What's Really New in Revit 9.1

First off, I would like to say, after reviewing this release, GREAT JOB and THANK YOU to the development team. They have listened to us, the users, and fixed some of the persistent issues that have been coming up.

I would categorize the enhancements into two areas:

Talking to other programs
Autodesk has purchased FM Desktop which will allow Revit and AutoCAD to mesh into the Facilities management arena. Great idea. They have also acquired Robobat, a leading engineering calculations software. Great idea. What this means is a more disciplines working based on the Revit model. So this is where the development team has to integrate existing functions into all of the other necessary programs.

Adding common wishlist items
As we all know, details are critical. We make suggestions and the Revit team is listening. Is their reaction time fast enough? We have to balance our reaction to this. No, we don't want them to be complacent but at the same time we need to be realistic. They did fix some of my wishlist items but the major test will be what release 10 fixes and adds.

Here we go...

Selecting units for DWG export (Talking to other programs)(Adding common wishlist items)

You can set the DWG units for projects you export to DWG format. Unit options are feet, inches, meters, centimeters, and millimeters. The default units are inches for imperial projects and meters for metric projects.

Exporting room and area properties to 2D DWF (Talking to other programs)

When you export a project or a view that has rooms or areas to 2D DWF, you can have the room/area properties exported on a separate layer than the geometric representation. Setting this option allows you to view individual rooms and room data when you are exporting a project or a view for use with facility management software (such as Autodesk® FMDesktop), or DWF markup software (such as Autodesk® Design Review).

Specifying the building type and zip code for exported gbXML files (Talking to other programs)(Adding common wishlist items)

You can now specify the building type and zip code for projects that export to gbXML. Several analysis software packages use this information when importing gbXML files to add default design values for energy use and costs, thermal loads, and construction.

Hiding elevation tags(Adding common wishlist items)

You can set the view scale at which elevation tags are hidden in project views. Each elevation tag instance can have a different view scale at which it is hidden.

Improved snapping for section views(Adding common wishlist items)

You can now snap a section line either parallel or perpendicular to a non-orthogonal datum or wall. Snapping to a wall is available in plan views.

Set room bounding condition for columns prior to placement(Adding common wishlist items)(Talking to other programs, especially Revit Structure)

You can now specify whether an architectural column is room bounding before placing it. This setting persists until you change it.

Placing windows and doors on in-place walls in plan view(Adding common wishlist items)

In plan view, you can now place windows and doors on in-place and face-based walls, for example a sloped wall.

Moving end-joined components(Adding common wishlist items)

Components that share a common end join can be moved simultaneously without breaking the join by using a new drag control, or by selecting an option on the context menu. This functionality is available for walls, lines, beams, braces, and line-based families.

New area property for filled region(Adding common wishlist items)

To quickly determine area you can now use the filled region tool and view the new area property.

You view the area property for a filled region in its Element Properties dialog. The area value is the area of the region's closed perimeter loop less the area of any closed loops within the perimeter. The area property is reported in the project units (for example, square meters or square feet). The area property is read-only and cannot be scheduled or tagged.

The following topics could be grouped under (Talking to other programs, especially Revit Structure) (Adding common wishlist items)

Using the Trim/Extend tool with beams and braces

You can now use the Trim/Extend tool (trim/extend to corner and trim/extend single element options) to trim or extend braces and beams.

Moving braces out of their originating plane

You can now copy, move, mirror, array, and rotate braces out of the vertical plane they were created in. You can accomplish this in plan and 3D views.

Non-planar beam systems

You can create non-planar beam systems in which the elevation of a beam is defined by its sketch lines. Sketched beam lines:

New option for the Layout Rule instance parameter

Concrete drawing improvements

Concrete beams that are in the same plane and are joined to the same concrete column (where the beams are wider than the column) automatically clean up.

Automatic concrete joins

Beam Direction Edge tool renamed

New options for sketching beam directions

Different display options for hidden, non-rectangular concrete beams

Independent visibility control for revision clouds and revision tags