Navisworks 2013: Finally a Better Meeting

If you haven't used Navisworks 2013 yet, I recommend you do so today. I've finally had an opportunity to use it this week and I have to say that 3 "minor" changes have made all the difference in the world. The shot below should tell all you Navisworkers and Clash Detectives out there all you need to know.

Hint: Columns 3 and 4

See it? Actual references for the clash location based on the structural grids lines, with offsets! Even more useful than that, however, is the Level the clash is on has been identified. Want to tackle problems a floor at a time? Sort by Level. No more isolated collisions tests by level, no more breaking the model up by floors to get separate data, no more search sets finding levels. These two changes alone are enough to make most of us out there very happy, but wait, there's more!

Mmmmmmm, greeeeen.

Column Grid Lines. Let that sink in. And no, they are not some wonky line-based family from Revit. Navisworks 2013 finds the grid lines in any of the Revit exports you have (in this case, I am using the structural model). They can be viewed by level, or automatically show you the level above, below, or both, relative to your current location in the model.

I speak from experience here. Being a user since version 2009, I can tell you these changes are most welcome and make communication that much easier with all parties involved. The setup time for a meeting has been drastically reduced which means I can spend more time actually identifying problem areas and less time on workarounds.

Thank you, Navisworks 2013, for making it easier to run a meeting.

Revit 2013 - Sweet View Templates

Last year, I had a conversation extolling the virtues of view templates and their basic underutilization. Revit 2013, as most of you, has finally taken the greatness of the view template and made it easy to implement and maintain. For the first time, we can predispose a particular view type to a certain view template upon its creation and even have it linked dynamically to said template for future modification.

Template-y goodness, now with more dependents

Although it seems to be quite a small step, in reality, this is a giant leap in the right direction. Graphics and drawings are still very important to many project leads and having global control over every view in the project with such ease could finally put to bed the idea that document control is confusing in Revit. No more re-applying templates by view or hoping no one changed the Default View Template on your views (you see, Revit now categorizes your views automatically by View Type).

Soon, it will track you via GPS - coming 2015

Now there is no reason we shouldn't know what's going on in our views and what controls are in place. This makes me very happy.