Mike Engel
Matt Arsenault
For decades, the AEC industry has been bound to file formats as well as unstructured and siloed data — a constraint that has necessitated the creation of time-intensive workarounds and resulted in duplication of data across products and systems. The new AEC Data Model helps to solve this issue by democratizing data access via a cloud-based API.
For Autodesk products such as Revit, this is the first foundational step in our vision for AEC, enabling open access to information and providing more useful and better connected data for the future.
Revit property data in the AEC Data Model is now accessible without running Revit on a desktop (or traditional desktop API). A unified read-only GraphQL API provides access as part of Autodesk Platform Services to all Autodesk Docs users.
This release connects AECO teams to their tools of choice by unlocking the granular data stored in Revit 2024 and 2025 files, making industry data structured and accessible—regardless of whether it’s a classification or a firm-specific standard— and so supports an open flow of data. Whole project views will now be easily attainable through a shared language across the lifecycle of AEC projects.
This level of accessibility means designers, engineers, and contractors will no longer need to invest in creating in-house solutions to provide data access for project stakeholders. The framework the data model is built on supports diversity so that information is easily understandable by all involved and there is no need to have coding knowledge to build timelines.
This granular data access is also the first step in Autodesk’s commitment to expanding Docs as an open AEC data repository to support increased data accessibility and interoperability for customers.
Curated data experiences
This is a milestone moment for Revit in providing open access data that enables software developers and AEC users to provide curated experiences for customers. Architects, engineers, and contractors can now access the information they need without having to learn, or open, Revit.
The AEC Data Model enables connections to be built across data sets, providing deeper insights and helping users understand the effect of changes across the broader project design. This data release includes property data. A release with geometric data is on our roadmap and planned for the future.
Growth in insights and connectivity will develop organically from this first step of making the data accessible. As more data is added, more connections can be built, and a higher level understanding of whole projects can be achieved.
Today, access to data is provided when a Revit model is published or uploaded to Autodesk Docs. In the future, the speed of updates to data will also be improved through incremental updates to workflows and access to Revit Cloud Model data, meaning users will have greater data access than ever before.
This future enhancement will enable real-time record creation showing who made each change, what the change was, and when it was applied, delivering increased transparency into project activity and building trust across teams.
What does this mean for your project?
Currently, teams are using the AEC Data Model to reduce rework and realize more value in their projects. They’re saving time as they automate workflows and easily search across element data external to the authoring environment, which removes the need for manual and error-prone counting.
They’re also creating powerful reports that unlock insights across their organization, democratizing access to project data, and helping to make better, more well-informed decisions.
We will continue to expand the AEC Data Model’s GraphQL-based API to provide access to additional elements and data from all our AEC products, and we are also exploring ways for non-technical users to access data through other applications, such as the data connectors for Power BI and Dynamo, and more.
Learn more about the AEC Data Model
Find out more about the release and how you can get involved.