Revit 2019's New Features Worth Knowing

I looked on the web at blog posts and Autodesk.com for the "New Features in Revit 2019".  There are some good things mentioned, but I have found some other good things that were not.  (Yes I'm a little late getting this posted)

Some very simple improvements have been made to the basic graphic user interface, that are major work flow improvements.

Project Browser - Collapse All & Expand All (v2018.3)

This will save you time trying to find something, or just save time getting from Point A to Point B.  Is this some special new technology that was invented just recently?  No, of course not.  It makes me wonder who is designing the GUI for Revit, and who they are designing it for.

Docking Palettes Made Easy

Now it's easy to dock your Properties palette, or Project Browser to the left or right side of your drawing window.  Yay!

Change The Scale of an Existing Fill Pattern

Yay!  Instead of needing to delete a fill pattern and try it again at a different scale, you can just change the Import Scale factor now!  What the what?

   

Revit, Stop Asking This Question!

Another amazing break-through is the option to hide future messages, that would ask you if you want like to rename corresponding levels] and views, after you rename a single view, that is the same name as a level.  Are you fricken crazy?  Why would you ever ask this question to someone who just renamed a view anyway?  How much time is this favor supposed to save you if you click on Yes?

News Flash!
Most users click on Yes without even reading the message!  Therefor you end up with Levels named like Furniture Plan - Level 2.  Which looks great in an elevation view right above Level 1, and below Demolition Plan - Level 3.  WTF Revit, do you not understand how users in the real world behave?  Just don't show me this message ever!

Not a New Feature...

Whenever you create a new workset in a workshared project, Revit will ask you if you want to make that new workset the current workset after you click OK.  As if you needed that 2 second time savings over the time you will spend putting stuff on to the correct workset after you realized there are dozens of elements on the wrong workset because the wrong workset was the active workset!

And another thing, the active workset indicator at the bottom of the program interface is way to subtle.  It needs to be much more obnoxious.  There should be a way to assign one workset as the main modeling workset for your project model, and if that workset is not the active workset, the indicator will appear as big bold and red, or something.  Is that something way beyond today's technology?

Stop making is so easy to put stuff on the wrong workset!

Phased and Confused?

This is How to Successfully Use Phases In Revit

Revit has its own way of dealing with existing, demolition and new construction.  This concept is referred to as Phasing.  Learning to use the Phasing feature in Revit can be difficult.  Not because it is hard to use, but because the workflow is not super intuitive.

Part 1 - Overview

To be successful, you must understand the primary factors that control phase graphics (what you see in the view).  The primary factors are as follows…

Element Properties

·        Phase Created

·        Phase Demolished

View Properties

·        Phase Filter

·        Phase

Phasing Settings

·        Project Phases

·        Phase Filters

·        Graphic Overrides

Part 2 - Preparation

Proper preparation is necessary for success.  Follow these 3 major steps…

Step I – Phasing Settings

Open the Phasing manager and review the following…

1.      Setup/Review Project Phases

2.      Setup/Review Phase Filters

3.      Setup/Review Graphic Overrides

Step II – View Setup

Do not model in the documentation views! Create separate views just for modeling.

1.      Create “documentation views” for your sheets

2.      Create “non-documentation views” for your modeling and/or exploring.

a.     Create a set of views for new construction.  Make the phase New Construction

b.     Create a set of views for existing modeling work.  Make the phase Existing         

Step III – Element/Family Phase

1.      Control the Phase Created and Phase Demolished properties of all elements.

a.     The phase setting of the view you work in, determines the phase of the elements you create.

i.        Create new construction elements in a view that has the phase set to New Construction

ii.       Create existing elements in a view that has the phase set to Existing

b.     The phase of an element can also be manually changed via the properties palette.

Part 3 - Time Lines

A demolition drawing shows the point in time before new construction, with certain existing construction elements identified for removal.  Keep in mind that Revit views exist relative to the timeline, the same way that model element properties do.

Simple Timeline

A simple timeline would have 2 phases and 3 moments in time. 

Please note, that Demolition is not considered a phase.

Existing Condit

  
See images of view configurations below…

New Construction Plan

Complex Time Line

Existing Conditions Plan

Demolition Plan

New Construction Plan

A complex timeline would have more than 2 phases and 3 moments in time.  The example below shows a timeline with 4 new construction phases:

·        Existing

·        Phase 1

·        Phase 2               (Phase 1 becomes existing)

·        Phase 3               (Phase 2 becomes existing)

·        Phase 4               (Phase 3 becomes existing)