A new release of Revit is out and ready to be played with. I liken the release of a new version of Revit to the release of a new movie. It's fun to experience and pick out the minutiae, but rarely does it actually change your world.
Many of the features of R2017 will improve the workflow of designers and builders, some subtly, a very few potentially drastically. There are lots of articles that go in depth on all the changes, this isn't one of them. Here I'm just highlighting four changes that might be of particular use or value to owners (or what might create problems or confusion).
New Text Editor - This sounds like no big deal on the surface, but people have been demanding it for so long, I think many of us are still in shock that it finally happened. Even moreso that it appears to be pretty darn good so far (not unlike the Deadpool movie, though with far less cussing). As a designer, I'm thrilled about this addition.
As an owner, I'm slightly wary. Text gets overused and abused by many a designer, it's one of my biggest pet peeves. I'm a little concerned at how much additional misuse might result with a better tool. We'll see what happens.
MEP Duplicate Marks - No more automatic Mark numbering for Cable Trays, Cable Tray Fittings, Conduits, Conduit Fittings, Ducts, Duct Fittings, Duct Placeholders, Duct Insulations, Duct Linings, Flex Ducts, Flex Pipes, Pipes, Pipe Fittings, Pipe Placeholders, Pipe Insulations, and Wires! We typically wait nine months before recommending an upgrade to the new version of Revit for our consultants, but this feature alone may accelerate that timetable.
What this means is that in the past Revit assigned Mark values that had to be unique to things like Wires. The problem is that when you have multiple people in a model, Revit doesn't always do a good job of keeping those values unique, so it would create Warnings and Errors that needed cleanup, a common point of contention with consultants since the problem was clearly not their fault. This is particularly ridiculous since things like Wires rarely make sense to number in a Revit environment. Autodesk listened and did away with the auto-numbering. And there was much rejoicing.
Global Parameters - This feature was in 2016 R2, but it's not one I've seen anyone take advantage of as of yet. It allows a user to set a Global Parameter and apply it to a number of places. The best example I have seen is setting a corridor width, set the GP to your width, then apply it to the dimension of any corridor. Then you can change the value universally, say changing all corridors from a 5'-6" width to 6'-0".
Honestly, I'm not convinced we'll see a lot of use of this tool outside of power users, and as an owner, I'm not seeing a lot of value, but as an owner, any time I see a new way to control or manipulate parameter values, it catches my attention.
Combine Parameters - Revit calls it Combine Parameters, and it is probably intended to look like it fills the Concatenate gap. This might be the biggest feature miss for Revit 2017, the lack of concatenate in schedules has been a huge omission and Autodesk tries to address it here. Unfortunately, this tool goes only halfway. Combine only combines values in a single schedule, that value doesn't carry over anywhere else, it doesn't create a new parametric value and it doesn't work as part of a formula.
For instance, let's say an owner identifies a room based on multiple parameters, Building, Wing, and Room #. There's value in having those broken out separately, so they set a parameter for each. However, the Built in Room: Number value still has to be set. With a true Concatenate feature, Building 'A', Wing '3', Room # '2102' can easily be combined, automatically, into something like 'A-3-2102'. The Combine Parameters tool let's you show that in a single schedule, but doesn't allow you to apply it to the Room: Number value. There is still value to this tool, but it misses the primary target by a wide margin.
Licensing - I'm not going delve too far into the hopeless quagmire that is Autodesk Licensing. Just note that separate Revit discipline products (Architecture, MEP, Structure) have been done away with and all functionality is now under one roof, Revit.
Also, standalone licenses are a thing of the past, it's pretty much subscription or bust.
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