Tag Archives: Undocumented Feature

Revit 2018 Reference Planes

It has been a while since I blogged, yes I have gotten grief about it at the past few conferences I have attended.   I have a list and I am going to try to tackle that list in the next few months.

I recently found a new feature of Revit 2018 (currently using 2018.2 so not sure which point release included this feature) that I didn’t find any documentation on and it has to deal with Reference planes from families.  For those who have heard me speak or have seen any of my content my type “A” personality definitely comes through.  What I mean is I create reference planes for any edge or line and constrain to those lines,  I also go the extra step to give each plane a Name as well as verifying the “Is Reference” value.  The name is mostly something I have done so I, as well as others, can understand the thought process behind the family.  Revit 2018 has made all this effort worth while (at least I have a justification for my type “A”ness now).  Now the project environment will display the “Is Reference” value as well as the names of the reference planes (assuming they are not defined as “Not a Reference”) when the dimension, align, etc commands are hovering over the reference plane.

The other nice part if it is a shared nested family then the tabbing to get to the planes in the nested family will also display the values

Revit 2017.1 Perspective View

One of the new features of 2017.1 is the added capability to work in perspective views.  This has been a nice feature as it allows for most tools to be used as well as temporary dimensions are displayed when things are selected.

A nice added bonus that I just noticed is the fact that add in utilities can now be accessed when in a camera view.  I have been frustrated not being able to access Enscape while in the view I want to be using.

Revit 2017.1 Changes part 2

Yesterday I posted about some changes to 2017.1 as they reflect on Collaboration for Revit.

This morning i stumbled upon another more minor change.  This change was on the Collaborate Tab and selecting the Manage Models panel:

The first was a drop down to the panel itself, once opened you will see the new feature of “Repair Central Model”, this is a new feature for all workshared model not specific to C4R.  The other

2017-1_c4r_mangemodels

Below is an image taken from Revit 2016 for comparison

2017-1_c4r_mangemodels2016

Revit 2017.1 C4R Changes

Yesterday Autodesk released the latest update for Revit 2017 (direct download links can be found at Luke’s Blog).  A couple of changes have happened if you are using Collaboration for Revit.

One of which is the new branding from A360 to BIM360.  In the Open dialog box the icon has changed. (this is also true when SP7 for Revit 2016 is installed as well)

2017-1_c4r_open

The more significant change is the Synchronization process, below we can see the status of the process in a dialog box (wish this was there for normal projects as well)

2017-1_c4r_synch

Two changes I have noticed with in a few minutes of using the updated version

Revit 2017 Ceiling Change

In previous releases of Revit we have been able to automatically place ceilings in rooms in most instances.  In 2017 the reasons for not being able to place rooms automatically have changed.  In my opinion this should be considered a bug.

The situation I am referring to is when we have a room that has a wall protruding into it, (see image below).  Prior to Revit 2017 a ceiling would go into this room with out any problem.  Now in 2017 you will have to manually place the ceiling using sketch lines.

2017-ceiling-bug