in the assembly can then be manipulated as a single unit. Changes to assemblies are tracked as the model changes. Assemblies can be edited, tagged, scheduled, and filtered.

Point Clouds:

Insert an Autodesk-indexed point cloud file (.pcg) or convert a non-indexed file automatically.
· Once linked, the cloud integrates with Revit concepts like Section Box and Manage Links.
· Revit can extract planar references from the cloud data, making it easy to place elements (such as walls) using the cloud as a reference.

Graphic improvements:

Improved Graphics Display
·         Improved selection and pre-selection effects. By default, a selected element displays as a semi-transparent blue color. You can change these colors, and semi-transparency.
·         Additional visual styles. The View Control Bar now has an additional tool “Graphic Display Options” to create additional visual style combinations.
        o    More flexible visual style combinations.
        o    Ghost surfaces. In the Graphics Display Options dialog, select to see elements that are obstructed. You can select Ghost Surfaces as a view override, a category override, or an element override.
·         Improved graphic card error messaging. If a graphic card issue arises between your computer's video card and Revit, a message displays in the Graphics tab of the Options dialog, explaining what the issue is and how it can be resolved.

Linked Models:

You can tag linked models. Rooms, Spaces, Areas, and HVAC zones, Beam systems, Floor/Footing span symbols, and Area/Path span symbols, Beam Annotations tool to place tags and spot elevations on beams
· Use the Tag All Not Tagged tool to place room, space, and area tags on elements in linked models.
· You can place keynote tags on elements in linked models.

Tagging:

Adding Tags and Keynotes in a 3D View
·         Tags and keynotes can only be placed in a 3D view that has been locked.
·         You can lock a 3D view in order to tag elements and add keynotes in the view with the new “(un)locked 3D view” command on the View Control Bar.
·         There are 3 options when locking/unlocking a 3D view:
                - Save Orientation and Lock View
                - Unlock View
                - Restore Orientation and Lock View

Revit Families:

Improvements to managing loadable families associated with a project.
·         Save a selected family or all families loaded in the current project or template in a location that you specify.
·         Save all loaded families to a folder.
·         Export family types from the current family to a text file.
·         Import family types from a text file into the current family.

Dimensions:

Dimension Enhancements
·         Dimensions can now have 2 types of leaders: Arc and Line.
·         Show Leader When Text Moves parameter: show the leader when text moves beyond the witness line, and show the leader when text moves away from its origin.
·         Line leaders - can be placed inline or above the text by using the Text Location parameter, can display a shoulder by specifying a shoulder length parameter

User Interface Enhancements:

Enhancements to Shortcut Keys
·         Single letter keys can be defined
·         Notification if Key is already defined
·         Export all commands, even if they do not have shortcuts assigned. You can edit the xml file and then import them back into Revit

This page last edited on Tuesday, June 07, 2011