Step into the not so wayback machine, somewhere late in the 2007 development cycle (2006), a new process came into being in the Factory. During the early years the fast pace of development was successful at rapidly expanding Revit's capabilities but there were some side effects. Some features were reduced in scope at the end of the release to ensure quality and delivery. This might leave out a less common use case or forgo a more comprehensive integration with other areas of the product. Issues identified in Beta or post release would have to fight against new features for attention in the subsequent release. Many lost this fight. It bothered many.
This was partially unavoidable. New concepts were being introduced that were challenging to design and implement. Resources were finite. Allowing for more time or more detailed estimates would have slowed the pace and might not have fully mitigated the symptoms. These are common issues in industry, not just start up companies. In the building industry it gets the name "value engineering" yet that may reflect the point of view of the owner more than the architect.
A new process was needed to address these items and ensure they stopped accumulating. This was first called "Small Enhancements" and more recently F^3 (Fix, Fit & Finish).
The process allows any factory worker to nominate a project. Sources include customer support, blogs, forums and general customer contact. From this uber list the project managers create smaller prioritized lists. Employees can address an issue from these smaller lists opportunistically in ad hock teams. The main restriction is a threshold of time for design and implementation.
The process is designed to be flexible and infill around the larger projects.
Here are some past examples:
- Counts in the Filter dialog
- Gaps in Grids
- Close Loop Snap
- Custom Scales
- Dimension to Intersections
- Currency Symbols
- Digit Formatting
- Recent file Start Page
- More granular view template application
- Spot Slope
Some from R2010:
- Default Workset open setting
- Save before and after Sync to Central
- Open as local
- Halftone/Underlay Settings
- Elevations, Sections and Callouts in view Filters
There are many others but I wanted to convey the range and diversity. In some future posts I am considering using this blog to discuss research around potential projects. This could confirm requirements or comment on potential designs.
How does this sound? The only qualifications:
- Anything discussed is not a guarantee it will appear in the next release
- Anything discussed does not mean it is the sole focus of the Factory
I thinks that it. Stay tuned and feel free to comment on any of the above projects. Good/bad? More please. New suggestions. Fire away.
_erik
Hi Erik,
Firstly, congrats to yourself & others at AD for engaging in the conversation with your users about these matters in an open forum such as this blog.
Given that the vast majority of my work is in residential construction. My single big ticket item for improved functionality is an improved or new split tool which will work on roofs and floors. (Even better if it can function well with phases and phase filters :-) )
There are of course all of the other long standing wish list items - improved site tools - text - etc etc.
Notwithstanding whether the split tool gets up or not, I would be exceedingly happy if a few of those long standing wish list items caught the eye of the programmers.
Cheers
Ian
Posted by: Ian Kidston | June 04, 2009 at 04:17 PM
Thanks again Erik. Sure you want to open this can of worms?
My suggestions: AUGI Wishlist Forums. While not a perfect system, it addresses many items that we've all wanted to be considered at some point and time.
My preference:
**Stair and Railing Tools Improvement (not really in the minor improvements F^3 category)**:
Seems to be a left behind tool. The scissor stair is probably the most used stair, and yet we can't model it accurately (no overlaping lines, railings can't join from one floor landing to the next).
Too much redrafting after the fact. The tools work great for schematic design. After that we forget it's there.
**Keynote Tool Improvement (F^3 all the way)**:
Such an immensely functional tool and productivity booster that virtually eliminates spec. and construction document conflicts, yet in practice is a dinosaur. I would love it if the keynotes had the same characteristics (justification, alignment) as a text note, so there is no visible difference between the two. Using the current keynotes forces us into a number-only noting system, which isn't practical for some of us.
**Wall Rating display**:
Ability to control the display of rated walls by using a single line (on centerline of wall) to convey the rating.
**"Select All Instances in current view only"**:
Speaks for itself.
**No more "Line is slightly off axis" error messages**:
These can accumulate quite a bit and it is not feasible to go and fix the errors, especially if you are using civil drawings. I'm assuming the error is just a message for us, not something that is going to harm the project file. We don't care if it is slightly off axis. This would alleviate some of the constantly referenced warning lists that contribute to memory slow downs.
**More control over section tag/elevation tag graphics**
**Linetypes with squared off edges, rather than rounded**
**Allow text and symbols in linetypes**:
So we can match National Cad Standards if we so choose.
**Bi-Directional Associativity of Callouts and their parent views that includes any drafting elements**:
Maybe create a new callout option that is similar to a dependent view but you can change the scale.
**View reference field that can be included in text notes (like AutoCAD).**
**2010 Type Selector improvements**
-Previews on model components are reversed from the default. Which are we going with?
-Why no previews on detail components?
**Open up commands for all contextual tabs in the keyboard shortcuts**:
-It would be nice if we could type a shortcut command for all sketch mode elements that when selected, we'd type the command to take us to that element's respective sketch mode.
-Why do the reference lines in the family editor have the ability to use a shortcut command (to get us directly to circle/rectangle/line/pick...), but yet there isn't a way to get us directly to model or detail line geometry. For example, I would like to type: DDCI (circle) or DDRE (rectangle) and be taken directly to that line generation. If it is available for reference lines, it should be available for other lines (sketch mode too).
AAHH!! That's enough for now.
Posted by: Donnie | June 04, 2009 at 05:42 PM
I stopped keeping a list of these things a while ago since nothing was being done back then, just check out some of the date stamps on some of the links below.
For me it's now a matter of working away and then hitting one of them and thinking, "ah yes, I wish it didn't do that", grumble a little and then move on.
Donnie has a good starting list above. Two in particular that I like are;
**Allow text and symbols in linetypes**
Been waiting for this one for the past 5 years.
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=3566
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=53566
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=80807
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=68723
and
**No more "Line is slightly off axis" error messages**
This one while I wouldn't want to see it removed completely, I would like to see a 'Dismiss' button in the Review Warnings.
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=91455
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=19224
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=43454
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=62334
Another one that sh!ts me is the "Line is too short" warning. That has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in a CAD program!
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=902
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=88899
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=54710
But, users shouldn't be needing to repeat themselves here. Rather than using this blog, you need to check out the AUGI wishlist forums. There are a lot of "Small Enhancements" discussed there that are just begging to be read by Autodesk.
The unofficial word on the street is that Autodesk staff (except a few) don't read the AUGI forum. Maybe that needs to change to compulsory reading.
Also, a blog such as this isn't the best way to collect data via discussion. You should be using a threaded forum so that different ideas on a subject can be easily followed and Autodesk can ask more accurate questions.
Posted by: Chad | June 04, 2009 at 06:52 PM
Please oh pleeeeease provide text formating. Please issue in the form of an interm service pack/update.
Posted by: Josh | June 04, 2009 at 07:53 PM
Fix ASAP
Elevations, Sections and Callouts in view Filters
They don't update their Reference once on the Sheet.
This makes it useless for us....And it would be so useful...Would make me even stop grumbling about the UI for a day..
Posted by: mruehr | June 04, 2009 at 09:05 PM
Here's a recent one from the 2009 release that I'm afraid will be left by the wayside:
External rendering material library, i.e. the ability to save a rendering material outside of the project so it can easily be used again, or shared amongst users.
Posted by: muttlieb | June 04, 2009 at 09:14 PM
"The process allows any factory worker to nominate a project. Sources include customer support, blogs, forums and general customer contact. From this uber list the project managers create smaller prioritized lists. . . The main restriction is a threshold of time for design and implementation."
I would rather the threshold of time for design and implementation be given entirely to wish list items from the past four years, before any further "progress" is made with the UI.
Really efficient text tools, stair tools, and railing tools would do much toward getting Revit back on track. Of course, I just picked my favorites. Progress on any wish list item would be appreciated.
Posted by: Bill | June 04, 2009 at 10:07 PM
Yes its a can of worms but I know these items are valued. I also know they are listed everywhere so I don't really plan to collect a great deal more but instead validate requirements or solicit examples. Often when approaching these there is more to them then first meets the eye. Others are straight forward.
RE: The wishlist forums. Some of you may know Trey from the beta forum. He did a great job of correlating all the wish list items from the past years and weighting them against the number of votes they received. It gives a good overview.
Posted by: Tom Vollaro | June 04, 2009 at 10:30 PM
I'm going to focus on things that were or were not ;) present in Beta tools then were removed and have not been put back into place.
Firstly to above DONT get rid of line is off axis, this can cause big issues with walls and dimensions and collaboration (maybe a dismiss or a "Yes I want it to be off axis" command might be accetable but still being able to find this) and I would even go so far as to recommend a warning for "wall length is not consistent" that allows users to see when wall lengths are 1000.00067 when they should not be.
Also a autofix option would be nice to straighten these walls out from either centre or internal or external sides.
On top of that I would love to see the tagging linked files options. Allow us to annotate linked files would solve alot of hassles and also to include a "open link inplace" option to allow users to edit linked files in the current project.
Revit Structure Graphical Column schedules, this requires a couple of very simple fixes in order to make it productive and useful. Allowing the columns to be marked by any other property then Location would be great. Changing to positions of the columns and sorting them in schedule and allowing full access to the annotation tools would go a very long way in making these useful and productive.
Convert line to Arc and vice versa in conceptual massing tools. This is an absolute must in order to maintain reference lines that can be quickly changed and the form to be rebuilt.
Not all the wishlist items are useful to everyone in fact some are very much not worth it but were added because they don't repeat constant wishes each cycle.
I would recommend you guys put a wishlist together from your experiences that we can vote on (obviously whether it happens or not comes through and may not even release the results) but that will give you can indication of which items are most valued. This should be broken down also (housing, large project, Interiors....)
Revit Structure and MEP should also be given a share as the wishlist has been catered to Architecture for Augi and I know there are avenues in which users can specify wishlist items but having wishlists for all 3 would be nice.
Cable Trays and conduits for MEP, I mean the options are there in Inventor for the AEC transfer therefore this hopefully is in the works as the adsk has no other purpose at this stage. Oval ducts.
Like everyone else I could ramble for hours but it's about solving issues for the majority then providing the fixes that solve a minorities issue.
Posted by: Adam | June 04, 2009 at 11:39 PM
Sorry just to add to my last comment.
Halftone underlay override is a start but I certainly hope more effort is put in to incorporate a full Visibility Graphic Override for underlays.
Doubling up on views to display unders correctly while works does take more time and having these options would open up so much.
Also having the option to modify detail levels in filters, would solve a number of wall and MEP services issues.
Posted by: Adam | June 04, 2009 at 11:43 PM
In schedule filters, can we have OR as well as AND please?
In schedule filters can we filter by Family and Type please?
In schedule keys, can we use Shared Parameters please?
Posted by: x-p | June 05, 2009 at 07:10 AM
In schedules for Architecture can we have Conditional Formatting?
http://do-u-revit.blogspot.com/2009/04/conditional-formatting.html
Posted by: Chad Smith | June 05, 2009 at 07:36 AM
Most importantly to us is allowing text formulas for parameters in families and schedules. I could build our whole Bill of Material system right into revit if I had this capability.
Adam Said: "I would recommend you guys put a wishlist together from your experiences that we can vote on..."
I second that recommendation.
And expanding on x-p's filter suggestions... let more than 4 entries in sorting/grouping. I hit this limitation many times with some things I've been trying. If the text formulas get done, I could get around this limitation.
Posted by: DoTheBIM | June 05, 2009 at 08:44 AM
As it seems here, you probably have quite a few listed already. Any chance you can do a SurveyMonkey and list ALL of the ones you have to date and let us pick our top 10? (then publish the results?)
it would help us not repeat ourselves and prioritize.
Posted by: eddy | June 05, 2009 at 08:50 AM
Within schedules, it would be very nice to be able to include room information for any geometrical object. IE, I can do Room Name for things like furniture or casework, but it would be nice for floors or walls, also Wall Height.
-R
Posted by: Robert | June 05, 2009 at 09:59 AM
Like others, I stopped keeping my own wishlist some time ago, but here are a few that constantly bug us:
* Interacting with grips ought to allow use of snaps for target points, as well as entering distance. Click-and-drag seems to prevent this.
* Phases seem like a bit of an afterthought; I'd like to be able to override the phase graphics overrides in Visibility Graphics; the one-size fits all display choices for phased objects seems to be against Revits otherwise very flexible view controls. Likewise, allow filtering by phase in schedules would be handy, as would the ability to set current phase for placing objects. Needing to switch to particular views to do that is clumsy. A pull-down that works like that for worksets would be great, though I understand that there is some inconsistency in exposing or allowing a temporary override of a view parameter like that.
* Dump the keynote file; have the keynote definitions be in a schedule within Revit. A copy of it ends up within Revit anyway...having direct access to it would ease some of the usage issues.
* Text formatting and controls; I never thought there would be an app with worse text tools than Autocad, but here we are. There are a ton of little project possibilities.
* Project browser improvements; ability to save states; apply color coding; there's a ton of info that needs some help to access / manage more efficiently.
* I think that 3d details are the way of the future; they communicate so much more, and are easy to do with Revit. But since I can't tag or keynote objects in a 3d view, I have to recreate most of my annotation. If there were a parameter that locked a 3d view's extents, then annotations could be linked to model elements with some reliability. If that parameter were unchecked, then linked annotations would get orphaned or maybe need to be recreated. I think there's a lot of opportunity for making much better documentation here.
* All views ought to have a view template parameter, so that when a template is updated, views assigned to that template also get updated.
* Visibility Graphics need to have access to view boundary. In interior elevations,this would make creating the fat boundary of the elevation a snap.
I didn't really mean to post so many, but when we get started... I'm sure you've noticed, the users really care about the product, and are very anxious for improvements.
A side note: I don't think it's ok to defer interface work in favor of tackling every wishlist item. If I have to use the 2010 interface as is for the next few years, I will migrate away from Revit, no question. I could use the 2009 interface for that duration, but as Revit stands right now, it desperately needs major interface work as soon as possible.
Posted by: Joel Osburn | June 05, 2009 at 10:55 AM
I have another FFF project suggestion. Some approach to resolving the issue of view references properly dealing with views that are set up as parent/child views. We have section and elevation tags that reference back to the referencing view (plan). When the plans are set up as dependent views this back reference does not work correctly all the time.
Posted by: Robert | June 05, 2009 at 03:55 PM
Ok. Could 2011 be full of lots of well thought out "small features" then?
Incorporating the top ten wish list items in 2011 will make people forget the lack of new useful functionality in 2010.
Posted by: Andrew Dobson | June 06, 2009 at 07:38 AM
Just to add to my last comment - which wasn't meant to sound negative - could the Factory have a priority of "How useful will this be to the majority of Revit users?" next to each item?
For example:
Fix Printing on Quad Core PCs - Bug preventing users using the software at all, critical pririty.
Improved Text Tools - Will be used by all users therefore very high priority.
Site Tools - Will be used by many users therefore high priority.
Ability to scale an entire family up or down at once - Really needed by me, but maybe less so than other users!
Posted by: Andrew Dobson | June 07, 2009 at 07:28 AM
I'm a Revit Structure user and I actually keep a list as I go. I try to stick to things I think are actually realistic and will remove things from this list as either my knowledge improves or Revit is updated. I may also be repeating stuff already here, so apologies if thats the case
This is my penny's worth:
Interface
• Ability to Double or right click an linked xref to launch Autocad for editing
• Zoom Extents function on middle button double click (As Autocad)
• Print by Window Selection function
Modelling
• Extend ‘Common Edges‘ available for Walls & Slabs to Structural Columns and Framing etc to allow better clean up of different types of material (ie concrete)
• Boolean switch to control whether a void cuts a solid or not in Component Families
• 'Hidden levels' function for views (like the one in 'Graphical Column Schedules')
• Add bullet points to notes
• 'Title on Sheet' function for Schedules, as can be done with views
• Ability to change Elevation marker text to transparent. (or generally more control over Elevation Marker appearance)
• Reference Level in an element's instance properties could show the actual level figure as well the name. I know this is achievable through the API, but it would be a good addition out of the box.
Model Management
• Ability to purge unused materials
• Extend 'Transfer Project Standards' to be able to select specific items in each category to transfer (currently all or none)
Hope this helps.
Posted by: Darren Snook | June 09, 2009 at 08:05 AM
...Oh, and the ability to tag slab edges
Posted by: Darren Snook | June 09, 2009 at 08:06 AM
Double click anything would be a real time saver. Right now there is no double click events. double left, middle, right... depending on selections/actions/tasks would be a great addition. For instance Darren wants double middle to zoom extents. I'd like double left click to go to element properties of selected element. if double left click on white space with nothing selected. I'd like to see view properties. and maybe double right click white space goes to view overrides. I'm sure there's a multitude of other things that can happen with a double click, saving much clicking and mouse moving time. and even render that left hand less useful for shortcut keys. ;D To take it a bit further, it'd be nice to configure any click combination anyway you want. For instance we could even simultaneous left/right click for something to happen depending on selections/actions/tasks at hand.
Posted by: DoTheBIM | June 09, 2009 at 11:53 AM
This has come up before and is a good idea. 'Edit Sketch' or 'Edit Family' have been suggested as candidates. The Enter Key is another key that goes largely unused.
Posted by: Tom Vollaro | June 09, 2009 at 01:56 PM
One really quick change (I hate it when people say that, but this one really is easy) that would save us mucho time would be to change the Link default from Center-to-Center to Origin-to-Origin. All it takes is for someone to not pay attention, and link in C-to-C. A week or so later, it gets noticed, and its HOURS to correct. We NEVER use C-to-C.
Posted by: DaveP | June 09, 2009 at 02:20 PM
When I am copying an item by selecting it then pressing the CTRL key, I have to press the CTRL key before I begin to move the item otherwise it does not copy. I would like to be able to press the CTRL key while I am moving the item. This would make the feature behave like AutoCAD and most other applications that I use.
Posted by: JoeF | June 10, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Please see the AUGI Wish-Lists.
http://www.augi.com/revit/default.asp?page=1607
If there was one thing from there that would qualify for an F^3 it would be Schedule Filter improvements. Most notably, allow the OR option in filters. Currently AND in the only option.
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=88894&highlight=filters+schedule
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=67709&highlight=filters+schedule
The OR option would be huge, but it can go a lot farther than that. If there was an option to build a complex conditional statement like and SQL statement to use as a filter, it would give us access to actually use Revit Schedules for BIM. With the current limitations in can take dozens of separate schedules, and some manual adding to get at the information that is desired, or 3D party software.
Posted by: Bret Thompson | June 11, 2009 at 09:30 AM
Here is an F^3 to one of this years F^3's. With the new feature to automatically create a local file, when opening a central file. Many companies (including ours), require the word "Central" in the file names of all Central files. Since Revit has never distinguished a central file from a regular file. It would be nice if this word "Central" could be automatically removed when Revit is automatically creating a local file.
Posted by: Bret Thompson | June 12, 2009 at 03:21 PM