I am sitting in a nice conference room with fellow Revit bloggers being introduced to new Revit features... Cool. Now, you all will get some information about what I am seeing and hearing:
Conceptual Energy Analysis
With sustainability in mind (I know all my fellow students are beginning to feel the stress from even their design professors) Autodesk is beginning to focus on how Revit can influence and help the ideas of sustainability. The discussion of using the sun path tool and solar radiation technology within Revit appears to be of high importance. Look out in the future for posts and videos from myself on how these utilities can help you in studio and professionally during the conceptual phases.
Additionally, the Google Maps interface under "Manage" and "Location" provides a ton of information bout your sites location. Again, look for some further posts with videos and tutorials on using these tools. The Google Maps interface can be used by any Revit user while integrated weather data for locations is only for Subscription Users in the newest release. The weather overlay looks to be very interesting and helpful in the early stages of design. With this overlay you can visually see a historical record of weather patterns over time and include it in an analysis.
Autodesk is addressing the issue of exporting into Green Building Studio by creating a simple to use analysis of Massing elements. This will introduce a new power to comparing different massing schemes. This stress on the importance of using conceptual masses early on in the design process is alluding me to focus some tutorials on this subject. I know many designers who have never even attempted to use a simple mass form within Revit. Maybe, showing the conceptual power of a mass, will encourage the use of masses. Personally, being in total design mode thanks to my 3 studio classes, I can see myself going crazy on trace with some sketching, concepts, etc... And then massing a couple of the forms in Revit and comparing baseline energy analysis results, sun path and shading, and solar radiation of those forms. Imagine having some comparison graphs of information regarding a few different conceptual forms during your studio critique. Impressive.
Before I go on... This is sort of my live blog in the form of paragraphs. Jay Bahtt just came in an talked to all of us bloggers... Very cool to meet him. That is right, he is on Forbes.com...
Anyways, the day continues....
Revit Server
One of the biggest things I have had to deal with, help with, and work productively in... is the wonderful world of Worksets and Central Files. Autodesk is introducing "Revit Server". This concept is basically creating a new tier in the Central and Local file structure. Check out my little iPad sketch below:
Basically, the direction that I see it going is shown above. The blue lines represent the old way. User 1 and User 2 are in two different offices at different locations around the world. The users are still running local files on their local hard drives just as they would before. What I have seen and used is one server and satellite offices connected to that one server. Revit Server will provide a main location for the project that will synchronize with local servers and then with the local file. Therefore, the central file sits on the Revit Server. I am assuming this will reduce the typical lag found with connecting to the main server that could be at a different office. If you were hear listening to the debate and conversation happening you would see this is my watered down, non IT guy, perspective. Ultimately, as a user of Revit at a satellite office, I would love to see a benefit of faster synchronizing with central.
Stay tuned for more posts from more events...
