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Tom Vollaro
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I am posting about Project Vasari because it is based on the Revit platform - and relevant to the ongoing discussion about Revit.
As for features, a bit more than two things have been fixed in this release:
All three disciplines are available as a single installed product
BIM managers have control over how the user interface is configured
Project template workflow has been improved
Search for the project browser
Custom view types
Views are now tightly associated with their view templates
New Diameter dimension tool
Control over individual segments in a multi-segment dim
Double click an instance of a family to edit it
RPC content can now be viewed as rendered objects in Realistic views
More control over lighting and materials for Realistic view styles
A new Ray Trace visual style
An overhaul of the materials tool including thermal and structural properties
Construction parts can now be merged
More control over how construction assemblies can be viewed and detailed
Paths and edges can be divided parametrically in the conceptual design environment
And that is just the platform enhancements off the top of my head, not to mention enhancements to the individual discipline tools:
http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/2013/Help/00002-New_in_Revit_2013
I can understand if you are frustrated with your experience with Revit. But lets try and have a conversation about it, not a flame war.
Project Vasari 2.5 - Coming Soon
Our small, yet dedicated Project Vasari team has been working hard on a new Labs release, which will be dropping VERY soon. Keep an eye out on Twitter, Facebook, and/or ProjectVasari.com. Our focus for this release has been on usabilty which includes new direct face manipulation tools and crea...
Rob and Gordon, thanks for the tips! This actually made my list a bit shorter :) Of course, I forgot about another big one: the End key does not actually go to the end of a sentence. I know, you can use Command+>, but why even have an End key? Actually, my 4 year old iMac has the End key, I notice now that my new Mac Book does not...
What I love (and hate) about my new Mac - a user centered review
In the midst of the press storm around the passing of Steve Jobs, I received my brand new Mac Book Pro. Let me start out by saying what I love about my new machine, and Macs in general. First, I do a lot of video editing - in my work life and personal life - and NOTHING beats a Mac for video wor...
Nice. I was just doing some "digging" of my own today. Here is a good one that I found: Create a camera view. In the bottom left View Scale menu you notice the scale is replaced with the word "Perspective." Well, have you ever tried changing to, say, 1" = 20' ? That is not a very useful view scale ;) Even better, click "Custom" and you will notice the default scale is 1:0 (huh?) OK, now try changing it to 1:1 (lines get thicker, but not unreadable.) OK, now I want to go back to that default view scale. Try entering 1:0 into Custom, and it reverts back to 1:1... its a black hole!
Software Archaeology
How many times does this happen to you? You experience a situation, then shortly after the situation you gain some meta awareness and decide it needs a name. This is how a lot of "jargon" must be created. For me it came after a consultation on a Revit behavior. I thought, "This needs to be...
I have been playing around with X3DOM. I like it because I am a UI designer, not a developer. I can leverage my knowledge of VRML/X3D to create content - no knowledge of WebGL or Javascript needed. That is, until I want to start adding interactivity - in which case I am starting to crack a JS book or two :)
WebGL : What Flavor Is Your Engine?
Even though WebGL’s official specification solidified just this March, a dizzying array of engines is already available. For example: C3DL Curve3D CubicVR CopperLicht EnergizeGL GammaJS GLGE GTW Kuda O3D OSG.JS PhiloGL SceneJS SpiderGL TDL Three.js X3DOM Other 3d Engines in JS/HTML5: ...
@Steve, A 30 day demo? Nice! Just make sure no one spills coffee on any of the mice!
3DConnexion + Revit 2012 = Fun with Navigation and Macros
This has been a long time in coming. The Revit family of products finally has support for 3D navigation devices from 3DConnexion. I have been anticipating this ever since we integrated the ViewCube component back in release 2009. Besides the obvious advantages to 3D navigation afforded by these ...
@Kai, Beautiful! Opened up right in FF4 and I was modeling right away. Love it!
3D on the Web: Look Ma, no plugins!
I have been interested (obsessed, actually) with the idea of navigating and interacting with 3D worlds on the Web since the early days of VRML. Navigating and interacting with 3D on the internet has a long, torturous history. The solutions have fallen basically into two camps, both with their st...
@gabriel and @erik, As with any company (including yours, I suspect), different people work on different projects for different business reasons. On this blog we strive to give everyone a well-rounded look at what goes on here. This is just one of many projects that we are going on inside the factory. Rest assured, many more of my smart and dedicated colleagues are working in earnest on all aspects of the Revit platform. This is just one r&d effort that I have been working on and thought it was interesting to highlight.
Making Project Vasari
Yesterday was the day. We officially launched Project Vasari on Autodesk Labs. I thought I would give everyone a behind the scenes look at how this all came about. Genesis As we said in the teaser, it started as a simple question: What if we reduced Revit to its essentials? Followed quickly b...
Dante, you have to use workplanes while in 3D to set parametric dimensions along that direction (vertical, etc.) We removed elevations intentionally, but it is something we are reconsidering for a future release.
We've been busy
_tom
Actually, there are other changes beyond 3D references, which I will outline in an upcoming post.
We've been busy
_tom
Scott, Great idea! if you use a service like http://last.fm, which tracks your listening habits, you can get a lot of this data automatically. For instance, here is the "age" of my music. And here is a pie graph of how my music is tagged (unfortunately, Last.Fm does not keep track of genres.)
Music in the Year 2009
A friend of mine, Roger Linder, commented on his Facebook page: Roger Linder listened to 9,474 different songs in 2009, according to my iTunes last played statistics. When I read this, I asked him if he exported his iTunes XML into Excel and computed the result. Actually, his process was much ...
Ian, there is more information regarding your question about access to students here:
http://therevitkid.blogspot.com/2009/10/revit-2010-advantage-pack-and-students.html
Uncovering the Revit Subscription Advantage Pack
Harlan Brumm (from over at the Revit Clinic) has posted a couple of videos on the Autodesk YouTube channel "uncovering" the many features in the recently released Subscription Advantage Pack. We are curious to hear feedback about your experience with the new features. The Revit Update Th...
Thanks for the feedback. I will contact some of you individually for more details on your workflows and software development projects. BTW, has anyone experimented with RDB Link we released on the Labs site?
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/revit_rdb/
It is a little clunky (you still have to manually run the import/export each time), but it effectively creates a bi-directional link (but with Access only.)
Is Excel part of your BIM toolbox?
While visiting some customer sites recently it dawned on me: besides the ubiquitous email app and web browser, the most common application on most of these Revit users' desktops was Microsoft Excel. This seems to be true for architects and engineers alike. One Revit Structure user even went as f...
Point taken about working on the tool. Keep in mind, the UA team is working in tandem with future development. That said, can you guys expand a bit more about why Copy/Monitor is insufficient for your work?
Copy/Monitor Documentation
The Autodesk BIM User Assistance Team is continuing work to enhance the online help. In this example, they are revising the Copy/Monitor documentation. Below is a version tailored for Revit Architecture (If you prefer a MEP or Structure version let me know). _erik Revit Architecture Copy Monit...
Here is a way-out idea that another Autodesk product team is experimenting with: wiki help. What if the help docs were posted in a wiki format where users could add, edit, and discuss? Kind of like AUGI forums, but more structured and focused on enhancing help ? Just a thought...
Getting more "conceptual" in our documentation
In response to user comments, the Autodesk BIM User Assistance Team at Autodesk has been working hard to add more overview information to the online help. In this example, the team has added information to the Walls chapter to help explain conceptually how walls work in Revit. Note, this is the...
Thanks for the feedback! The User Assistance team is reviewing all of your comments - especially the specifics about consistency, terminology and conceptual clarity. I have posted the full chapter (see original post) for those that are interested in delving a bit further.
Getting more "conceptual" in our documentation
In response to user comments, the Autodesk BIM User Assistance Team at Autodesk has been working hard to add more overview information to the online help. In this example, the team has added information to the Walls chapter to help explain conceptually how walls work in Revit. Note, this is the...
Here is another mind-bender for you all - related to the request to have "select visible instances in view": If you are in Reveal Hidden mode and you select a hidden (magenta) element - is that visible? It is visible to you at that moment, but in terms of the project it is "hidden."
Select "all" instances?
One of the fundamental areas of ongoing Factory research is selection. There is a lot more about this to write, but I have a (seemingly) simple question I wanted to get some quick feedback on. Here is the scenario:You are working on a project in schematic design and you are in the Core Workset. ...
Thanks for all of the responses. Point taken and noted about the relative danger of the current Select All Instances tool and the need for Select All Instances in View.
Select "all" instances?
One of the fundamental areas of ongoing Factory research is selection. There is a lot more about this to write, but I have a (seemingly) simple question I wanted to get some quick feedback on. Here is the scenario:You are working on a project in schematic design and you are in the Core Workset. ...
Thanks kdjanz, the visible instances selection is a common request and we are looking into it. To clarify, by visible, you mean all instances in the current view, correct?
Also, to my original question, even with select all visible instances, would you expect that tool to be constrained by the Modify options in the status bar?
Select "all" instances?
One of the fundamental areas of ongoing Factory research is selection. There is a lot more about this to write, but I have a (seemingly) simple question I wanted to get some quick feedback on. Here is the scenario:You are working on a project in schematic design and you are in the Core Workset. ...
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