These are a few of the feature I have either asked for, or voted on in this forum.
DETAILS OF DETAILS
This is the king of all gripes in our office, and viewing this feature in Revit just about caused some of my cohorts to wet themselves. In Revit you can do
, and a change in any one of those levels is propagated throughout the others because they are all 'live'. WALL COMPOSITES
You can use the display options to turn off selected layers of a composite, leaving only the portion that you need on your drawing. For example, you can turn off all skins except the stud for your floor plans.
PLOTTING
When you plot a drawing set, it is sorted alpha-numerically by name. PlotMaker just spews them out in any order it wants to.
INDEPENDENT ATTRIBUTE CHANGES
If you want to see an element on the first floor as a solid line, and in a detail as a hidden line, you just change the linetype of the element while you are in the detail. You can even tell individual lines not to show up at all. In AC9, this option must either be part of a tool's programming, or programmed into the GDL. More often that not, I find that this ability doesn't exist in the element I'm working on.
STAIRS
Although a section through one of Revit's stairs isn't a lot better that AC9, just getting the stair in place and configured correctly was much easier than using the StairMaker in AC9.
The following are features I liked, but never thought about in AC9:
2D ANNOTATION
In details and sections, you can lock 2D annotation and linework to the 3D objects. If the object moves, the annotation also moves.
SECTIONS/DETAILS
The section and detail numbers and sheets are always shown because sheets are built in the same file as the model.
WORKING AS A TEAM
You can temporarily give permission to another drafter to modify any element you want. You don't have redefine your workspace to give up an entire layer. You can just give
SHEET CREATION
Sheets are created in the same file as the model, so the schedules, the section and detail markers, and other numbered objects are always instantly updated -- no need for an Update command.
CUSTOMIZATION
I didn't get to ask about customization, but one thing I noticed was that the creation of dynamic 'family' objects seemed much easier for non-programmers. In AC9 you can save 3D objects to a GDL, but if you want to make that GDL have any options you need to learn to program. In Revit, it looked like it was a matter of opening the family in a special editor, then dragging and dropping command icons onto dimensions or shapes. He changed a simple square table with four chairs into a dynamic rectangular table that can calculate how many chairs to put in. The whole process took about ten clicks and he typed in a couple of numbers. For the novice user, the ease of editing is a tremendous feature.
What I really would like to see is a collection of Revit users watching a demo of AC9 and throwing out all their complaints about Revit. I tend to believe there are just as many weak spots in Revit as there are in ArchiCAD.
Still looking?
