The 2013 release of the Autodesk suites hit the streets this past Spring and among them the latest release of the Revit product line is choke full of new functionality. The first change is a change to the product suite itself. If you purchase the Building Design Suite Premium or Ultimate, you get the rebranded “Autodesk Revit.” Autodesk Revit includes the functionality of all three flavors of Revit: Architecture, Structure and MEP in a single product. You will not need to install them as three separate products. (The separate products of Revit Architecture, Revit Structure and Revit MEP are still available, check with your reseller for more details). In this article, I’ll focus on what’s new on the Architectural side.
Stairs and Railings
Revit 2013 delivers the brand new component-based stair tools and several railing enhancements. Stairs now have two options: Stair by Component and Stair by Sketch. Stair by Sketch is simply the traditional Revit stair functionality unchanged from previous releases. Stair by Component is an entirely new approach to creating stair elements where the stair is segmented into user definable components. There are three components: Runs, Supports and Landings. Each of these can be customized in a variety of ways. One stark difference in the new tool is that during the creation process, you can see the stair as it is being created in all views. This allows you to switch to a 3D view for example and see the stair as it is being drawn rather than waiting until it is completed.