What’s New in Revit Structure 2012

There are many exciting new features in Revit Structure 2012 that build upon an already strong software platform, and really raise the bar for BIM in general. Some of the great upgrades focus on improvements to enhance productivity, increase BIM workflow capabilities, and streamline collaboration and performance.

I have highlighted some examples of the major improvements to specific aspects of the software:

Analytical Modeling:
In addition to enhancing the creation, management, visibility, and control of the Analytical Model, the following improvements all help to solve round-tripping issues between Revit Structure and structural analysis software.

Nodes at the ends of beams, braces, and columns to allow for easy manipulation.
Edit mode can be enabled from Analysis Tab>Analytical Adjust Button or Contextual Tab of an element.
New tab added to visibility dialogue box specifically for the analytical model.
Physical elements that can have an analytical model associated with it contain the “Enable Analytical Model” parameter. Uncheck this parameter to remove the analytical model from the physical model.
Adjust Wall feature allows Analytical walls to be adjusted so their end edges correspond with another analytical wall edge plus the analytical wall can be extended to the surface of another analytical wall.

Rebar:

The 3 modes, ‘Parallel to Work Plane,’ ‘Perpendicular to Work Plane and Parallel to Cover,’ and ‘Perpendicular to Work Plane and Perpendicular to Cover’ combined with the ability to rotate rebar in 8 different directions by pressing spacebar allows for 24 different placement configurations!
Rebar can be bent in more than one plane to create some of the most common multi-planar shapes.
Objects can host rebar as long as the material is set to concrete or precast concrete.
Generic Model categories can now host rebar by checking the ‘Can Host Rebar’ parameter.
Rebar stirrup and tie style families can be set to snap to the exterior of a cover reference rather than the interior.

Family Editor and Conceptual Design Tools:

Solid to solid cut and void cuts are now available in the family editor for superior 3D modeling.
Adaptive components can now be placed in the project environment. When placed in the project, adaptive components behave similarly to other families from the generic model template as well as behaving similarly when placed in conceptual massing families.

Visualization Enhancements

More flexible visual style combinations which add value to visualization techniques and improve the interactive experience.
The Graphics Display Options dialog (GD) has been enhanced to a more component based format that closely resembles the Rendering dialog’s structure. You can now Save a View Template directly from the dialog as well.

Some of the new and enhanced view styles are:
- Realistic with Edges mode
- Ambient Occlusion (Ambient Lighting) in Hidden Line and Consistent Colors mode
- Shadows are now available in Consistent Colors mode.
- Ghosted Surfaces, which displays all surfaces with a 30% transparency, is now available in all view styles.
- Highlight and selection colors have been updated to provide a better visual when selecting elements. Transparency and solid fill have been enabled on selection.

You can now create, share, and manage material properties across many projects. Data sharing between Revit Structure and other applications creates better workflow compatibility.
You can now browse for a materials library that has been previously created. It extends your rendering capabilities because you can share different property sets from different rendering software. You can also remove a library that you no longer need in order to keep your project organized.

User Experience Enhancements

You can now lock a 3D view and tag elements in the view
The Type selector has been improved to make access easier. You can now change the type using the type selector while in sketch mode. Also, you can add the type selector to the Modify tab by right-clicking on the Type Selector in the Properties Palette and selecting Add to Ribbon Modify Tab.
The Keyboard Shortcuts dialog provides a quicker and easier way to assign shortcuts to all of your tools including single key entry to be first in priority, warning on duplicate shortcut creation, and ability to export all commands - not just those with assignments.
Starting view allows you to dictate which view Revit Structure should open by default when the file is loaded.

Construction Modeling:

Create Parts/Divide Model tools provide a method for dividing Revit geometry into smaller parts for the purpose of creating more accurate schedules, quantity takeoffs, visualizations and exports. Visibility controls help you maintain a persistent design model, while the construction model can represent more accurate as-built conditions.
Assemblies help support the creation of shop drawings for pre-fabricated building assemblies such as precast walls, columns, beams and floors. An assembly can be selected, scheduled, isolated, tagged and tracked in the project. All annotations and views creating inside the assembly views will not appear nor interfere with regular views of the main model.

Worksharing Enhancements:

Workset visibility can now be managed via view templates. This new functionality is available in the standard View Templates dialog.
There are four new display modes that enable users to visualize different status of ownership, making it easier to communicate with colleagues:
- The ownership status of elements
- The specific owners of elements
- Elements that are out of date with the central model or have been deleted in the central model
- Which elements are assigned to particular work sets
Disable Worksharing command is now available, allowing you to disable worksharing completely in the project and save it as a non-worksharing project.
Revit Structure now provides balloon notifications when editing requests are placed, granted and denied. The notifications have buttons to let you show the elements involved, providing a much faster and efficient way for you to communicate with your colleagues.

In addition to these new features, there are many other great enhancements to Revit Structure 2012 so make sure to upgrade today!

This page last edited on Thursday, September 08, 2011