Slanted Walls
The most awaited upgrade isn’t it? Yes, your wait is over, you can finally create slanted walls without having to use mass or model in place commands. Not only walls, you can also place slant doors and windows to align to the slanted walls. Walls now have an instance parameter where you can select the element to be slanted instead of vertical and provide an angle from vertical.
Generative Design
Generative design has been a buzzword for a few years now, well it is time for it to become mainstream as it finds its way to the Manage Tab in Revit. You can easily generate design alternatives in Revit based on your goals. There are 3 readymade studies provided by Autodesk to use and you can also customize them as per your project requirements.
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Schedule Updates - Freeze header, Striped Rows, etc
The appearance of schedules can be customized better using the new row stripes feature. This feature was introduced in Revit 2020.1, however, the ability to see the stripes when these schedules were placed in sheets was missing. But with the release of Revit 2021, that is possible giving you the powers to control the appearance of the schedule in sheet by using the appearance menu of the schedule. This is a welcome change, though we wish more could be possible with Revit Schedules.
Link and unload PDF and raster images
Revit 2021 brings you the functionality to link PDF and images, you can unload them as and when required. This feature allows you to use images and drawings as a reference for modeling without increasing the size of the file. Isn’t this the ideal scenario we all wished?
Customized Workspace
The Revit interface can now be changed according to your discipline and job role. This new feature allows you to create a user profile in Revit based on your preferences. Though this isn’t entirely novel and you could actually customize the Revit ribbon through the settings, it’s good to see Autodesk focusing more on the UX.
Path of travel
The path of travel tool is a recent addition to Revit and this release takes it further. You can now modify the start and end points while using the Path of travel tool, and can also add or remove waypoints along a path. Apart from this, you can control the visibility of the view to understand the obstructions better.
Section rotation and rotate tag with the element
You can easily rotate section symbols, tags etc and can also control the text alignments with them for more readable annotations. This is a welcome change, and indicates that Autodesk is also looking at the small stuff.
View filters
The filters in Visibility & Graphics now have a column for Enable filter with a Yes/No conditioning where you can select if you want to see the filter overrides in the specific view or not without having to remove it from the filters list. A real time saver for some use cases.
Realtime realistic views
Visualisation in Revit has now taken a leap with this feature, as it enables you to see the impact of the design inside the authoring environment with the navigation tools to walk through the model with realtime lighting and texture controls. This was due for a long time, considering that most users had to use 3rd party plugins for visualization.
Improved BIM360 navigation
The cloud hosted models can now be navigated from the Revit homescreen with a better experience with project folders, subfolders navigation and visualization. This update also allows you to directly access the folder on BIM360 website with just one click.
Structural improvements
Revit has been focusing a lot on Structural modelling improvements and upgrades. The latest version of Revit now allows you to generate the shape code 98 (the chair), which will now give you the ability to the contractors to show this level for detail for rebaring. Along with this you can now override each instance of rebar for rotation and hook lengths. We’ve personally experienced the frustration of not being able to do this on older versions, and are celebrating this particular update.
Dynamo 2.5 Integration and new nodes
The new dynamo version 2.5 comes with 10 new dynamo nodes, majorly to automate tasks like geometry joining, pinning/unpinning and hosting revit elements. Steel connection and analysis play a major role with this update for better design. The last but not the least this upgrade claims to reduce processing time of large dynamo scripts that affect the Revit model by 99.9%.
Void cut family geometry type and instance parameters
The voids in family now come with type and instance parameters for visibility that can be controlled in the project environment. This is one of the major updates, as the cut geometry has the ability to now map to a new type or an instance parameter to see different cutting behavior of the void in the project using these parameters.
14. Integrated precast automation
Revit 2021 now comes with a dedicated Precast ribbon tab located to the right of the Steel tab. It comes with different sections like Segmentation, Connections, Reinforcement, Fabrication, Configuration and Precast updates enabler. This functionality helps support the different stages of precast workflows with advanced tools to create precast assemblies, drawings and files good enough for manufacturing.
Create stiffener on beam and column
The steel modelling in Revit 2021 is going to be a cake walk with the update for stiffeners which can now be placed at a point or multiple places along beams and columns using the same style connection tool. Is it time to ditch Advance Steel and use Revit fully for steel? Maybe not just yet.
Infrastructure discipline and bridge categories
Revit 2021 introduces a new discipline in the filter category in Revit. It comes with 26 new model categories and subcategories. It also comes with 20 new annotation categories. These commands come in handy for bridge modelling and representation, models from Infraworks can be imported in Revit and detailing for structural reinforcement, parts, assemblies and sheet creation can be done in Revit.
Electrical design enhancements
Revit now shows single phase panelboards in the panel schedule, switchboard now shows quantity of circuits than quantity poles. Phases in circuits can now be chosen for switchboards.
Revit to inventor linking
Autodesk inventor 2021 now comes with an AnyCAD functionality for Autodesk Revit 2021 for better coordination in projects. This update brings better interoperability between these two software for data and better linking behaviour.
MEP Worksharing
MEP worksharing in Revit 2021 now provides better functionality of borrowing elements while collaborating with the team. You can now borrow a single element in a connected system and make the changes without having the ownership of the aligned elements.
Revit cloud collaboration with P&ID on BIM360
P&ID models can now integrate with Revit using BIM360, where the schematic information about the P&ID model would be visible in Revit and would help in the services modelling.
planBIM plug-in
With the help of the planBIM Revit plugin, take your BIM workflows to the next level. This plugin provides Autodesk® Revit® users with various productivity enhancements and acts as a tool for better BIM Management. Users can connect to their BIM data on the planBIM cloud directly using the planBIM Revit plugin.
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