Call us now +1 713 429 1909

What's New in Revit 2021

First of all, kudos to Autodesk to keep up the development and release of Revit amidst this worldwide pandemic – it couldn't have been easy. Maintaining a sense of normality in these troubled times is crucial. However, in spite of all the roadblock, Autodesk has recently rolled out the all-new Revit 2021, and oh boy is it a wonder!

Today, we will take a brief look at the new features and upgrades in Revit 2021, covering platform, architecture, MEP, and structure.

Link PDF Files and Raster Images: Previously, you had to reload if either changed. But now one will update automatically if the other is updated, when you use the new "Link PDF" feature. This is handy when you are producing documents.

Geometric Void Cuts: Void elements now have a new parameter called "Cuts Geometry", which is useful when the void is cutting into a geometry of the same family.

View Filter Toggle: It is now much easier and non-destructive to turn view filters on or off. Now when you decide to not see a particular view with filters, that will still retain its visibility, line styles, transparency etc. For later use.

Better Tags: When you instruct tags to rotate with components, they will now behave properly from now on. No more gritting your teeth and manually update the naughty tags!

Better Stripped Rows: Now stripped rows are seen on screen in the schedules, and they can also be printed. Yay!

US Survey Feet: Now the unit "US Survey Feet" have been added to the list of units. Though it doesn't make too much of a difference in case of small project, many large or government projects may use this unit only.

New Infrastructure Category: With better integration to Autodesk Infraworks, Revit 2021 now includes better support for bridge type projects with the new Infrastructure category. The documentation support for such projects is improved as well.

Personalized Interface: Revit is a huge software with seemingly infinite capabilities, and most of the time you wouldn't be using many of the toolbar buttons and features for a given type of project. But you still had to suffer their presence. In order to fix this, Revit 2021 now lets the user choose from a group of personas, each tailor-made to customize the interface that you actually need. Everything else is kept out of your path.

Less heavy Installation: Now the installation of the software has become simpler and faster in Revit 2021, due to the fact that Autodesk no longer pushes you to download their content.

In most cases, you wouldn't need them – your firm would already have some custom-made for the kind of work they do. However, if you do need them, you can still get them later via the "Get Autodesk Content" feature.

Enhanced BIM360 Home Page: Now you have better functionality on the home page of BIM 360, including a search function and a link to their portal.

Better BIM360 Servers: Autodesk has added more BIM360 servers in many locations of the world, which will help users all around the world maintain better connectivity. Europe, especially, will be benefited.

Dynamo 2.5: The Dynamo has gotten a plethora of upgrades ranging from new nodes, dependency tracking, new core and more!

Add-ins left behind: The following add-ins are no longer used by Revit 2021: "Model Review" and "Site Designer". Take care to tread around these.

Slanted Walls: One of our favorite new features in Revit 2021, the "Slanted Walls" procedure now lets you build walls at an incline to the vertical with ease and fun. We discuss that in detail in this article.

Better rendering engine: While not exactly Enscape-grade, Revit 2021 still delivers much better visual quality and performance than previous versions by a large margin.

Path of Travel: The Dynamo player now has some more scripts dealing with Path of Travel workflow now; this would come pretty handy.

Generative Design: Autodesk has integrated its first GD toolset directly within Revit. We will need a whole other article to explore this, have patience.

Studies and Outcomes: Now you have access to two new useful explorative functions to play around - "Create Study" and "Explore Outcomes" with the support of pre-built and custom studies.

Easier Insight: The lighting Analysis tool, Insight, is still a separate application, but you can now get it directly from the Desktop app, instead of mucking around in their site.

The above points are, by no means, a complete list of new features and upgrades in Revit 2021. But we have covered the most noticeable points here. Hope it helps you decide!

What's New in Revit 2021