Revit 2010 details become public

Well I think the time we’ve all been waiting for is finally here… Revit has grown up. With a new UI, robust and easy-to-use conceptual modeling tools, 3ds-max and SketchUp users who’ve been reluctant to change to Revit for schematic design, have no more reason not to. I for one am really excited about the UI change. This has been circling the rumor mill for years and it’s finally here. While some don’t like the ribbon UI, it’s something that after working with for a couple weeks, you’ll notice it’s simpler & easier to use. I think we’ll see some huge productivity gains (hopefully along with stability) with the new Revit Architecture 2010.

In terms of the release date of Revit 2010, I can say with confidence you can expect it in early April based on the last couple years of release dates:

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2009: April 15
Autodesk Revit Architecture 2008: April 5th
Autodesk Revit Building 9: April 12

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 Box Shot

To view the product launch webcast:  Click here

In the presentation section pull-down select Presentation PT 1.
Advance the slider to the 9 minute mark in the presentation for details specific to Revit Architecture 2010.

NEW User Interface Screenshot:

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 offers a streamlined new user interface that optimizes workflow and increases discoverability of new tools.

NEW Conceptual Design Tools Screenshot:

New conceptual design features help you to prepare models for fabrication and construction with builtin tools for dividing, patterning and panelizing complex forms.

NEW Revolve Tool Screenshot:

New conceptual design features allow you to sketch freely, create 3D models quickly, and take your design from concept to construction documentation all in one environment.

2010 Autodesk Revit Platform

The Autodesk Revit platform based products for BIM feature an aligned user interface, giving the entire range of products a consistent look and feel. The updated Autodesk Revit platform also allows a greater level of interoperability for green building analysis, providing support for the green building extensible markup language (gbXML) format. Updates to the products based on the Autodesk Revit platform include:

• Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 software (BIM for architects and designers) enables customers to more accurately capture early design concepts with improved conceptual design functionality via:
  • An intuitive conceptual design workspace to create complex geometry more easily.
  • A new user interface (UI) that works the way designers think, providing a smoother and more continuous design workflow.
  • Improved interoperability with programs such as AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 software, Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 software and Autodesk Inventor 2010 software.
• Autodesk Revit Structure 2010 software (BIM for structural engineers, designers, and drafters) integrates a multi-material physical and an independently editable analytical model, to help provide for more efficient, more accurate documentation, analysis and design. Users will experience:
  • Enhanced conceptual design, modeling and analysis to handle more complex architectural forms.
  • Improved user interface with a new customizable ribbon toolbar.
  • Improved performance and interoperability, including native 64 bit support.
• Autodesk Revit MEP 2010 software (BIM for mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineers) provides customers with optimum tools for system design and building performance analysis helping engineers to make better informed decisions. The 2010 release provides new functionality including:
  • Native heating and cooling loads analysis enabling MEP engineers to determine the energy demands of the building.
  • Enhanced gbXML export with the ability to examine an analytical model of the project before exporting to a gbXML file.
  • Improved performance of the application enabling users to see significant performance enhancements while handling and working on large project files.

View the full press release on the 2010 product lineup here:
http://pressreleases.autodesk.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=526%3C%2Ftd%3E

All you wanted to know about Revit Architecture 2009

IMAGINiT has released a PDF that documents all the latest and greatest RAC 2009 features (some don’t appear to be enhanced or new, but let’s hope they’re fixed… *ahem* site tools).

Here’s the list:

New Features:

• Design Visualization – built-in mental ray® rendering engine, and additional interoperability with 3ds Max Design 2009 with the FBX file format.
• Swept Blend – ability to take create a blend & sweep in one form allowing for more complex geometries.
• Autodesk 3D UI – ViewCube & SteeringWheels allow for easier (more intuitive) navigation through 3D mode.
• Advanced Rendering with 3ds Max Design 2009 – FBX format allows for accurate import of Revit materials, cameras, and lights from Revit 2009 to Max Design 2009
• Batch Printing Utility – (Autodesk Subscription Only)
• Worksharing Monitor – (Autodesk Subscription Only)

Enhanced Features:

• Interface to Energy Analysis – enhanced export via gbXML to Green Building Studio, Inc., and IES Ltd.
• Design Review – enhanced markup capabilities with Design Review 2009
• Dimension Improvements – more flexibility built-in to dimensions allowing for more than just length property (hurray! enter dimension overrides and additional supplemental text!).
• Room Tag Improvements – additional flexibility, tighter integration of room objects & tags, rotation of tags
• Revision Schedules – new attributes gives you more flexibility over sizing and format

Get the PDF of Revit Architecture 2009 Overview here:
http://www.rand.com/imaginit/1/technology/software/revit_architecture.htm

Frequently Asked Questions about Revit Architecture 2009:
http://www.rand.com/imaginit/1/pdfs/technology/software/revitarch09_customer_qa_final.pdf

new information on Revit Architecture 2009

Revit® Architecture 2009 features were officially announced last week at Autodesk World Press Day 2008.

This is a short list of Revit® Architecture 2009 Feature Improvements and Enhancements:

Design Visualization: Better experience your architectural projects, even before they are built, with Revit Architecture 2009. A proven, powerful tool with roots in the entertainment world, the mental ray® rendering engine is now available for your architectural projects. The advanced capabilities of mental ray in Revit Architecture 2009 enable accurate visualizations through the Autodesk® FBX® file format and easy interoperability with Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2009 Design software.

Swept Blend: Extending the range of what is achievable during conceptual design and family creation, swept blend functionality offers more opportunity to express complex forms.

Autodesk 3D UI: The Autodesk 3D UI includes ViewCube™ and SteeringWheels™ technology, two intuitive, interactive scene navigation tools that offer a familiar experience across multiple Autodesk 3D design products. The 3D UI enables you to navigate 3D scenes easily and effectively, regardless of your level of experience. Your extended team can apply the same software skills across different products and disciplines.

Dimension Improvements: Dimension improvements offer new flexible options for expressing dimension text by conveying more than just length values in the dimension string. New dimension text enables you to add a variety of supplemental text to a dimension string without damaging the integrity of the building information model by overriding dimension values.

Revision Schedules: Enhancements give added flexibility and control to the display of revision schedules. New attributes enable you to reverse the direction of schedules and to control whether they build dynamically or remain a fixed size. In addition, a new Issued By property has been added and schedules can be rotated on title blocks to achieve the various needs of individual firms.

Advanced Rendering with 3ds Max Design 2009: Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009 design software introduces new lighting simulation and analysis technology, advanced rendering capabilities, and workflows that integrate with popular Autodesk® products such as Revit Architecture 2009. Through Autodesk FBX, an open-standard, platform independent 3D file format, Autodesk 3ds Max Design significantly enhances interoperability with Revit® 2009–based products through the accurate import of lights, materials, and cameras.

microsoft photosynth, a new 3d interface for photos

Ever wish you could re-live some moments from a vacation or from a special occasion? Or how about see a 3-dimensional representation of a place you’ve never been before? Well now you can! Take numerous photos of the surroundings then bring them home and organize them (or rather let this software organize them for you) with photosynth. Or if you wish enter keywords into flickr and pull from a community of photographs to visualize places and things. Microsoft’s Photosynth brings a whole new social dynamic to photographs.

Microsoft’s new technology (powered by in part by Seadragon & DirectX implementing the new Windows Media Photo format) actually recognizes similarities in different photos and then ’stitchs’ an actual 3-dimensional representation of the place. Not only that but photosynth also allows you to browse actual high-resolution images in a fast, easy, intuitive manner without having to wait ages for high-definition images to load.

Check out the tech preview:
Microsoft Photosynth

Photosynth, a new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.We’ve assembled a few collections for you to play with, and we’re working on adding more. In the future you’ll be able to “photosynthesize” your own photos, but we aren’t there yet.

release of v-ray for sketchUp

Finally, V-ray has been released for SketchUp. This has been a long awaited release for the 3Dviz guru’s out there. With the release of V-ray for SketchUp (VfSU) it will now allow users to model and render more efficiently and get their desired results faster.

Up until now there really hasn’t been a great “realistic” rendering agent for SketchUp, it’s pretty much WYSIWYG in term’s of SketchUp’s rendering capabilities. And unless you just needed a quick and dirty sketch, you would typically be forced to export your model into 3D Studio MAX or the like.

Overall it’s a great implementation of V-ray and a plug-in that’s sure to gain notoriety among the 3D architectural visualization community. Currently pricing is $699 per license, but get it now because as of June 1st, 2007, the price will increase to $799. Also of note, rumor has it that network licensing is coming to V-ray in the upcoming months. More to follow…

ASGVIS has released V-Ray for Sketch-Up. This release brings users various performance enhancements, an out of the box rendering solution, and many great V-Ray features to Sketch-Up. V-Ray is a rendering plug-in that enables Sketch-Up users to take advantage of the power and speed of the Chaos Group’s V-Ray rendering solution.

With V-Ray for Sketch-Up, ASGVIS offers visualization professionals a state-of-the-art solution that generates high-quality images of unparalleled realism. “Top studios in all disciplines have relied on V-Ray for years to generate photorealistic images of outstanding quality,” says Corey Rubadue, ASGVIS Director. “With V-Ray for Sketch-Up, we’re bringing this powerful, flexible, and affordable rendering solution to Sketch-Up users, enabling them to take full advantage of all that V-Ray has to offer.”

Render Options are now easier than ever, with Default Render settings reflecting correct settings for Indirect Illumination, the V-Ray Sun, V-Ray Sky, and Sampling levels.

V-Ray offers Sketch-Up users a robust set of global illumination and ray-tracing features that enable them to bring their ideas to life quickly, easily, and cost-effectively.

FEATURES INCLUDE

• True raytraced reflections and refractions
• Glossy reflections and refractions
• Area shadows (soft shadows). Includes box and sphere emitters
• Indirect Illumination (global illumination, global lighting). Different approaches include direct computation (brute force), and irradiance maps.
• Depth-Of-Field camera effect.
• Antialiasing. Includes fixed, simple 2-level and adaptive approaches.
• Caustics
• Fully multithreaded raytracing engine
• True HDRI support. Includes support of proper texture coordinate handling for both cubic and angular maps. Map your images directly without distortions or cropping.
• Reusable irradiance maps (save and load support). Incremental sampling for fly-through animations.
• V-Ray Material Editor with Material Preview
• V-Ray Sun and Sky
• V-Ray Physical Camera
• Displacement
• Distributed Rendering allowing a single image to be process over up to 10 machines
• Per Material GI, Background, Reflection, and Refraction
• V-Ray Two-Sided Material for easy creation of thin translucency
• Animation Support

Read the Press Release

Image Courtesy of ASGvis