Revit Technology Corporation Launches Revit Release 4.0

Revit's Concurrent Building Assets Provide Advanced Information Management Across the Building Design and Production Enterprise

LONDON, UK and WALTHAM, MA - October 16, 2001 - Revit Technology Corporation, creator of the first parametric building modeler for the AEC industry, today announced Revit 4.0 at the Built Environment Conference in London, England. With functionality designed to exceed the most rigorous design challenges and scale to the most complex building projects, Revit 4.0 delivers improved quality, reduced cost and shortened schedules for building projects of all sizes. Revit 4.0 achieves this through its support for Concurrent Building Assets (CBAs), which comprise all of the information - in graphical, tabular, narrative or digital form - that any building team member needs to move a building project from the earliest design through to completion.

CBAs capture and maximize the value of information by making it available in the format that is most familiar and appropriate to various professional disciplines in architecture, engineering and construction. Concurrent Building Assets are always 100 percent coordinated with all other CBAs in the project by Revit 4.0's parametric change engine. An architect, for example, viewing a framing plan or bracing elevation from a structural engineer can choose to see it as an architectural floor plan or building section. The steel framing will be shown as the architect wants to see it instead of as a framing drawing. Any individual Concurrent Building Asset - in this case information about the structural properties of a building - is presented as required and is reliable because of its guaranteed consistency.

Another CBA is the quantification of a building project's business data into relational database tables that are created automatically by the act of drafting the building's plans and construction documents in Revit.

Because the quantity information CBA is in the form typically used by construction professionals for estimation, they no longer need to measure drawings to create those estimates. The architect who creates this valuable CBA simply documents the building graphically using Revit as he or she normally would. The single entry of graphical data into the parametric model for the usual purpose of designing and documenting a building results in the automatic creation and multiple use of concurrent building assets for each discipline in the project.

"Revit 4.0 achieves something remarkable with Concurrent Building Assets: the ability for a project team's individuals to work the way they want to while ensuring all information is concurrently available to others in precisely the form that others want to see it," said James Lupton of James Lupton Consultants. "Now, we can accurately estimate a building's contents and materials from a parametric model as a direct result of the architect simply drawing the building."

Never before has a system designed for the construction industry delivered this combination of ease of use, automatic production of deliverables and concurrent reuse of information across the range of construction disciplines, from architecture to parametric structural design and engineering through construction management. The ability to use 100 percent coordinated information in precisely the format it is desired - regardless of profession or function - ensures that each individual in a project team can use Revit to create his or her individual deliverables, achieving amazing increases in productivity and quality. And at the same time, the Revit user is creating coordinated deliverables for everyone else in the project team transparently and automatically.

Revit 4.0 Delivers Hundreds of New Product Features to Subscribers Revit 4.0 is the first building modeler to integrate a parametric site modeling capability. Site surfaces are CBAs that may be imported from existing survey information, including those saved in DWG and or DGN formats, or created using Revit. Either way, all survey information is always coordinated with the building design. Users have direct control over triangulated surfaces and contour displays. Revit components placed on the terrain automatically find and attach to the terrain surface and, because the site is an integral part of the overall project, section cuts automatically reflect changes in the terrain should any part of the building be modified. Now, designers may study grading, create realistic sections and further reduce preparation time for construction documentation.

Revit 4.0 introduces selective open, a feature that exponentially extends Revit's workset multi-user functionality within the building model and allows members of a project team to access their CBAs easily. Firms can manage the largest and most complex architectural projects in Revit and be assured of consistent, rapid performance from the software. Selective open creates a distributed parametric building database that enables an architect or structural engineer to open and modify only portions of the model on which he or she is actively working. Revit's parametric change engine continues to assure that all drawings, views and CBAs across disciplines are always coordinated within the single, integrated building model.

"Parametric site capabilities and selective open are just two of the hundreds of new and improved features in Revit 4.0 that facilitate automatic creation of CBAs," said David Lemont, CEO of Revit Technology Corporation. "Revit Technology Corporation continues to offer its subscribers easy-to-use technology and support that is both more advanced and more useable than any other system in the world. With Revit 4.0, architectural firms, structural engineers, and design-builders worldwide will find they can complete their work quicker and easier, and that the information they enter into a building model will be available to everyone on the project team in just the form they want to see it." Revit 4.0 also introduces significantly more advanced and expressive geometry, supporting architects and designers in creating highly imaginative designs within the industry's most powerful building modeler.

Now designers can use splines to create free-form sketches easily for walls, roofs, floors and family elements. Advanced wall geometry now provides tapered and battered walls, cornices and reveals and ruled-surface walls, including curtain walls that can be created using lines, arcs or splines. Roof geometry in Revit 4.0 now allows 3D-path sweeps to create fascias, eave conditions, and soffits for more specific roof designs. Roofs can now also incorporate skylights within any condition. The ability to divide wall faces and other surfaces into multiple separate regions allows designers to sketch and describe on any surface within the model areas of different appearance, design, color or texture, providing highly detailed renderings and other documentation.

Revit 4.0 delivers the first structural engineering package ever integrated into a parametric building modeling system. Engineers can concurrently lay out structural framing by simply picking building supports, and Revit's parametric building modeler automatically creates relationships between and among structural elements. Wall components in Revit 4.0 now allow the designer and structural engineer to designate a wall as non-bearing, bea ring or shear, locking this knowledge into the parametric model and ensuring that it is maintained all the way through to construction documentation. New backing/framing views allow for easy layout and guaranteed accuracy in the framing section. All structural documents and CBAs are always up-to-date and consistent with the architectural data, even as the two disciplines work simultaneously on the model.

Revit 4.0 makes quantity surveys and take-offs a snap. Because a Revit model is not simply lines stored in a digital format, but a complete digital analog to a building project, schedules always remain coordinated with the drawings and views of the building model. Revit 4.0 has leveraged this capability through CBAs and delivers information in an open, relational format for the use of estimators, quantity surveyors and constructors. Using a digital quantification of the building in the form of relational database tables along with any of a number of common analysis tools from spreadsheets to traditional cost estimating packages, construction professionals may now reliably estimate what is in a building project and how much material is needed. Using Revit 4.0 to create this business data eliminates the expensive and error-prone activities of measuring a building from drawings and recalculating results when the design changes. Substantial reductions in cost and scheduling rework and error along with increases in quality result from the unique ability of Revit 4.0 to automatically provide business data from a model created simply by drawing the building.

Advanced Support for AEC Professionals

Revit 4.0 offers many additional features that lengthen its technological lead over legacy CAD tools. 

www.revit.com/launch4

Briefly, some of the new functionality introduced in Revit 4.0 includes:

• BOMA area measurement that creates a range of area reports;
• Enhanced materials control that can display and specify a wide variety of styles;
• Profile families that can be used to create sweeps and extrusions;
• Enhanced stairs and railings allow the user to design and define several configurations with tread and riser profiles; and
• Further integration with AccuRender and RPC content from ArchVision, enabling users to incorporate actual pictures of real people and objects into their renderings

Revit 4.0 will be launched at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London's Docklands from October 16-18 during Built Environment 2001, a new conference and exhibition for building product specifiers.

Pricing and availability

Revit release 4.0 is expected be available to subscribers in worldwide English from in late November 2001. Revit 4.0 will support both metric and imperial projects. Local layering standards for export to legacy CAD systems can be installed based on the user's preference. Unlike legacy CAD vendors, Revit Technology makes upgrading to new releases painless. Current subscribers may request a Revit 4.0 CD-ROM at no charge.

For as little as US$149 (UKL122) monthly for a single annual subscription charged to a major credit card, subscribers to Revit's parametric building modeler have access to all value-added enhancements, instructor-led Internet-based training, customer support, upgrades and maintenance. Revit subscriptions are available monthly, quarterly and yearly and can be aggregated to achieve additional savings. There are no upgrade costs to subscribers, as Revit subscription includes all new releases and upgrades.

Revit 4.0 is the 10th release of Revit since Revit 1.0 was released in April 2000, demonstrating both the value of subscription and the rapidity with which Revit Technology has innovated in parametric building technology. Pricing for Revit subscription in countries outside the US and UK is available from local Revit Solutions Providers.

About Revit Technology Corporation

Founded in 1997, Revit Technology Corporation is revolutionizing building design with Revit - the first parametric building modeler developed for the AEC industry. Revit's advanced parametric technology offers unprecedented ease of use in a product that has been designed to enable architects, engineers, owner/operators and construction professionals to transform the entire process by which buildings are designed, constructed and operated over their lifecycle. With offices in the United States and United Kingdom, and Revit Solutions Providers throughout the EU, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, Revit's revolutionary building technology is in use by leading architectural, building and construction management firms such as Little & Associates Architects, George B.H. Macomber Company, NBBJ, and WAT&G. Investors in Revit Technology Corporation include Dassault Systemes

S. A. (Nasdaq: DASTY, Bourse de Paris), FleetBoston Financial Corporation (NYSE: FBF), Atlas Venture and North Bridge Venture Partners.

www.revit.com

 

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