Revit Public Roadmap – January 2019

With the release of Revit 2019.2 it’s once again time to give you an update about where we are and where we are going.  Let us know what you think!

A few ground rules:

This roadmap may make statements regarding future events and development efforts for our products and services. These statements reflect our current expectations based on what we know today. Our plans are not intended to be a promise or guarantee of future delivery of products, services or features and purchasing decisions should not be made based upon these statements. We do not assume any responsibility to update this roadmap to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the publish date of this roadmap.

To better explain the roadmap, we’ve grouped our plans by theme:

• Create – The act of model creation
  • Efficiently create models that better capture design intent
  • Engage in a delightful, intuitive, and contextual experience
  • Model to higher degrees of accuracy and detail
• Optimize – Better buildings and processes
  • Analyze, simulate, and iterate to optimize designs
  • Work more productively with software that automates tasks
  • Have more time to design with more reliable and efficient software

• Connect – Integrating teams and products
  • Connect project teams with AEC-focused collaboration tools
  • Enable multidisciplinary workflows to help deliver projects
  • Extend BIM to all phases of the project lifecycle

We use themes, colors, and icons to keep track of the roadmap details.

 Delivered with Revit 2019.2

 Revit Idea Delivered with Revit 2019.2

 Planned (Some features may be available for testing in Revit Preview)

  Accepted Revit Idea (Some ideas may be available for testing in Revit Preview)

CREATE

This theme is about creating project data, no matter the phase of the project.

In the last update, we added some major projects to our roadmap and these take time. We’re working on improvements to wall elements since walls haven’t had a lot of focus for quite some time and they are pivotal to so many workflows. Although, we are starting slowly with some more straight-forward improvements that have been on Revit Ideas, behind the scenes will be working to make the data of walls more robust and better serve the future.  Our goal is to reduce the need for complex modeling tools (like in-place or massing) and provide better data for quantities and materials as you design so that you understand better the impact of design choices.

For electrical engineers we’re excited to communicate a few more details related to multi-section panels and wiring.  For multi-section panels, we’re improving the ability to control circuit numbering for multi-section panels and incorporate feed through lugs.  For wiring, the improvements we are working on are related to improved control over homerun wire graphics, including customizable arrowheads. We also plan to start working on some of the areas of Revit’s electrical functionality that to date have been hard-coded to be rather US centric, with the goal of making it more adoptable in other countries.

For structural personas, Revit 2019.2 focuses on better connecting Revit model data to fabrication for reinforcement for both cast-in-place (in-situ) and precast concrete. The structural roadmap also contains functionality for higher fidelity modeling for detailing, fabrication, and construction for concrete structures. The steel part of the roadmap includes improvements that will make design-intent models increasingly accurate to enable fabricators to use them for bidding and steel purchasing decisions as well as for coordination with engineers.

OPTIMIZE

Through the Optimize theme we’re looking for opportunities that enable you to do MORE and do it BETTER. In other words, improving the ease and productivity with which you can work, while also helping you work towards delivering better buildings.

As part of our continued investments in making your day to day work more efficient, in Revit 2019.2 we released the ability to zoom in schedule views. This functionality makes it a lot easier to read detailed schedules and work with higher resolution screens.  In continuing to make it easier to work with large schedules, we are adding two highly requested features to the roadmap: freezing schedule headers (making it easier to see your column names when zooming) and allowing for alternate shading for rows in schedules (making it easier to see what row you are working on).

We may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves by marking it “Done”, but we can’t hold it in any longer. We’re excited for our plans to release the Forge Design Automation API for Revit (aka Revit IO) to public beta on January 28^th. Access Revit’s engine as a cloud service and build cloud-native applications that read and write Revit data. Want to learn more? Check out our AU class.

On the analysis side, we are continuing to work on a “path of travel” feature that allows you to see and calculate the shortest distance between two points.  Allowing you to visually show the path a person would take to exit a building from a room or show the distance from your desk to the coffee machine (something we all might wish we can when figuring out where to sit).  We are thinking of continuing then into analysis of large crowds of people so that you can understand better the impact your design choices have when a large group need to move into or out of the project.

For MEP, there are a few items aimed at providing a faster and more complete workflow for mechanical system design and analysis. From better space/zone take off to the definition of key zone-equipment, air and water loop components and relationships in an analytical/schematic form which in turn provides the basis for systems simulation and analysis. To enable that we’re leveraging EnergyPlus through the OpenStudio SDK which provides an open script-based way to control systems simulation and analysis behavior thereby making it a highly customizable way to support a wide variety of workflows.

Another important theme is modeling automation. A particular focus is automating the transition of structural models from design intent to a higher level of fidelity containing steel connections. For Structures, we’ve added investments that will better connect Dynamo to automate modeling by driving structural model elements like steel connections and to let engineers automate analytical model accuracy and make it consistent, ready for coordination with analysis tools through better access to analytical models.

CONNECT

The Connect theme emphasizes the importance of connecting project teams and creating better multi-product workflows.  Our goal is to improve the processes in which you collaborate and exchange information to get things done.  In this area, we focus on building better experiences for sharing data across Autodesk tools, supporting industry standards like IFC and PDF, and giving project teams tools that allow them to work better together.

An example of this work, in Revit 2019.1, we released  the Civil 3D Terrain to Revit Topography workflow with BIM 360 Document Management., in 2019.2 we improved this workflow by fixing a number of issues with bringing in sites and addressing some usability issues in the new site dialog.  This workflow empowers Civil Engineers to work together by sharing a surface from the engineer and the Architect to add elements to the site.  The big benefit – when sites are updated with changes from engineers, Architects can keep their changes.  Our plan is to continue to improve how architects and engineers work together with enhancements to the Civil to Revit workflow and making Revit’s coordinate workflows simpler and easier to use.

We also are continuing to enhance information exchange in an open, collaborative platform by supporting linking and underlay of PDF files so that you can work better with data coming from outside of Revit.

For Revit Cloud Worksharing, in Revit 2019.1 we introduced Revit Home which allows easier access to your cloud models . In 2019.2 we enhanced Revit Home by adding the ability to view and manage the Publish status of models.  We also spent a lot of time making improvements under the hood. We’re happy to say that we have recently deployed updates that include a bug fix and “bulkheading” which together help make the service more resilient to unexpected events in other services and therefore translate to improved uptime.  We’re also thrilled to announce a technical preview for the Cloud Model Upgrade service. This service lets you upgrade your 2018 BIM 360 Document Management-based cloud models to 2019 in one click. That’s right, no more download, upgrade, upload – we do the work for you.

Next up on the roadmap for Revit Cloud Worksharing are notifications letting you know if someone is actively syncing and a continued emphasis on resiliency. New to the roadmap are plans for hosting cloud models in the EU to support data residency requirements of your European clients.

Now if you’re reading this and you’re not using Revit Cloud Worksharing (yet!) and thinking “I’d love to easily store my Revit models in the cloud and participate in the BIM 360 ecosystem,” then 2019.2 may have just the new feature for you. With Cloud Models for Revit, we’ve introduced the ability to store non-workshared cloud models in BIM 360 for Revit and Revit LT subscribers. Storing your models in the cloud gives you multi-location access, an easy way to participate in BIM 360 projects, and access to capabilities like the Cloud Model Upgrade service.

In MEP Fabrication we continue to invest in better management of the fabrication databases on Forge. This will enable wider sharing of fabrication content in controlled ways that will support Revit as well as enable our partner ecosystem to better meet specific fabrication workflow needs.

HOW DO I GET INVOLVED?

There are a variety of other discussions and work related to connecting workflows from design to fabrication and beyond.  If you don’t see something listed here, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t on our radar. If you have specific suggestions for ways we can make the product better, we encourage you to submit them to Revit Ideas.

If you would like to provide feedback on these capabilities, we would be happy to consider your participation in our beta program (Revit Preview).  Reach out to revit.preview.access@autodesk.com to request to join Revit Preview and we will review your request.

We continue to post updates periodically, and your feedback helps!  Let us know what you think.

Thanks!

The Factory