Philippe Videau
With this year’s new Revit roll-out, we’re thrilled to announce the release of Data Exchanges for Revit 2024, plus enhancements to our existing Revit 2023 Connector. For the many of you who work collaboratively across global teams, these updates streamline data curation and sharing across the ecosystem of AEC tools you use — so you and your stakeholders focus less on complex file format management and more on the creative work that drives your business.
What’s new in our Revit Connectors?
First, we’ve made several experience and feature enhancements to our Revit 2023 Connector, including support for:
- Exchanging grids and levels from Revit
- Identifying and selecting elements from specific data exchanges brought into your model
- Sharing exchanges between different Autodesk Construction Cloud accounts through the app connectors
Moreover, you will see performance gains for exchange creation and loading — so you can share and receive the right data even faster.
Our Revit 2024 Connector pushes these enhancements even further for read-based workflows. For exchanges created from Revit, you can access all parameters associated with the exchanged elements if you read the same exchange into Revit 2024. While these parameters are read-only, they provide you with visibility on all the parameter information associated with an exchanged element. We’ve also added exchange identification parameters, so you can quickly identify what exchange the transferred elements are associated to. Lastly, we’ve added support to exchange Levels as native Revit elements. That means you can transfer Levels across Revit files so you can set references within your designs more quickly and coordinate more seamlessly with collaborators.
This is just the start. We plan on bringing you many more updates throughout the year. To name a few, look out for enhanced filtering options for exchange creation, expanded parameter support for workflows than span other app connectors, and support for surface workflows from tools like Civil 3D. We want to hear from you on the improvements you want to see. Don’t hesitate to upvote features and provide suggestions on our Public Roadmap.
Download the Connectors Today
You can find both connectors on the Autodesk App Store — they are publicly available for free. Our Revit 2023 Connector can be downloaded directly from the site. Once installed, you will find the 2023 Connector in the “Data Exchange” tab in the top ribbon of Revit. For the Revit 2024 Connector, you will be redirected to our Beta site, where will find the direct download. You can locate the 2024 Connector in the “Collaborate” tab, where it will live moving forward. You can find more information on these and other connectors on our central site.
Common questions and answers
A few weeks back, we hosted a food4rhino webinar with our partners from McNeel, makers of Rhino 3D. We demonstrated how remote teams can use our connectors to bypass entire model exports/imports — to ultimately simplify and secure how they collaborate on data across disciplines and tools.
Check out a few of the most-asked questions from the webinar, with our responses below.
- What’s the difference between the Data Exchange Connectors for Revit and Rhino and Rhino.Inside.Revit?
Both tools are complementary and can be used across different parts of a workflow and project design.
Rhino.Inside.Revit is a live integration between Rhino and Revit that bridges the gap between Rhino’s free-form modeling and Revit’s parametric and BIM environment. Rhino.Inside runs on a single local machine, can be used by one user at a time, and requires licenses to both sets of software. It makes use of Grasshopper too — so you need some experience with the visual programming tool.
Data Exchanges are cloud-based, secure containers of neutral data, which global collaborators can access across an ecosystem of apps, such as Revit and Rhino. Exchanges provide a durable connection to your distributed team where they can share and consume geometry and parameter data, without requiring access to the original design file, or authoring app.
- What kind of license(s) is required to use Data Exchanges?
To author / edit exchanges, you need at least a license to Autodesk Docs. From Autodesk Docs, you can author exchanges from published Revit 2023. To author / edit exchanges from our app connectors, you need a license to the specific app in addition to a license to Autodesk Docs.
To view or consume exchanges in your app, you only need to be added to an Autodesk Docs project – and given permission to access the exchange (“View + Download” permission or higher). You do not need an Autodesk Docs license. For example, if a partner working in Revit shares an exchange, you can consume the exchange in the tool you use – be it Rhino, Inventor, Power Automate – without requiring you to have a license of Revit or Autodesk Docs.
- Are Data Exchanges bi-directional?
Data Exchanges are uni-directional today. Once you create an exchange, that exchange can only be edited / updated from where it was authored. To send data “back”, you need to create a new exchange. We intend to expand towards more bi-directional exchange authoring / editing in the future.
Take the example of an exchange created in Revit and brought into Rhino. Updating or editing the same exchange in Rhino and sending it back through the same exchange is not yet supported. You must create a new exchange from Rhino today.
Join our Community Forum
You can find other questions and answers in our FAQ and recently launched Community Forum, which we encourage you to post and discuss in – we will see you there!