RS 3 New Features in Technical Terms

[chad_lueptow]

Does anyone have any technical information for what has changed from RS 2 to RS 3. I'm looking for a list of what specifically changed in the families from RS 2 to RS 3. (IE. additional parameters, etc.) Autodesk white papers and Autodesk Subscription Support has not been much help.

Thanks,
Chad

[Tom Weir]

Hi,
Those of us who are involved with the beta testing are under a non-disclosure agreement so can't say much.

But the RS product manager did ask me to indicate a few of the new features:

Most notably for me is the ability to model warped sloping bays in steel. New parameters allow you to set the elevations of beam ends, as well as attaching columns to the underside of deck automatically.. With RS2 it is almost impossible to do warped bays, a major weakness.

The other great feature is the addition of the complete CSI detail component libraries, like we have in ADT. Also drafting views will be able to be imported and exported.

This is a very impressive upgrade which I know you will appreciate when it arrives....


Have a geat day...

Tom Weir
Los Angeles

[chad_lueptow]

Will I be able to "merge" the two families in any way? Or apply the new parameters to my existing families? I'm concerned with firms customizing revit families, and having no way to bring in new parameters, etc. from new stock families.... Will there be any way to remedy this? If I can't bring in the new parameters to my existing families, or vice versa,
I stop customizing families. My opinion is that Autodesk could do us a favor by telling us, in development terms, what families changed, rather than making users compare every family in RS 2 with every family in RS 3. Autodesk's solution is "There is a new features workshop on the RS 3 install" Not really my idea of a solution. If anyone has done this comparison and would like to share it I would greatly appreciate the help.

[David Haynes]

The best practice when you modify a family that came originally "out of the box", is to rename the family and place that modified or customized family in a different location on the hard drive, or server location. This way, when Revit Structure changes versions, your customized family is not overwritten.

You can add multiple locations for your customized families - See - Settings>Options>File Locations.

[chad_lueptow]

Thanks for all of your imput. Maybe I need to form my question in simpler terms.


I have a revit structure column family "concrete-column-modified.rfa" (which is a copy of out
of the box family with my additional parameters)

Now I want to upgrade to RS 3. Now I have "concrete-column.rfa" (OOTB RS 3 with new parameters from the factory) and "concrete-column-modified.rfa" (my version with additional parameters)

How do I "merge" the new family parameters from both together. Or, I wonder do I have to apply my custom parameters to every OOTB family everytime we hit a new version. I see about 95 families in OOTB RS 2. That could take a while to check which ones have new
parameters and update them.

Is anyone having this same concern?

Any responses appreciated....

[jrichardson]

I too have this concern. An example would be... The k-series joist family. I have added/modified parameters to indicate joist seat depth left and joist seat depth right, joist extension left and joist extension right.

It would be nice if the factory could somehow put versions to these families that ship with Revit to make any changes done to the families a little more obvious.

If nothing changed with this joist family than I would continue to use the one I modified. If it has changed in someway that may benefit me or they embedded some behind the scenes info into it I would want to put my parameters into the latest shipped family.

If the majority users of Revit are adding the same parameters than maybe that could be a wishlist item to be included in the shipped families. In my example above, I would think that the added parameters would be ones that most would want to have built in.

thanks,

[Paul Andersen]

Chad, I too have similar concerns. I think a simple list that stated which content has or has not changed (whichever list would be shorter or easier to develop) from release to release along with a list of content that has be added or removed would be quite useful.

I can't tell if you have run into a specific content upgrade related issue or if you are concerned about future upgrades. If you have run into a specific issue I would recommend reporting it to support. They may have a solution otherwise it will give them insight into potential upgrade problems for all users.

If you are primarily concerned about future upgrade issues as they relate to edited delivered content I think you may be pleasantly surprised. While it does depend on what type of edits you are making to the delivered content we have found that more often than not, factory upgrades/enhancements and additions to the families/templates have been available in our edited families once upgraded to the new release. In general we've adopted a much more reactive approach to our standards and upgrades with RST. Most things just work and the ones that don't we adjust on the fly.

[chad_lueptow]

Autodesk's current answer is to open each family and check the history update of the
file. File - Show History...........

It's a bit cumbersome to check every family but it does work. I won't tell you what was
upgraded but it will tell you when and if it was upgraded.

[Paul Andersen]

That's good to know. Thanks.