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Autodesk 2018 AEC Design Solutions - AECbytes Newsletter
Autodesk 2018 AEC Design Solutions - AECbytes Newsletter
Autodesk 2018 AEC Design Solutions
AECbytes Newsletter #87 (April 20, 2017)
As is customary for this time of the year, Autodesk launched the next versions of the wide range
of products comprising its portfolio for the AEC, manufacturing, and M&E (media and
entertainment) industries. In this article, we look at the new features and updates that Autodesk
shared for its three main design products for buildings and infrastructure: Revit, InfraWorks, and
AutoCAD Civil 3D.
Revit 2018
Recall that starting with the 2017 release last year, Revit became a single product rather than
available in the separate disciplinary flavors of architecture, structure, and MEP. With all the
different disciplinary functionalities consolidated in a single application, the automatic upgrade to
2018—under the new subscription model that was also instituted last year—means that all Revit
users will see the updates to all the disciplines, even if they don’t use them. It also means that a
lot of attention has been paid to the core functionality of Revit, which will be relevant to all its
users irrespective of their discipline or role in the project team. Topping the list is the ability to
bring in a Navisworks file as an underlay in Revit, making it easier to collaborate with outside
teams that might not be working in Revit. Essentially, this makes it possible to bring in any file
format supported by Navisworks—from among the wide range of formats it supports including
MicroStation, IFC, CIS/2, ProEngineer, SketchUp and Rhino—and visually coordinate the
referenced model with the one being done in Revit. It can also simply be used as a visualization
tool, allowing Revit users to visualize their model in the context of the site or in conjunction with
other models (Figure 1). Since the Navisworks model is brought in as an underlay, it does not
slow down the performance of the Revit model, so this feature can be used as often as required.
Figure 1. Bringing in a Navisworks file as an underlay in Revit for coordination with a nonRevit model as well
as visualization.
Other core Revit platform improvements that have multidisciplinary relevance include the ability
to select groups or links as categories when creating a schedule to better understand and
quantify a project, as well the ability to add shared parameters to links and groups for easier
model management; the ability to transfer realworld (GIS) coordinates when linking CAD files to
Revit, improving building location accuracy; the ability to import Rhino and SAT geometry to
bring in 3D shapes created in other applications, tag and dimension them, and use them like
native Revit elements (Figure 2); and several enhancements to the text editor that was
introduced in Revit 2017, including the ability to add symbols directly in text notes, use the
complete character map available for any installed font, and greater consistency in the rendering
of text labels and text notes for a cleaner look in the documentation.
Figure 2. Imported 3D geometry can now be tagged and dimensioned like a native Revit element.
Revit 2018 also has updates to each of its disciplinary capabilities. For Architecture, the top
enhancement is a new Multistory Stair object that enables faster and easier modeling of
complex stair towers for multistory buildings. With this object, stairs are connected to the
levels in a building, so that if the level height changes, the stairs are automatically adjusted
while maintaining the required dimensions for stair treads and risers (Figure 3). The stairs are
also grouped so any change in the stairs for one level gets applied to stairs for the other levels
as well. They can also be ungrouped to make individual changes if needed. Along with stairs,
railings have also been enhanced so that railings can be added to an entire stair tower with one
click and edits made to one railing are propagated to all other instances of it. Also, railings can
now be attached to topographical elements other than stairs such as on the top of walls, sloped
floors, roofs, etc.
Figure 3. The new Multistory Stair object makes it easier to add and edit stair towers in multistory buildings
by quickly creating stairs between the building levels.
For Structure, Revit 2018 has a number of enhancements to improve the accuracy of models,
provide greater control, and enhance the workflow from structural design to detailing—for steel
as well as concrete construction. For steel structures, over a 100 new connections for detailed
steel modeling have been made available, and connections now work with userdefined families
in addition to those out of the box. Users can specify priority of elements when modeling steel
connections, with primary elements clearly indicated and differentiated from secondary
elements. Interoperability between Revit and Advance Steel has been improved. For concrete
structures, reinforcement (rebar) modeling has been improved with greater control over
placement, especially useful for complex objects, more accurate rebar scheduling, and the
ability to sketch—model and edit—rebar directly in a 3D view.
Figure 4. For the design of concrete structures, Revit 2018 provides the ability to model and edit rebar
directly in a 3D view.
On the MEP front, Revit goes back to improving the initial design and analysis capabilities rather
than focusing entirely on fabrication improvements as in the last few releases. Early stage
energy requirements for mechanical design can be specified more accurately with outdoor air
settings for userdefinable space and building types. For piping design, there is a new closed
loop hydronic analysis engine which takes into account flow and pressure in pumps, and the
analysis can happen in the background allowing the modeling work to continue without
interruption. Also, a more complete analytical model of the hydronic system is available in the
earlier design stage so the results of the analysis can be used iteratively to guide the
development of the design. Electrical design improvements include new capabilities to edit
circuit pathways to better capture more accurate voltage drop and analytical design data for
downstream analysis. In addition to better analysis and design capabilities, fabrication modeling
for MEP has been improved with the ability to create fabrication networks by simply clicking on
points in the model (Figure 5), and the option to change the shape, size, elevation, and the fitting
type of the fabricationready elements while routing. Sloped piping elements can also be
modeled more accurately with userdefinable slope settings.
Figure 5. Fabrication networks of MEP elements with multipoint routing can be modeled by clicking on points
in the model in Revit 2018.
For a more indepth look at some of the main enhancements in Revit 2018, please refer to the
What's New in Revit 2018? Tips/Tricks article by Dan Stine published in AECbytes last week.
InfraWorks and AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018
In my 2014 article, Extending BIM to Infrastructure, I took a detailed look at both of Autodesk’s
infrastructure modeling products, including AutoCAD Civil 3D, which until then had been its main
application for the design of infrastructure elements such as roads and bridges, and the new
solution, InfraWorks, that it had just launched as a conceptual urban modeling tool for creating
intelligent datarich city models that could potentially support analysis and evaluation of different
urban design criteria. Autodesk has continued to enhance both applications with every release,
in particular, InfraWorks, which started by having so many smarts for infrastructure design that it
begged the question of why Autodesk had not been able to translate this intelligent design
capability to buildings as well (see my 2015 Viewpoint article, Why Isn't There a Smarter BIM
Tool for Building Design, Yet?).
Autodesk has continued with its twopronged approach to infrastructure design, where
InfraWorks continues to be positioned as the main frontend design tool while Civil 3D is
intended to be used for the backend detailed design development and documentation of the
designs conceptualized in InfraWorks. The enhancements in the new version of InfraWorks that
Autodesk has just released fall into two broad categories: one, more highlevel smarts, and
second, more performance improvements to existing capabilities. Under the former category—
more smarts—is a new grading gizmo that makes it easier to edit roadside grading. With a
simple rightclick, you can create a new grading zone to which you can then apply a new slope
or material. Transitions between grading zones can be quickly edited to smooth out the change
in grade from one zone to the next (Figure 6). This capability helps to make the task of road
design easier and a lot less tedious than if the road engineer had to manually design the different
grading zones and the transitions between them.
Figure 6. The new grading gizmo in InfraWorks being used to add a transition between two adjacent grading
zones.
Another new feature which can be categorized as a “smart” is the feedback provided during road
design which warns you when you are making a design decision that does not comply with the
rules for road design. This feedback is provided immediately in the form of a yellow highlight to
the road geometry that is breaking the rule, as well as more information in a Tooltip about the
violation (Figure 7). The standards in question come from the organization, American
Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which develops the
leading standards in the US for transportation. While the AASHTO rules that are being applied to
road design in InfraWorks cannot be edited, it is a great example of rulebased design that
ensures that the design is compliant to begin with rather than running codechecking later to find
if there are issues with the design and fixing them.
Figure 7. When the curve of the road does not meet the AASHTO standard for road design, it is highlighted in
yellow in Infraworks to indicate a violation.
Falling under the second category—performance improvements to existing capabilities—are
features such as the automatic conversion of design roads to component roads to access and
detail their individual components; the ability to quantify more aspects of materials for a selected
road like road components, bridge materials, and drainage components; a simplified option of
displaying trees as semitransparent, so they do not obscure the model and use fewer
computing resources than realistic views; improvements in annotations including better
readability, more responsive fading and reappearing as you zoom in and out, as well as faster
responsiveness to view changes; and the ability to create custom parametric bridge components
in Inventor and import them for use in InfraWorks, where they can now be used just like any
other component (Figure 8).
Figure 8. Importing a custom bridge component from Inventor for use in InfraWorks.
Moving on to AutoCAD Civil 3D, it has several enhancements for detailed design and
documentation including automatic cleanup of corridors; new drawing templates to
accommodate the creation of plan(s)only, profile(s)only, and section sheets; a connected
alignment feature that allows you to create a new alignment that transitions smoothly between
two intersecting alignments, which can be used to create a curb return, an exit ramp, a
merging/diverging road, or connecting an existing road with a proposed road (Figure 9); creating
offset profiles; and creating feature lines relative to a surface that remain vertically linked to it. In
addition, there is now a new InfraWorks ribbon in AutoCAD Civil 3D that provides access to
InfraWorksrelated commands and allows InfraWorks to be launched directly from Civil 3D,
making it easier for the design development and documentation team to access the conceptual
designs created in InfraWorks.
Figure 9. The new ability to create a connected alignment that between two existing alignments in AutoCAD
Civil 3D.
Conclusions
The new versions of Autodesk’s building and infrastructure design tools continue their inexorable
march towards greater speed, efficiency, and functionality. Users continue to have more tools at
their disposal to create increasingly detailed models of buildings and infrastructure, for design as
well as for construction. Going forward, it would be great if Autodesk could consolidate both
design and documentation for infrastructure into one application, similar to how we have Revit for
buildings, rather than have two separate frontend and backend applications, InfraWorks and
AutoCAD Civil 3D. I would also like to see more smarts of the kind that wowed me in the earlier
versions of InfraWorks, so that the computer can do more of the work and spare us from the
tedium of modeling each and every detail of how our buildings and infrastructure should be put
together.
It’s easier to do “more with more” rather than “more with less,” but is that what the AEC industry
really wants?
About the Author
Lachmi Khemlani is founder and editor of AECbytes. She has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC
Berkeley, specializing in intelligent building modeling, and consults and writes on AEC technology.
She can be reached at lachmi@aecbytes.com.
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