Revit 2013 - Droppin' Like You're on Subscription.

It's official, Revit 2013 is here, or coming, or at least we can talk about it now. In reality very few firms decide to move to new versions of software until the Fall, Winter, or Spring following the release. So these new features might not be implemented in your firm for quite a while but without a doubt it will happen so let's discuss a couple of items.
 

Materials

This one is personally my "holy crap!" improvement of 2013. They have been tweaking the material dialog box for a couple of releases now and I always scratched my head at the changes which seemed somewhat cosmetic and only marginally beneficial to the everyday user. Certainly it never improved in a true game changing  way; that is until now. I do a lot with energy analysis and the dreaded gbXML file and the complaint from most is the lack of intelligence to derive thermal characteristics from the modeled elements. You always had to pick from a static list of construction assemblies whose assignment were determined by an adjacency calculation not from what was modeled. Now you can calculate thermal properties of layered elements based on Thermal assets of the individual materials in a wall/floor/ceiling/roof system family. Component families (doors/windows) are still picked from a list as a type property. You still have the option of assigning thermal assembly types in the traditional way but now we are one crucial step closer to intelligent integrated analysis.

Stairs

Stair Type Properties and Their embedded Type
properties dialog boxes

Stairs can be modeled with run and landing components or as before with a sketch. The components are really a fun and flexible way to model stairs that help you understand what your stairs will look like in 3D before leaving your create stairs mode (images below are while still in the stair creation mode). In addition to the new ways we can create stairs, they have also provided us the flexibility to convert any component based landing or run to a sketch. The stair types now have  embedded type properties dialog boxes for the landing, support, and other elements that define the stairs.

 I don't mean to oversimplify everything that is going on in these releases but  only have so much time to write here. If you want more information attend one of the web based presentations that will take a much deeper dive on each discipline. IMAGINiT's Know It. All.  Virtual Event will be held at the beginning of May 1-3 with 1 day dedicated to each market sector (building is on May 2). As always, stay on top of the new features and keep opportunity in the forefront of your mind as we go through another year of software releases.

Finally, if you are not using the 2012 version of Revit yet? Get with it. It is time. You are only hurting yourself, and your MEP consultant.