Multi-Disciplinary Enhancements in Revit 2017

These enhancements can benefit all users of the Revit software, regardless of the discipline they practice.

Text Notes

The text editor has been enhanced to add text notes directly in canvas. During editing, text displays in the correct font and style. Other text editor improvements include the following:

• For quick access, new contextual text editing tools are available in the ribbon.
• All text is visible while editing.
• Text wraps, scales, and scrolls as you expect.
• You can zoom and pan while editing a text note. The zoom scale does not affect text wrapping.
• You can enter unnumbered or non-bulleted text in lists by pressing Shift+Enter. See Create a List in a Text Note.
• You can specify the text editor to display an opaque background and a border when editing a note. This option allows you to better see the text while typing over complex drawings. See Edit a Text Note.

Additional improvements for text notes

• Improved export of text to DWF, DWG, and DGN files: Enhancements improve the fidelity of character size, location, overrides, font, spacing, line spacing, numbering, tabs, indenting, and other text related properties. See Text and Fonts for DWG/DXF Export and Text and Fonts for DGN Export.

• Multilevel lists: Lists now allow the creation of hierarchies within an ordered list of paragraphs. You can modify multilevel lists by indenting and changing increments. See Create a List in a Text Note.

• Text orientation when rotating Project North: When you use the Rotate Project North tool, a new option allows you to specify whether text notes should rotate with the model or maintain their current orientation in the view. See Rotate Project North.

Text Measurement

The method for measuring text size is improved so that the Text Size parameter more accurately represents the height of a capital letter (similar to AutoCAD). These changes affect all text in upgraded models and will have a more pronounced effect on Asian fonts.

Important: After upgrade, review all views and sheets to verify the changes to your text instances. See Upgrade Information for Revit for more information.

Schedules

• Combined parameters: Combine parameters in a schedule to display the values in a single cell. You can specify a prefix, suffix, sample value, and separator to display with each parameter. For example, for structural engineers, this enhancement allows you to create columns, pulling data from multiple parameters to create the desired schedule. This feature is also beneficial for rebar when you want a specific bar mark format, which includes, for example, its partition, shape, and number. See Combine Parameters in a Schedule.
• View templates for schedules and assembly views: To simplify the reuse of schedules, create a schedule view template. Schedule view templates include parameters for Fields, Filter, Sorting/Grouping, Formatting, Appearance, and Phase Filter. If the model contains RVT links or design options, Visibility/Graphics Overrides parameters are also available. In addition to schedules, you can apply view templates to assembly views, supporting authoring for prefabrication. If you need to change the layout of schedules, just edit the template; all dependent schedules are automatically updated. See About Schedule View Templates and Create Assembly Views and Sheets.
• Schedule properties: The Schedule Properties dialog has been improved to facilitate schedule creation and modification. See Workflow: Select Fields for a Schedule.
• Calculate options for columns: You can now display minimum values, maximum values, or both minimum and maximum values for calculations in columns. See About Schedule Formatting

User Interface and Workflow Enhancements

• Family Types dialog enhancements: To facilitate creating and editing family type parameters, the Family Types dialog includes a new search function, and its tools are reorganized. See Family Types Dialog.
• Tangency locks: When sketching in the Family Editor, you can now place tangency locks to model lines, symbolic lines, reference lines, or sketch lines. This enhancement eliminates the prior need for complicated formulas and parametric associations to drive tangential relationships. See Modify Sketched Elements.
• Pinned tags: Annotation tags now obey pin restrictions. When you reposition an element, a pinned tag remains in place while its leader adjusts to accommodate the new position of the element. A pinned tag does not relocate when the leader is turned on and off when set to Free end. Additionally, the leader of a pinned tag does not change its shape when you switch from Free end to Attached end. See Tags.
• Calculated values in annotation tags: You can now define a calculated value within the tag label of an element. See Build a Label.
• Subcategories for reference planes: You can now add a subcategory to a reference plane to control visibility and graphics settings. You can assign different line weights, line colors and line patterns to different subcategories. After reference plane subcategories are added in Object Styles, they will appear in the Visibility/Graphic Overrides for every View, allowing you to turn on/off their visibility accordingly. If a subcategory does not exist in a project (but it is in a family), that subcategory will automatically be created when the family is first loaded into the project. See Create Object Style Subcategories.
• Reference plane category for filters: When defining a view filter, you can now select a reference plan from the list of categories. Create a Category-Based Filter.
• View Range dialog: When a plan view is open, you can now type VR on the keyboard to open the View Range dialog. If you have a plan region drawn in the plan view and select it, when you type VR, the View Range dialog is specific to the plan region. See Modify the View Range.
• Keynote legends: When a keynote legend is set to By Sheet, Revit takes into account whether a keynote is visible in the view. Keynotes that are outside the settings for the view range, depth clipping/far clipping, or design option for the views on the sheet no longer display. If an element was keynoted and then moved outside the view range, the keynote legend stills display the keynote. See Upgrade Information for Revit.
• IFC Export: The Export to IFC function now offers a flexible set of options to configure the export. Use a built-in setup or customize a setup as desired. See Export a Project to IFC and IFC Export Setup Options.
• Revit.ini setting for CaBaGGe: A new setting in Revit.ini allows you to control the CaBaGGe framework, which improves the performance of Revit when navigating views. See Misc Settings in Revit.ini.
• Manage Links dialog: For worksharing-enabled models, when you are working in a local file, you can see improvements to the Revit tab of the Manage Links dialog. Buttons are grouped in an Unload section of the dialog to allow you to unload the Revit link for all users, to unload the link for the current user, or to clear the unload override. See Tools to Manage Links.
• Global Parameters: Global parameters now offer the following enhancements:
  • You can associate global parameters with a type property for an element and with instance or type project parameters. See Assign a Global Parameter.
  • You can assign a global parameter to a group for better organization. You can also move and sort global parameters within their assigned groups. See Create Global Parameters.
  • Filter a schedule by global parameter association to find all elements that have a global parameter association or are missing an association. See Filter a Schedule by Global Parameter Association.
  • To better understand how and where global parameters are used in a model, select the "Show Label in View" option. See Label a Dimension with a Global Parameter.
  • You can transfer global parameters between projects. See Transfer Project Standards.
• Dynamo: Dynamo, a graphical programming interface that lets you customize your building information workflow, is now available as part of the Revit installation. The Dynamo tool is available on the Manage tab.
• Collaboration for Revit:
  • Collaboration for Revit is now installed with the Revit software. See About Collaboration for Revit for information on how to subscribe to this service.
  • When Collaboration for Revit is installed with Revit, the Worksets command is disabled for a non-workshared model. Use the Collaborate command to enable worksets. See Get Project Models into A360 Collaboration for Revit.
  • To see a list of what's new, see New in A360 Collaboration for Revit.