Autodesk Revit 2015 R2 Update!

If you are on subscription you'll want this one, guys!  Autodesk has included over 30 user-requested features that add powerful capabilities and enhance software performance and productivity.  These features will help out Architects, MEP and Structural Engineers.

In this release, Autodesk is delivering on a customer request for access to site planning tools within Revit.  The new Site Designer Extension for Revit 2015 will be available through the Autodesk Exchange store to subscription customers.  It is based on an acquisition of site planning software known as SiteWorks from Eagle Point.  This is a huge and welcome addition to Revit!!

Here's a few points about Site Designer:

• Report and schedule areas, volumes, and cut and fill volumes to better understand the impact of site design changes on requirements to move or add fill.
• Iterate conceptual designs and create more realistic visuals of the building site by incorporating grading features directly into the Revit model.
• Better communicate conceptual design ideas about the building site to engineers  who can then complete the detailed site design using professional civil engineering tools like Autodesk® AutoCAD® Civil 3D® software.
• Share the appearance of site plan designs for better communication with everyone involved in the project, including owners, architects, designers, planners and civil engineering firms.
• Share a site model between Revit and Civil 3D through Land XML files, improving collaboration between architects and engineers working on a project.
• More quickly add design elements to your site such as berms and drainage swales, minimizing the time required to mass grade a site and to try alternatives at the design development stage.
• Special terrain families within Site Designer provide you with parameters that control widths, cut and fill slopes and other projection settings.
• Locate hardscape components such as streets, intersections, sidewalks, curbs and walls that can follow the existing terrain and have controlled elevations and slopes - all while the toposurface is automatically maintained.

Here's some additional points of interest for the R2 Update!!!

• Use existing geometry in a linked IFC model as a reference for dimensions, alignment, snapping and hosting of some families in a Revit model
• The Reveal Constraints mode will allow you to trouble shoot models better making all dimensions constraints and alignment constraints in a view visible
• You can try your hand and visual programming with the open-source Dynamo interface and installs automatically with Revit.
• Better performance of the energy analytical model in Revit 2015 R2 which will use less memory.
• Faster rendering times and updates to views that contain multiple instances of families
• Faster displays of Revit links within views.
• The type editor has a search function now.
• PDFs exported from Revit have hyperlinked views.