New Product Releases

I have had the opportunity to preview the Release Candidate version of all three Revit flavors. There are some really great enhancements to the 2008 products.

Rendering
There have been major renovations to Rendering in Revit. For starters, the entire interface has changed dramatically. All materials that ship with Revit have been assigned new render appearances. Material definitions are stored as part of the project file. Render appearances are stored in a local, read-only library. Lighting fixtures are now photometric and can be described by IES files.

Exporting to 3ds
When you export a 3D view to Autodesk 3ds Max (Name change coming shortly) to use its higher-level rendering capabilities, Revit Architecture 2009 passes rendering settings to 3ds Max. The information includes render appearances (material assignments), lights, and related settings defined in the project. By preserving this information during the export process, Revit Architecture 2009 maintains a high degree of fidelity and reduces the amount of work you must perform in 3ds Max.

Modeling
Now, you can explicitly disallow a join to a mid-end wall using the new join icons that appear above the end of the wall. You can slope building pads using the Slope Arrow command on the Design Bar, if, for example, you want to add drainage for your building. The new beam cutback tools apply beam join types and priority. You can use these tools to adjust visible cutback to beams in an end join relationship. You can modify the split lines that Revit Architecture creates in the slab when it is warped.

Dimensions
You will now be able to override the text value.

Rooms
In Revit Architecture 2009, you can now select rooms in section view. You can also use grips to adjust the upper and lower boundaries of rooms.