Design Review

[ctc]

Is anyone using Design Review? Likes? Dislikes? Other options?

[a_meteni]

Yes we're using Design review 2013 in all QC reviews. We link DWF markups in Revit for implementations.
Recently, we started to use Navisworks simulate 2014 as an additional review tool. However, still Design review is the basic tool in our QC process.

[Craig_L]

We were using it, and then it suddenly became completely useless. We have an issue where the exported file shows annotations and grids, and text and tags (all annotation stuff) clearly, but the elements that are modelled are greyed out, and can not be selected (except in the 3d view). The sheet views we use for markups are now all but useless. I have no idea where this came from or why, but it suddenly started doing it and it seems to be irreversible.

[Duncan Lithgow]

We were using it, and then it suddenly became completely useless.

Have you made a support request for that issue?

My impression is that although Design Review is a great tool (we still use it) and is officially supported, they just aren't fixing problems. We had two files that would consistently export non-valid DWF files that we couldn't open. Autodesk was like "yea, you're right that's a problem. We don't know why" and it never got resolved from their side. We had to drill down into categories to find that in one files it was an instance of a railing and in another it was an instance of a wall. By deleting and recreating these types and instances we got it working again. But that's hardly a good solution.

Autodesk is moving their focus to online solutions (A360 I think it's called at the moment?)

[Craig_L]

I did post a specific help request in the Design Review area, it got no response at all.
I just ended up finding another method, if Autodesk don't want to support their products then it simply will fall to the wayside. It is a "free" product so I am guessing that priority for problem resolution is non-existant.

I now work with Navisworks to achieve a similar outcome, however the engineers were already struggling with D.R. (design review) so getting them on to Navisworks is a larger problem.
D.R. was great because the engineer could make his markups in the sheet of the DWF file, all the while being able to have the functionality of seeing how elements connect with each other in other sections and views on that same sheet and the model. I could then import those comments straight over the top of my sheet sets in the model, and work very accurately through their remarks.

Now that is no longer an option so it just kills the entire purpose of that product.