Why can’t I select my curtain walls in Revit?

Why can’t I select my curtain walls in Revit?

Have you ever come across a situation where you can see the curtain wall elements in your Revit scene, but could not select them?  To make this a little more confusing, you could select the components of the curtain wall, but not the wall itself?  We have, especially when constructing the building envelope in files that were originally generated by someone else.  Fortunately, this is an easy fix.

Let’s take a look at the situation.

Zooming into a curtainwall, you place your cursor near the perimeter and expect the curtain wall to highlight as it usually does.

This time, the head mullion highlights, but not the overall curtain wall element. Pressing the Tab key cycles the selection through the nearby curtain wall components, but not the host object.       

Trying to select the curtain wall with a selection window and filtering out everything except the wall itself seems like a solution but, as shown below, Walls are not shown as selected objects in the Filter dialog box along with the other objects.

What’s the problem?  It’s not the wall itself, but the Discipline setting of the current view.  With nothing selected, look at the Properties panel.  In the Graphics area, if the Discipline value is set to Structural, the curtain walls cannot be selected.  There are two solutions:  The first, and preferable, is to change the Discipline parameter of the view to Architectural or any option other than Structural.

The second, and not recommended, option is to select the curtain wall then, in the Structural area of the Properties panel, check the Structural option.  Curtain walls, by definition, are not load bearing and this solution may have ramifications regarding the structural design of the building.

We hope this information has been interesting and helpful.  If you have any questions regarding BIM and curtain walls, don't hesitate to ask.

Adding Mullion Profile Parameters

Adding Mullion Profile Parameters

In the recent post "Custom Profiles" (http://curtainwallbim.blogspot.com/2013/02/custom-profiles.html), ghaeberle mentioned parametric curtainwall profiles and we'll take this opportunity to present the procedure for doing just that.

When creating the profiles for curtain wall mullions on a large project, you'll notice the number of mullions growing quickly.  The captured mullion that you thought could be used in most places may need to be modified because of changes in the glass thickness, changes in the infill material (glass, terra cotta, aluminum composite panel (ACP), etc.), allowance for design features, or a change in the system, just to name a few.  By adding parameters to the mullion profile family, changes can be made quickly and the new variation can be added to the project.  Here's how:

1)  Open a mullion profile family (.rfa).  The one shown in the fig below is from the Custom Profiles tutorial on this site.

2)  In the Properties panel of the Home tab, click the Family Types button.

3)  This opens the Family Types dialog box.  Each parameter must be named and then a dimension can be associated with each parameter.  Click the Add button in the Parameters section of the Family Types dialog box.

4)  In the Parameter Properties dialog box that opens, choose Type as the parameter type then enter a descriptive name in the Name field.  Spaces are acceptable as parameter names, as are underscores and hyphens, but we don't recommend them. Underscores between words can offer a degree of visual continuity that a space doesn't and hyphens can be interpreted as minus (-) signs in some schedules.  Make sure Length is selected as the Type of Parameter then click OK.

5)  The parameter is added to the Dimensions category in the Family Types dialog box.  Repeat step #4 until you've added all the parameters that you need.  If you realize later that you missed one, you can repeat steps 2 - 4 to add it.

6)  Add dimensions to your profile that correspond to the parameters you created. These are not visible in the project that the profile is loaded into, so you don't need to spend much time making them neat.  You can also change the scale of the current view to reduce the size of the dimension.

7)  Select a dimension then, from the Options bar, click the Label drop-down list and select the corresponding parameter.

8)  The parameter name is added to the dimension name indicating that the dimension value is driven by the parameter value.  Repeat step #7 to associate the remaining dimensions to the parameters.  In the image below, you'll see that the overall system depth does not have an associated parameter.  This value is driven by the sum of the System_Depth_FOG and Cap_Depth parameter values.  This dimension cannot be locked as this would create a conflict should the other two dimensiond be modified.

 

9)  In this example, the Mullion_Width and Cap_Width parameters should move the lines equally in opposite direction.  To force this, add and place a multi-segment dimension from the left vertical mullion line to the reference line to the right vertical mullion line.  Click the Toggle Dimension Equality icon (The EQ above the dimension). EQ replaces the actual dimension to indicate that the vertical mullion lines will remain equidistant from the reference line.  Do this for the width of the cap as well.

10)  Save the file then click the Family Types button to open the Family Types dialog box.  The parameters are shown with their associated values.  To modify a parameter, change the dimension in the Value column then click Apply to see the result in the view.

From here, you'll just need to save the file after the necessary parameter changes then load the family into the project.  Remember, like any other family in Revit, it will overwrite all instances of the same name in the project.  If this is to be an additional profile in the project, perform a Save As and give the profile a unique family name before loading it into the project.  See the Custom Profiles post to see how to assign profiles to mullion types.

Revit Parameters

I had a client email me about Parameters. They were having a tough time getting their head around the different types, so I thought I would make a quick post about it.

In Revit there are four kinds of Parameters:

System Parameters
Shared Parameters
Project Parameters
Family Parameters

System Parameters which include the two you highlighted are built-in to Revit and cannot be changed, but they are always available. This means they show in tags, schedules, projects, families, etc. Project Parameters are custom parameters you add to a project. When adding a project parameter, it is available to all objects of the specified category throughout the project and CAN appear in schedules but NOT tags. You create them with the command on the Manage tab of the ribbon. Family parameters are only available to the Family in which they are added. They do NOT show in tags or schedules nor to other Families of the same category. However, you can make a custom parameter (Project or Family) available to tags and schedules by making them a Shared Parameter. Shared Parameters are defined in an external text file (a Shared Parameter file) and you can access them also on the Manage tab. It is VERY important that you have a single shared parameter file for the entire firm to “share” thus the name. You do NOT want more than one Shared Parameter file. All this file is used for is to define the parameter. Once defined, it knows how to behave. So ALL shared parameters will be created from this single source file. The end users will not need to have access to, nor do they need to even know about the Shared Parameter file. Kind of like a recipe for your favorite cookies. You need the recipe to get the cookies right, but you don’t need the recipe to enjoy eating them.

If you think there is any chance that a custom parameter will want to be scheduled or tagged, you should make it a shared parameter. So on your titleblock, you need to make those custom parameters at LEAST a project parameter. This will tell Revit what to do with them. But consider making them Shared for additional flexibility down the road.

Kind of Parameter	Who Creates it	Where does it live	Appear in Tags	Appear in Schedules	Description
System Parameters	Built in	Project and Family	Yes	Yes	Built-in to Revit, You cannot change it
Shared Parameters	User Defined	Project and Family	Yes	Yes	Custom Parameter created for the highest portability and flexibility
Project Parameters	User Defined	Project	No	Yes	Custom Parameter accessible to all objects in a Project
Family Parameters	User Defined	Family	No	No	Custom Parameter accessible only to the Family

Hope that helps to clarify things a bit.

Thanks

paulaubin

Parameter in Revit

Parameter in Revit

Welcome to this revit.biz article on Parameters

Parameters are at the very heart of Revit. They are what make Revit so very powerful and flexible. Everywhere you look in Revit, you will see parameters at work…

   

Let’s take a section of wall. This wall is absolutely overflowing with parameters. If we look at it’s element properties, we can see…..

 

Each one of these settings is a parameter that we can change- either now or anytime in the future- and the effect on the wall will be made as soon as we confirm the change to the parameter. A very important thing to note is that parameters come in various “types”. An obvious type is length. For example, our wall has an Unconnected Height of 2000. The parameter “Unconnected Height” is a length parameter- if we were to enter the value “cherry pie” against Unconnected Height, Revit wouldn’t have a clue what we are trying to tell it- it is expecting a length here.

But if we look at “Room Bounding”…..

We either have a choice of ticked or unticked. This is still a parameter but it is of the type “Yes / No”, “0/1”, etc.

Likewise, if we look at the parameter “Top Constraint”…..

We can see that we have a choice from a pre-defined list.

  

Now the good news is that when you create your own custom components, you can create your own parameters- that you can name as you wish; and also specify what type you wish them to be.

So let’s go ahead and make a very simple component and then add a parameter that will allow us to modify the component within our project. For this exercise we are going to create a very simple 3D cube.

From a new Revit Project file, select File>New>Family..

From the File Explorer window, select “Generic Model”, and then “Open”….

This gives us a very basic template upon which to build our simple component.

Because we haven’t yet covered an explanation of the Family Editor (in which you are now in!) we will keep this example very simple- remember, all we are trying to demonstrate here is the use of your own parameters.

Go ahead and select “Solid Form > Solid Extrusion”…

…upon which Revit will enter Sketch Mode, allowing you to sketch the plan profile of you extrusion. Use the line tools to draw a square 1000 x 1000….

So that’s the shape for the base of our extrusion. Now we need to define the height- ie how far we wish it to be extruded. Click on “Extrusion Properties”…

And change Extrusion End from 250 to 500, like so….

Click OK, and then select Finish Sketch, to tell Revit to go ahead and form the Extrusion…

Revit has now created a box that is 1,000 x 1,000 in plan and 500 tall. Switch to View 1 (under 3D Views) and use the eye tool to spin the box around so that you can see it in 3D…

And there we have it! Our very first custom component. Let’s save it somewhere, so that we can use it again in the future. Select File > Save As. Choose where to save the component and give it a name. I’m going to save mine to the Desktop and call it “Small Table”….

And there it is. So let’s go ahead and put this component into a Project. Going back to Revit, select “Load into Projects”…

Upon selecting this command, you will be taken from the Family Editor back into the Revit Project File that you previously had open (before we started creating a new Family). To use our new component, just select “Component” from the “Basics” Design Bar….

You should immediately see our new component on the end of the cursor, ready to be placed! Go ahead and place 4 instances…..

Switch to the default 3D View to see our 4 tables in all their wonderful simplistic glory!

So there we have it. We’ve created a very simple component that can be used in any Revit Project. But this article was about Parameters! And we haven’t created any parameters? Adding parameters to our component would give us a great deal of flexibility, in terms of what we can do with it from within a Project.

As we know, our component has a base of 1,000 x 1,000 and a height of 500. But what if we wanted one of the instance to have a base of 200 x 750 and a height of 1,200? And another to have base of 100 x 2,000 and a height of 300? Well, we could create a new Family of each of the variations. But why would we want to do that when the underlying geometry of each variation is identical. Let’s just create some Parameters for the aspects that we wish to make flexible and then we can modify each instance to suit.

So far we have created a very simple custom component, which we then loaded into a Revit Project. Now we’re going to edit the Family that we previously created in order to add some Parameters to it

So first of all select one of the instances of our component….

and then select “Edit Family” from the Options Bar…..

  

Click OK to the prompt asking if you wish to “Open Small Table for Editing”. Revit now takes us back into the Family Editor where we can edit our custom component.

Switch back to a plan view of our component by double-clicking the “Ref. Level” view..

  

Before we go any further, let me explain what (exactly) we are going to do. We are going to add two parameters to our component. We are going to call the 2 parameters “Length” and “Width”. We are going to use these parameters to control the dimensions of our table, in plan.

In order to control our table size in plan, we need to be able to adjust the plan profile of the extrusion. So first of all we need to edit the extrusion we previously created. Select the geometry itself, ie click on our box- once selected, the box will highlight in red…

  

and then select “Edit” from the Options Bar….

   

This now takes us back into Sketch Mode, where we first sketched out the profile for our extrusion. In order to control the dimensions of this sketch we need to first add dimensions that we can then add our parameters to.

So go ahead and add two dimensions like so…

  

Now as they stand, these dimensions will have no effect on our component. They just confirm what we already know- that the profile for our extrusion is 1,000 x 1,000.

In order to “Control” these dimensions from within a Project, we need to add Parameters to each of the dimensions. Let’s do this now. Go ahead and select the bottom dimension. Make sure the dimension is selected- if it is, it will be highlighted in red….

  

Once selected, take a look at the Options Bar. You will notice a drop-down box called “Label”….

  

Click the black triangle to activate the drop-down menu. You will now see that you have the option to add a parameter to this dimension….

Go ahead and select “Add Parameter”. This will bring up the “Parameters Properties” control panel. You use this panel to tell Revit about the parameter you wish to define. Start off by naming the parameter- let’s call it “Length”….

  

While we have the Parameter Properties control panel open, let’s take a look around the rest of the options available to us. At the top of the panel is the option for this parameter to be either a Family Parameter or a Shared Parameter….

  

Family Parameters can only be accessed from within the Family in which they are created. Shared parameters are more powerful and allow us to share their data between families and also have it automatically populate schedules and tags. For our example, leave the Parameter Type set as “Family Parameter”

Moving back down to the bottom of the panel again, we see the following…

  

We already know about “Name”- this is what we want to call our Parameter.

“Group Parameter under” allows us to select where our parameter will appear, when we access it via the Element Properties box- go ahead and change this to “Dimensions”.

The Instance and Type radio buttons allow us to specify whether this parameter is an Instance Parameter or Type Parameter. Let’s change it to an Instance Parameter- this will let us have a unique value for this parameter, for each instance of the component in the model.

“Type of Parameter” allows us to choose what type of parameter we want it to be. You will recall from part A of this article that there are many types of parameter- ie “Yes / No”, etc. In our example, “Type of Parameter” is already set to Length and is greyed out. This is because we are adding a parameter to a dimension- and dimensions can only accept parameters of the type “Length”. It wouldn’t make sense to add a “Yes / No” parameter to a dimension, would it?

Once you have made the changes listed above, go ahead and click OK. You will notice that Revit has added the name of the parameter to the dimension. It also displays the current value of the parameter- in this case 1000.

  

Now you need to go through the above process again for the other dimension. This time name the dimension “Width”. Make sure you make all the other changes as before- ie select “Instance” as the parameter Type, etc.

  

So there we have it. The profile that defines the plan of our extrusion is now controlled by two parameters that we have created. Go ahead and select Finish Sketch to create the extrusion. And what do you know? Our component does not look any different than it did before! Don’t worry- the difference will become evident when we work with our component from within a project. So let’s do that now.

Because we have modified our component in the Family Editor, we need to load the current (new) version into a project- this will automatically update all old versions of the component already in the project. So go ahead and select “Load into Projects”. Upon doing so, you will receive the following warning….

  

This is just warning us that a version of this component is already in use in our project. Click OK to overwrite the old version.

Again, no visible difference to our components! Go ahead and select one of the components- and then select the Element Properties…..

  

If you look at the Element Properties panel, you will see our two new parameters listed under “Dimensions” (because we chose to “Group under Dimensions”). Because we made them Instance Parameters, we can now change their values for each instance of the component within the model. So go ahead and test it out- change the values of our parameters for each of the 4 instances of the component…..

  

So there we have it- our first custom parametric component! Very simple, I know- but we’ve covered some very important, fundamental concepts. The ability to create dynamic geometry than can be easily modified and reused is a very powerful aspect of Revit.

What’s new in Revit 2014?

What’s new in Revit 2014?

Oh yes, it’s that time again when the red carpet gets deployed. There is frenzy in the Revit community; twitter goes into hyper drive & the bloggers go mad (including me), as Autodesk serve up the latest greatest version of Revit for us to use & abuse on our BIM projects. But before we get into the juicy bits, let’s pause for a second & review some Revit history. Revit 1.0 was released on the 5th of April 2000, so Revit has now been gracing our earth for 13 years. Maybe not as long as that other BIM app which begins with “A”. But Revit has developed into a mature solution which will deliver model based design & can be centroid to the BIM process, but it’s not BIM per say. Some will argue that ArchiCAD is better, Revit is better, blah, blah, I’ve heard it all before. It’s actually a really boring discussion now, what is more important is whether the tools can truly talk to one another, are open & interoperable. ArchiCAD community says Revit sucks at IFC; the Revit community says who gives a stuff when it has the majority of the market share. Passionate users of both camps spend hours defending their beloved solutions on social media like it’s some sort of life or death affair. The reality is that as governments start to push the whole IFC / COBie delivery requirement, all AEC solutions need to start to respect the need for data to be sharable & of an open nature. That is compounded by the recent IFC4 announcement.
Anyway, back to the Revit history lesson. What I do find amusing is in the early days of Revit, the software was initially offered on a monthly rental option. Anyone remember that? Early adopters will. It was one of the reasons; my then boss John Mullan, MD at House Henderson Architects was so interested in the product. Not only did it start to offer the office a quick building modelling system which was faster than CAD, it could be picked up or put down depending on the office’s needs. Why did he consider Revit you may ask? Well John had implemented Rucaps Sonata in the office. It was an expensive system, but it was one of the earliest parametric building modelling systems. The fact that one seat was the price of a good quality family car was beside the point, it was a powerful solution. When John Mullan saw Revit, he could see the same potential at a fraction of the cost of Sonata. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RUCAPS
In those early years, Revit went through a rapid release cycle, even after Autodesk purchased Revit in 2002 there were a vigorous number of point releases until things settled & Revit then went to a yearly release, which is what we now have. But what I would say is where once BIM managers wanted to roll the latest version of Revit out to their staff on projects, they are now taking a more pragmatic approach to deployment & often holding back for 12 months or even skipping a release. There are many reasons this might be happening. Cost of update training? Cost of deployment? Long term projects which have decided to keep with a consistent version? Anyhow, it seems to be more common place.

What’s new?

Revit 2014, what’s new? What’s been improved? So these are the highlights, but like any release of Revit you will find minor tweaks here & there, some which get documented, others that don’t, so be on the look out! I have reviewed the architectural & general platform enhancements, however I have also listed the structural & MEP improvements, but do not go into detail in this review.

• Displaced Views
• Dockable Windows Framework & Enhancements
• Material UI overhaul
• Non rectangular crop regions
• Room calculation Point
• Schedules
• Selection enhancements
• Split Elevations
• Temporary View Templates
• View navigation performance
• Multi Selection - bring to front & send to back
• Stairs & Railings
• Double click to edit
• Point Clouds

The specific structural improvements include:-

• Multi-Reference Annotations
• Structural Analytical Model Improvements
• Reinforcement Rounding
• Rebar Constraints
• Welded Wire Mesh Constraints
• Enhanced Rebar Shapes
• Rebar Length Calculation for UK Shapes

The MEP improvements include:-

• CSV File Removal - Ability to embed CSV data into a family.
• Divide System.
• Air Terminals on Duct - Ability to place Air Terminal families directly on Duct segments.
• Plumbing Template
• Cap Open Ends
• Angle Constraints

Building Performance Analysis

• Energy Analysis for Architectural Building Elements - Ability to automatically generate an Energy Analysis Model from a typical Revit model made of architectural building elements.
• GBS Analysis App Feature

Displaced Views

Displaced views are an exciting new feature which literally allows you to rip apart your model as an exploded view. The clever thing here is that any displacement of components is only effected in that view & not the whole model.

The feature works in 3d views & perspective views only, allowing you to create diagrammatic assembly views of how the building goes together. Not this feature also works with assembly views & parts. The concept is very easy to implement. Go to a 3d view, select a few elements, then choose the displacement feature from the modify tab > create. Then in canvas use the 3d widget to drag the components away from the main model, it’s that easy. If you are not happy with their position, a reset button allows you to return the elements back to their original location. The path feature allows you to automatically draw a line from the original position of the elements to its displaced location. You can control the linestyle of this line from objects styles & visibility graphics.

Another thing about the path feature which may not be that obvious, is that there are 2 path style types. A straight line (the default) & a jogged line type, which is useful when you need to drag the elements further away from the model for clarity.

Dockable Windows Framework & Enhancements

When you are using Revit you just can’t get enough screen real estate. You decide to get 2 monitors, but space always seems to be at a premium. I am not sure why, but I guess it’s natural when you have a multi document, multi view application. In previous releases of Revit you could dock the project browser, properties palette, system browser & reconcile hosting browser in different locations but they always docked adjacent to one another or at various positions around the screen. Revit 2014 now allows you to dock each window to combine them as tabs at the bottom of dialog windows. OK, it’s not a massive enhancements & auto-hide would have been a nice addition as well, but this new window framework structure will certainly benefit those that are tight for screen space or utilize a-laptop.

Materials

So after last year’s fiasco with the material UI, Autodesk decided to go back to the drawing board. A good friend of mine & fellow Revit Guru, Aaron Maller literally lost hours of sleep trying to get his head around the Revit 2013 material user interface to make it work like 2012! If you know Aaron, buy him a beer & he will literally rant for hours about the mess which is the Revit 2013 material UI. I am not sure what Autodesk were thinking, but I am so glad to say that the 2014 UI is soooooo much better. Everything is obvious, in a tabbed layout dialog. The UI is easier to navigate making materials easier to locate & select. In 2013 the material browser & editing dialog boxes were separate which was the core issue to the problem! This made the whole process of material editing unbelievably frustrating as workflow process was confusing. With both material browser & editing now merged back into one single common dialog, stability & common sense has returned to the material editing process. Yes!

Non Rectangular Viewports

So non rectangular viewports have been on my Revit wish list for some time. In Revit 2014 we now have this added functionality for view crop regions and callouts. In essence the user can customise the shape of the crop region using Revit sketching tools.

Select the crop region, then choose the Edit Crop tool from the ribbon & sketch away. But before you get too excited, you are still only limited to rectangular shapes, no curves are arcs my friends. This feature will work on any crop region including plans, ceilings plans, elevations, sections, detail & section callout views.

 

Room Calculation Point

Once you have been using Revit for some time, you recognise that Revit needs to start to think a little smarter; it should know where things are. Whether you think software should be smart, is a debate for another day. But the introductory of a Room calculation point setting for family types which are room aware such as doors, furniture, casework, speciality equipment and generic models starts to help. This new function allows families which are placed in a project to know where they belong.
For instance, sometimes a piece of geometry might be located outside a room or space, which results in no values being reported to where the element actually is. The new Room calculation point allows the user to specifically move the location of the calculation point to a desired space within a model so that the element then knows where it belongs and can report this when scheduling.

Schedules

Schedules; what would we do without schedules in Revit? They provide us with access to data in a way which was not possible using traditional CAD drafting approaches. I would suggest that anybody who is serious about building information modelling will know the power & possibilities that Revit scheduling functionality offers. Scheduling gives you access to data which you can utilise in many, many ways. We can capture integrated data; we can use schedules to input data. Neither the less, scheduling within Revit was not without its limitations, but Revit 2014 sees a major overhaul of the scheduling functionality. The interface for creating schedules in Revit remains the same, although new categories have been opened up, so we can now schedule architectural columns, detail items, entourage, generic models, grids, levels, pads, roof soffits, structural beam systems, structural area reinforcement, structural path reinforcement and structural fabric area.

Another nice minor enhancement is the ability to schedule phases created & demolished. However, more importantly we are provided with far more control over how we can format schedules. Text styles can be used to control the formatting of titles, headers and data within a schedule. Cells and text appearance can be overridden for cells in titles sections and columns. The Schedules are far more aligned with an Excel type appearance, so what you see is what you get, with more alliance between the schedule view & what you actually place on a sheet. You will find a new ribbon interface allows you to control the appearance of the schedule and if you understand the basics of Excel style column formatting, then this is going to be a total breeze for you to learn and implement.

Selection Enhancements

I believe one of the biggest challenges any new user has when starting to work with Revit is the way you select elements. Those that have been using Revit for some time, have learned to live & adapt to Revit element selection peculiarities. But I have seen countless occasions when Revit newbies select elements & screw things up. No fault of their own, it’s just a different process from what they are normally use to. Yet Revit does not make it easy during the transition process. To improve the way you can access & select elements, Revit 2014 has introduced a few improvements adding to what has always existed. There are now four selection options, which can be accessed via the modify tool or via the status bar. Each options has two states, either active or in-active. The options included Select Links, Select Underlay Elements, Select Elements by face, Drag elements on selection. With the select links function, if this behaviour is not enabled & you use the modify & move tools, this stops you accidentally selecting links or CAD linked files. Select underlay elements, again if this is not enabled, then you can’t select, modify or move underlayed elements.

Select elements by Face, now this is a biggie for me. With this feature enabled you can select a face of an element or by clicking at the edge. This now makes the whole process of editing, say a floor, a lot easier as you can select the face rather than having to grab a bunch of elements & filtering. If you don’t have this feature enabled, then it’s as it was before, you need to click on the edge of element or filter & select. Drag elements on Selection replaces what was press & drag. With the feature enabled, you hover over the element, press down the mouse & drag. Revit will then move the element. If this feature is not enabled. If you hover over a model elements, AC point, callout, grid, section, scope box or detail, pressing and dragging will result in the element NOT moving. It should also be noted that the settings are stored per user in the Revit.ini, so can be set as part of your deployment.

Split Elevations

Not sure this is noteworthy, but we have been able to do split sections for some time. But the functionality has been extended to elevations, allowing us to do split elevations. Now before you get over excited, it’s not what you think it is! It the same as the section tool, that’s it. What would have been very nice to see is the ability to unwrap elevations to create true elevation representations!

Temporary View Properties

Revit 2013 introduced some welcome improvements to view templates; the Temporary View Properties feature on 2014 takes this a little further. In the view control bar you are provided with access to Temporary View Properties. What this feature does is always you to change the view properties of a view without impacting the saved view state. The concept behind this is to potentially reduce the need for working views as you can quickly enable a Temporary View, apply the view template to better understand the impact of the view template without actually having to apply it. You can switch between different view templates which you have created & once you have finished, just select the reset feature to go back to the original state of the view. If you do enable the temp view, it has no bearing on the view for printing & also has no influence on the view when using worksharing.

 

Perceived Performance

If I had a pound or even a dollar for how many times I’ve heard users complain about how slow Revit is at times, I’d be a very rich man. The reality is, on some tasks Revit can be slow, but then if you consider what is happening under the hood, then maybe you might assess the situation differently. But then again, the reality is we want everything instantly! We want out email now! We want everything on tap, on demand & we no longer accept waiting. Over recent years we have seen multi-threading functionality introduced to some aspects of Revit. Speaking with the development team, it’s not a case of just flicking a few switches & tweaking the code to make Revit suddenly become a super multi-threaded wonder app. It’s a complex problem, due to the way Revit works. Saying that, one area which Revit certainly needed a kick was on screen redraws when zooming, panning & orbiting a model. So the Revit dev team have made some tweaks to improve graphic performance by automatically turning off graphic intensive effects during view navigation. This works in 2d & 3d. What actually happens is that the graphic effects are suspended during camera manipulation & then instantly redrawn to the screen once you finish the operation. It’s a little disconcerting at first, but once you get us to it you will value this improvement, Revit certainly feels quicker.

Multi- selection

A minor enhancement, but a vital one, is the proper implementation of the Bring to Front / Send Back ward tool. This now works as you would expect it. When you select multiple elements, be it detail elements or images you can reorder them correctly.

Stairs & Railings

As this review is typically biased towards the architectural enhancements, we will look at these. With Revit 2013, we saw the introduction of the new component based stair as well as enhancements to the railings. Revit 2014 sees the component stairs developed even further with a few minor tweaks to the railings. The way a stair joins a floor or slab has been improved. Any precast stair can now be join to a floor or slab. You can now quash the additional riser created in a plan representation when a monolithic stair meets a landing.

There have been developments made to the way you manipulate landings. Each landing, when selected, has controls to each edge which makes the process of editing the landing a lot easier.
When you draw a stair, two additional location line options are provided. You now have exterior support left & exterior support right as well as actual run width settings. These can be set in the options bar when creating the stair.

Autodesk put a lot of work into how stairs were represented with the component based stair. But as ever, things can always be improved. With 2014, the stair path arrow can now be displayed at top of landing. With the monolithic stair, the plan representation stair no longer displays an additional risers at half landings. The way snaps work with stairs also receives some enhancement. For example, we can now have a parallel snap, allowing us to reference other elements such as reference planes, walls, beams when you are creating straight stair runs. Another snap enhancement is the ability to parallel snap to riser lines when dragging the direct manipulation controls of a landing. All these snaps just provide a better fit / finish when working with the stair creation process.

One of the first things I noticed with component based stairs in Revit 2013, was the loss of temporary dimensions. Love or hate them, they are fundamental to the Revit modelling process in my humble opinion. Temporary dimensions are your best friend when making changes or tweaks to elements. With Revit 2014, Autodesk dev temp have listen to user feedback & component based stairs get temporary dimensions to control landing size, component position, stair width & radius of spiral stairs.

Sadly we haven’t seen any further enhancements to railings in 2014, but we do get some defects fixed, such as if end with riser is unchecked the railing will now be parallel with the stair run. Handrails would disappear in some views, this has been addressed.

Double Click to Edit

Maybe, I’m old school, but 2013 saw the introduction of double-click functionality to edit certain elements, after many user requests. But with any enhancements, sometimes there are trip hazards. Users who are rather trigger happy with double clicking, end up going down rabbit holes as they start editing something they didn’t mean to. But with care & precision, you learn to adjust. In line with functionality introduced into Vasari as well as Revit LT, we can now edit the following elements by double clicking.

Element type	Double-click behaviour
Assemblies	Edit assembly mode
Schedules on Sheets	Open schedule view
Views on sheets	Activate view
Wall(EditProfile)	Edit profile
Floor(EditBoundary)	Edit boundary
Ceilings(EditBoundary)	Edit boundary
Roof (Footprint)	Edit boundary
Roof (Extrusion)	Edit boundary
Slab (Edit Boundary)	Edit boundary
Beam System (Edit Boundary)	Edit boundary
Railing	Edit railing
Stairs	Edit stairs
Edit Extrusion (Form)	Edit form
Edit Revolve (Form)	Edit form
Edit Sweep (Form)	Edit form
Edit Swept Blend (Form)	Edit form
Edit Blend (Default to edit Base)	Edit base
Truss (Edit Profile)	Edit profile
Rebar	Edit rebar
Reinforcement	Edit rebar
Opening Cut	Edit sketch
Filled Region	Edit sketch
Revision Cloud	Edit sketch
Split Face element	Edit sketch

So to protect those that may be a bit too hasty when using the double click functionality; in the options, the user can now customise the double click settings.

One other minor, but useful tweak is when editing a parameter in a tag, a parameter takes priority when you double click on a parameter label.

Point Clouds

Laser scanning & data capture is now common place to the BIM process. There are plenty of surveying firms & even contractors using laser scanning equipment, as the cost of ownership has reduced, to capture large quantities of data about buildings as point clouds. This data, albeit it huge in size, is being used for modelling of existing conditions as well as cross referencing the Building Information Model (design intent) against what is built on site. Revit has had the ability to link in point clouds for some time, but Revit 2014 sees the implementation of a completely new engine.

What this is, is the inclusion of the Alice labs acquisition within Revit. What I have tested is astonishingly fast, throwing a 5 gig cloud data file around in Revit was amazingly smooth. Linking the point cloud into a Revit project is exactly the same, but there are more point cloud file types available. You do need to index the point cloud data structure for the engine before loading it in. If you select a raw dataset to be inserted into Revit, you will be asked to index the data. Once indexed the resulting RCS file can be linked into a Revit project. Crop regions & sections box tools allow you to control the visibility of the point cloud. But with visibility graphics you can also override the colour mode of the point cloud.

There are 5 options available for colour modes of the point cloud.
<No Override>: This will display the point cloud in the colours specified in the source file, if they are available.
Single Color: will displays all points in the point cloud in a single colour that you can specify.
Elevation: will display the points in the point cloud using a gradation of colour between the 2 colours (Max Elevation and Min Elevation) that you can specify.
Intensity: displays the points in the point cloud using a gradation of colour between 2 colours (Max Intensity and Min Intensity) that you can specify.
Normals: displays the points in colours relative to the direction of the point normal (the direction of reflectance of points when initially captured). For example, all points with a normal direction "up" will have a consistent colour.
You can still snap to planes detected within the point cloud when using snap functionality, but we still have some way to go before we can start to automatically convert point cloud data into smart objects. This will come, but for now just being to reference reality into a BIM environment starts to close yet another gap in the BIM process.

Some of the other paraphernalia

So included below are few other enhancements which are worth knowing about. Not earth shattering, but they all go a long way to the fit & finish process of existing functionality.
When you divide a surface in the conceptual massing environment, you can adjust the u/v angle with the align tool. You can specify a default divisions to surface settings, which will be retained in the project for subsequent uses of the divide surface tool.

This one I am genuinely excited by. When you import a solid into a family, you have the ability to fully explode the solid. What this actually does is turn this into an element which you can actually do something with! Whilst you can’t actually edit the form, you can manipulate the resulting freeform elements with direct manipulation handles. You can also cut, join the geometry with form functionality tools. Now all we need is Revit to be able to read parameters from other tools!

When working in the conceptual massing environment, you can use a 3d start – end – radius Arc, which creates a 3d arc. The points of the arc can be hosted on reference geometry.
To solve a particular COBie requirement, you can allow parameters to vary between groups. You can control values so they are aligned per group type or values can vary by group instance.

There are a raft of minor tweaks to interoperability. Substantial work has taken place to ensure IFC export gets IFC certification in accordance with buildingSMART international standards requirements. DWF files now support textures, line patterns, lineweights, colours as well as sun paths. DWG / DXF export sees further improvements to how Revit dimensions export to AutoCAD. When a DWG or DXF file is linked into Revits project environment, import / links only list the views the imported / linked file appears in via the visibility graphics dialogue box. If you delete a view with a linked DWG file you can now re-establish a new reference view, rather than having to remove the linked DWG file & then re-link it in.
One other minor, yet critical improvement is the ability to control dual units in dimensions. Any dimension can display both units say metric & imperial. Just by simply going to the dimension style & enabling Alternate Units, then picking the Alternative Units Format you can display two different dimension formats in a dimension string.

 

Summary

So here endeth this year’s round up / sermon of new Revit functionality for the release of 2014. What do I think? Good…..actually very good. I’m not just saying that; there is some honest improvements to aging functionality which needed to be modernized as well as bundle of items which I would refer to fit & finish functionality. Sometimes you need that, so you can take stock and improve the whole user experience. I really like the displaced views tool, that’s a cracking enhancement in my opinion & schedule functionality update is very much welcomed. Alignment with how Excel works & functions, is very nice. Revit 2014 feels snappier and smoother in operation. But…. there is always a “but”…..I want to see developments to site tools, nothing as dynamic as say Civil3d, just the ability to model proper roads, pavements & terrain. We need better ways to create & control railings & custom railings. I never thought I would say this, but text formatting! Autodesk, just do it. We talk up BIM, with plenty that are developing models, yet deliverables still remain 2d. Disagree with me if you like, but right now 2d information is not going to disappear anytime soon. Improving how we link in notes & formatting of text is something we just need to enhance to improve the overall completion of the tool. Working in perspective views, can it be that difficult? Those kids over at Vasari team have cracked it. Non-photo realistic enhancements, squiggled line presentation views. More graphics card GPU enhancements & finally its time curtain walls got an injection of love. I don’t want much do I?