Images from Revit 7

[Wes Macaulay]

Here's some images from the Autodesk Discussion groups posted by Revit Product Designer Matt Jezyk. These images show some of what's coming in R7 and show you how much work has been done over the last 10 months.

It's another remarkable release from a remarkable team.

http://www3.telus.net/elementsix/3dview1.gif

This image shows the Section Box feature in a 3D view.
What's new: the ability to cast shadows in a non-rendered view; edges of objects cut by the section box are filled in (shown in red here - perhaps you can edit the colour - I would go for black); section box available in perspective views (not just ortho 3D views as is now the case).


http://www3.telus.net/elementsix/massing4.gif

Massing tools - huge advancements
What's new: looks like the massing tools got a major boost. Here we see a variety of forms (casting shadows without rendering!) used to develop the overall shape of a building...

http://www3.telus.net/elementsix/massing5.gif
...and here the skin of the forms have been translated into a series of curtain walls and regular walls. I'm reminded of Foster's Swiss Bank building with the egg-shaped form on this building. (The curtain mullions aren't vertical or horizontal on that design, of course, so it remains to be seen if we can use R7's mullions in such a case. The guys at SOM have worked around that, however, even now in R6!)

http://www3.telus.net/elementsix/concept1.jpg

We don't have any idea how this form is built.
What's new: Obviously some new modelling capabilities in R7. Very cool stuff.

http://www3.telus.net/elementsix/concept2.jpg

This form is shown here converted into the ruled curtain system, one of the more incredible tools in Revit that can build some outlandish and bizarre forms that will take your per square foot building costs to the next level.

http://www3.telus.net/elementsix/shell1.gif

A detail view of the shell form's structure. Shop drawings, anyone?

Show's over -- back to work!

Good job, Waltham. We're flabbergasted again.

[LRaiz]

These images show some of what's coming in R7 and show you how much work has been done over the last 10 months.

The period between 6.1 and 7.0 is going to be close to 7 months. And I hope no one discounts 6.1 as a full fledged release. The standard ADSK line of one release per year has not really been applicable to Revit.

[BillyGrey]

All I can say is WOW!

Shadows, 3d sections, organics, YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Congrats to the Factory :)

Thanks Wes

[SkiSouth]

Folks, this is great!!! Leonid, as long as the releases do not require retraining, I'm for waiting. The bug that kicked me off ADT was the RE-learning curve on each major release. I can't wait to see 7.0--- Not that I'll ever get a budget that will allow such a "shell" of a structure--- :D

[Henry D]

That is soooo coo!! , I can hardly wait...no wonder ADSK stock keeps going up.

[Wes Macaulay]

The period between 6.1 and 7.0 is going to be close to 7 months. And I hope no one discounts 6.1 as a full fledged release. The standard ADSK line of one release per year has not really been applicable to Revit.That is true - I was thinking of 6 to 7. And 6.1 was important -- we needed many of the features in that release.

[SkiSouth]

Wes, upon looking at the "skeleton" shell closely, It looks like its a series of one form scaled and stacked as it rises, not a continuous mesh.. Is that correct?

[christopher.zoog51272]

Simply..... Awesome!:D

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Real time shadows with no render... my number one wish.
The rest is gravy! Veeeerrrrryyyyy tasty gravy.
Even without assessing how stable, quick, easy etc. * this release will be this development team deserves praise for the work they are doing. Autodesk also deserves some praise for leaving a good thing alone and allowing the boys and girls at the factory to work their magic assisted but undisturbed
Thanks

* in no way meant to imply that other advances were unstable, slow or difficult:wink:

[Wes Macaulay]

Wes, upon looking at the "skeleton" shell closely, It looks like its a series of one form scaled and stacked as it rises, not a continuous mesh.. Is that correct?I honestly don't know: it's all a mystery at this point. But it will be very interesting to see how it works.

[narlee]

It's clear the Revit team has been showing up for work every day. This is FUNDAMENTALLY great stuff. Hoping they get the pattern-on-family-objects editing fixed. Then you've got extremely versatile tools for creativity. I'm sure there will be a ton of smaller improvements as well. Bravo.

Geof Narlee

[Kroke]

this kicks (_!_)

[Steve_Stafford]

Interesting link...

University of Waterloo (http://www.fabrication.ald.utoronto.ca/workshops/revit/revit.htm)

[barathd]

Steve:

Very interesting - you got that right.

Regards

Dick Barath

[beegee]

And.... one of the presenters is a familar name - Matt Jezyk.

Must be for real then ??

[trent59822]

Wow. I first thought maybe with the shell design it may be a simple ever shrinking sweep command that they had created But the first image on the AIA web page has me thinking Revit 7 may have unlimited geometry capabilities. In addition, the Building Maker has me very excited. One of my pet peeves is that our office tends to get stuck in the design phase a lot because the time to create a concept and create it took a lot of time before you realized it sucked. If the building modeler is as fast as I'm hoping that should eliminate that problem. Looking forward to the 25th.

[Scott D Davis]

Building Maker seems like a cool idea...I can't wait to check it out.....but that name has got to go! Building Maker? Sounds WAY too much like Stair Maker or Plot Maker, ArchiCAD Add-ons!

[Chad Smith]

Building Maker seems like a cool idea...I can't wait to check it out.....but that name has got to go!
And don't ever let management hear the term Building Maker, they'll expect the work to be done even quicker, as though you push one button and the building is designed.

[Vincent Valentijn]

Seems I get my wish for 'Ghery-like' capabilities in Revit after all? Though I'm a bit sceptic about these things being able to represent real wall-structures instead of curtainwalls - it does seem to open a few posibilities in this direction.
I'm most curious about the way the construction of these forms will be handled in Revit and the control-capabilities. Are things going to be as 'interactive' and 'stretchable' as walls/floors are or is this the end of such pleasant design modification capabilities? We will find out soon!! in about 4 weeks I'm guessing.

[Arnel Aguel]

Wow just awsome. You guys just did an amazing job. I think you probably need some good sleep by now.

You are just great.

[sbrown]

This is great, Steve and I were worried when we went to work for WATG that they'd need us to model a sea shell for the next Atlantis like project. Now we can!!!! Looks great Revit. Can't wait to play.

Matt can you tell us if we can now sub out curtain wall system panel with our own custom panels in a ruled curtain system? This would let you make the wall system concrete or any shape you wanted.

[anthony.67953]

My congrats to the Revit Team. Good show

[narlee]

In a word: Wow, Wow, Wow. Cheapskate that I am, I may actually venture out to this one (will have to cash in my kids' tuition bonds - they'll understand). Apparently, "Building Maker" is a (dare I say it/is it possible w/o an API?) plug-in? or cooperative software? They call it an "environment."

[Scott D Davis]

From the Waterloo link posted earlier by Steve Stafford: <smilies by me>


Revit 7 introduces new subsystems :shock: expanding design possibilities at conceptual and detail levels: Building Maker and Parametric Components.
Building Maker is a conceptual modeling and design environment linked to the Revit building model. Conceptual models are developed independently and mapped to building model components by the designer as the design progresses. By working with both the conceptual model and the building model, design intent and detail can be captured at the moment of conceptualization. :cool: Revit 7 Building Maker has been used in pre-release form on the design of some of the largest buildings in the world.

Parametric Components are an open :!: graphical system for design thinking and form making, a way of expressing design intent at increasingly detailed levels. Parametric Components can be used to generate elaborate assemblies--including intricate iterative, algorithmic, and behavioral characteristics--as well as elementary building parts. No programming language or coding is required to drive this system. :mrgreen:
Okay, so what are "subsystems"? "Linked Conceptual Model"? "OPEN Graphical System"? As in OPEN??? As in Open Source?? What does this mean? The last line I like..."No programming...." They should have added "as there is in ArchiCAD."

[tatlin]

From the Waterloo link posted earlier by Steve Stafford: <smilies by me>


Okay, so what are "subsystems"? "Linked Conceptual Model"? "OPEN Graphical System"? As in OPEN??? As in Open Source?? What does this mean? The last line I like..."No programming...." They should have added "as there is in ArchiCAD."
Scott,

I think you're reading too many tea leaves... (or maybe smoking them?:razz: ) ! Not to say too much yet, but you could have used the same words about revit 3-4 years ago (and I think we did...)

Still exciting stuff, none the less!

Thanks for the great comments guys - our development team loves to see the feedback on what we've been up to.

[Wes Macaulay]

The last line I like..."No programming...." They should have added "as there is in ArchiCAD."You're just all into smacking the boys from Budapest, aren't you? :twisted:

[Scott D Davis]

duuuude...those were some niiiice tea leaves, man! Maybe I was reading too much into it...but I was just stimulating the conversation, and showing how quickly the written word can be misinterpreted. With published articles like this available on the 'Net with this kind of wording, some explaination as to the meaning behind the choice of words should be provided.

[Scott_Bloss]

The period between 6.1 and 7.0 is going to be close to 7 months. And I hope no one discounts 6.1 as a full fledged release. The standard ADSK line of one release per year has not really been applicable to Revit.


Leonid,

My hat is off to all of the folks on the development team. Major release improvements such as i have seen here are keeping Revit on the Cutting Edge. For the people that are not using Revit or considering it they are missing the boat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Once again Congratulations on a job well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Les Therrien]

WOW!!!!!!!!
I am so excited!!!

[narlee]

I Googled "Building Maker" and found a $29 product, by XPS, for Archicad. It's pitch is it's for quick post-up of urban environment, for use around your model, for renderings. Perhaps, the makers have upgraded it for Revit.

www.objectsonline.com/arc/Detail. tpl?DB_Title=Building%20Maker&DB_SKU=A01811

[beegee]

Cheesy looking buildings ( but what do I expect for $ 29 ? )

Wonder if they've registered the name ;)

[Steve_Stafford]

I am so excited!!!Ha ha...Les made me laugh...to someone with two young children that comment is sooo "Side Table Drawer". (w/o kids?...Side Table Drawer is a character in Blue's Clue's)

[beegee]

Steve is the person who gets to find all of Blue's Clues, and needs help with the puzzles and clues. Steve is the most interactive character on the show. Along the way we learn about shapes, colors, and about paying attention so you don't miss a clue! Steve is very good at missing clues, and needs help. He is very silly and fun to watch!

Nope, ... doesn't remind me of anyone. :p

[GS Fulton]

Nice work! Revit maintains their leading edge. Looking forward to all those goodies. Was going to get sketch up because of the shadows but maybe not now. I agree on the Building maker name. Sounds more like the machine is going to build the building.

Thanks in advance.

[blads]

Gee Whizz you go away from a week and look what happens...

Roses are red, violets are blue
Revit 7's a coming...
... and I am ... so excited :-o

[funkman]

haha blads, me too,

I have been up to Palm Cove up in FNQ since thursday, came back last night and look at what we have here!!

Looks awesome!!

[Scott Hopkins]

Just got back from vacation and when I saw these images I almost wet my pants! Outstanding job Revit team! I can't wait! :-D

[robmorfin]

Thanks Revit, I really hope we can push these shapes to the limits, looks great.

[robmorfin]

I knew it!

The organic shapes shown in these images are not created in Revit, according to the new "Autodesk Revit 7 Features and Benefits", which states on the first feature on page 15 (pdf attached):





3D Solid (ACIS)




Support Allows import of 3D Solid geometry, except for general NURBS surfaces, from applications such as AutoCAD, increasing collaboration opportunities with users of other CAD applications.




In previous releases it was possible to import 3Dfaces, I don't see the difference on the benefits, except if these imported solids are able to interact and accept insertions or attachments to revit objects, but I doubt it.




It is really disappointing to find out that there are no new tools to create this type of shapes, maybe these images should not be shown as a organic tools improvement, because that's what everyone is thinking.




Still, hope to get parametric nurbs in release 8.1.




P.S. I got the pdf file from http://taylor-tech.com/software/getSoftwareByID/16/view.html (http://taylor-tech.com/software/getSoftwareByID/16/view.html)

[hand471037]

How do you get that thse shapes weren't created from Revit out of that? The image they include with that feature are of an imported model from Building Systems. Besides, I've created shapes that are simular with Revit 6, and can even think of a (rather laborous) way that you could make the 'seashell' in Revit 6.

Also some of the 'seashell' images are clearly made of Revit curtain walls- how do you explain that?

sheesh. Don't you think you're jumping to conclusions a bit, and that we should wait until 7 is released?

[gregcashen]

That and there are other posts in here referring to the method by which this was accomplished. it appears to be a parametric family that is arrayed vertically. Who knows...we'll see in a couple weeks!

[hand471037]

Here: http://forums.augi.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4171

See that curtain wall drawing? That's what I'm talking about. :)

So I think that at least most of the images we saw were done completely in Revit, otherwise I don't think they would be showing them off so much.

[Yman]

This is awesome. I went down to Florida to help my sister-in-law and look what I got to come back to. Revit team, once again, did what looks like an awesome job. You sure know how to get us excited!!

[Cathy Hadley]

The organic shapes shown in these images are not created in Revit, according to the new "Autodesk Revit 7 Features and Benefits", which states on the first feature on page 15 (pdf attached):


I looked back into my notes, and it was stated that the shell was a parametric family from within REVIT... Now of course they didn't teach us *how* it was done... of course. but it IS possible.

And ACIS solids will covert to masses, which you then CAN assign systems to... I think you will be pleased... not satisfied (no direct nurbs), but pleased.

CZH

[Wes Macaulay]

I looked back into my notes, and it was stated that the shell was a parametric family from within REVIT... Now of course they didn't teach us *how* it was done... of course. but it IS possible.

And ACIS solids will covert to masses, which you then CAN assign systems to... I think you will be pleased... not satisfied (no direct nurbs), but pleased.

CZHThe way the shell form was built was using a series of mass families. You can now create mass families in Revit that you can import into the project. The mass families are not true helixes -- they're approximates and could have been created in 6 or even 5. What is new is that these masses can have curtain wall assemblies assigned to the skin of the form. So they stacked a bunch of these families on top of each other, and there you are.

I really like that wall assemblies can be assiged to curtain panels!

In regards to solids importing: most of the crazy shapes made out there in modelling programs like Rhino are surfaces. When Rhino exports to DWG so we can import to Revit, the results suuuuuuck.

[hand471037]

In regards to solids importing: most of the crazy shapes made out there in modelling programs like Rhino are surfaces. When Rhino exports to DWG so we can import to Revit, the results suuuuuuck.

yeah, whenever people say that they want more complex modeling in Revit, I don't know if they always really understand what they are asking for. 'Nurbs' in many 3D applications are really surfaces. 'Meshes' in many programs are still surfaces, but you can still do booleans on them and they will act like a 'solid'. The real issue here is that there isn't really a definition for what a 'solid' means in the 3D world, and different people have different ideas as to what it is, for it's one thing in AutoCAD, another in Inventor/Ironcad, another in Rhino...

Revit runs a custom modeling kernel written by the Revit folks, not the ACIS 'solids' Kernel that Autocad uses or the ObjectARX smoke-and-mirrors that ADT does. So the term 'solids' is a little misleading- I mean, that seashell shape would be very difficult to model using solids in Autocad, but wouldn't be using 'solids' in Inventor. And making a Mesh in Max or something would be easy. So when people say that they want 'Nurbs in Revit' all I can think of is that they must either do a lot of big tent buildings, or not really understand what Nurbs are to most other 3D packages...

[Wes Macaulay]

The real problem in Revit is how to import surfaces, in my case. I'm very happy that solids can be brought in now -- that is welcome news.

But how do we get all these crazy surface modelled forms around? It's a tougher question. DWG doesn't handle surfaces very well, nor does DXF, so it's a problem.

(Someone correct me, but Revit is a solid modeller, right? - not a surface modeller.)

[SkiSouth]

,But how do we get all these crazy surface modelled forms around? .



Since you're talking about crazy shapes, seen anything in your playing around (with 7 - I saw your post :mrgreen: ) that would allow a blend along a path?

[Wes Macaulay]

Since you're talking about crazy shapes, seen anything in your playing around (with 7 - I saw your post :mrgreen: ) that would allow a blend along a path?No - nothing new in that department that I can see...

[christo4robin]

Along the lines of surfaces, nurbs, etc. I find myself missing what I remember in Autocad as the ability to draw to lines or arcs in 3d space and create a 3D mesh between them. The practical application I am getting to with this is making shade sails, Birdair style tent structures, etc. I've been able to approximate thes using sweeps and voids in Revit, but it is definitely not ideal.

[Scott D Davis]

Why not use a 'ruled curtain system' wth the panel materials set to 'cloth' or some other material, to approximate the shape? Isn't a Ruled Curtain Sytem the same as a 3D mesh? The tool is in the modeling pull-down in Revit, it's not available from the Modeling tab.

[narlee]

I think a 3D mesh is made of triangular faces, no?

Geof Narlee

[hand471037]

whoa everyone. This is what I was just talking about. there isn't a real defnition for what's a 'mesh' or what's a 'solid' in 3D modeling. And the definitions change from CAD to Animation. For example, a 'mesh' in Max or Blender is a form made up of a lot of smaller faces, which can be triangles, squares, or anything really. But then a 'mesh' could have been the result of some NURBS modeling, or metaballs, a loft, or even extruded 2D spline outlines. And throw in subdivision surfaces, where a mesh is 'melted' into a smooth form, and things get even muddier.

'Mesh' is really a catchall term!

[trent59822]

Not to get too far off subject. I am looking forward to building maker, however, I do have concerns about the operability of the modeling. In the preview the massing model shows the same blue dots for stretching shapes. I do hope that the tools for massing are improved in this version. The biggest reason I do not use the massing tool in revit is that it is so cumbersome to mass irregular shapes eg. sloped walls. To creating a sloped wall you need to create reference planes and voids and you may not care for the end result and you've wasted all this time. Sketchup has got this concept done to an art form just pick a line and stretch the plane and you have sloped wall, and if you don't like it you've lost seconds. I don't want to be too pessimistic about Revit 7, I think this could be the best release since 4, but I just wanted to let the guys at Revit that if this concern is not addressed in this version. It needs to be in future releases.

Trent

[Scott D Davis]

To get back to the idea of a tensile fabric structure, I think the ruled curtain system does the trick. I need to experiment to see if the panel lines can be made invisible, but in any case it at least shows the intent. In som cases, it would work really well. If I were to model Olympic Stadium in Munich, I would use this technique, which is exaatly how it is actually constructed: a bunch of panels connected to cables. Now, in 7.0, we'll be able to define the mullion profile, which could easily become a cable profile.

I posted a How To: HERE (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=9565)

[Steve Cashman]

Great job Revit team! I'm amazed at how much you have accomplished in such a short time. Keep up the great work. You're finally allowing computers to help architects instead of being a very expensive parallel rule.

[scott.68993]

Where are you guys finding these images and information on Revit 7.0

[FK]

Where are you guys finding these images and information on Revit 7.0
We take screenshots. :-P

[jarod.tulanowski]

wow, bring on revit 7.0