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BIM 360 Release Notes

BIM 360 Design Collaboration Update – Sept 4, 2018 – Hypermodel navigation

Markus Briglmeir
September 4, 2018

Nov. 1st: Update on the Drop Me tool – Rename to ‘Place Me’ and fully available again for newly published models

Here’s quick update: we decided to tweak terminology a bit, and now use ‘Place Me’ for what used to be the the Drop Me tool. The functionality is the same of course and is fully available again after we temporarily turned off processing data for the tool for all newly published models end of September. 

And I should mention that the functionality got enhanced actually: besides views with floor plans, now as well structural plans and reflected ceiling plans are supported. As well models using metric units are supported better.

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The latest update of Design Collaboration delivers new functionality called to navigate easily between 2D views and 3D models to understand designs faster and better.

It will allow users to:

  • Quickly jump from a 2D sheet to a corresponding location in a 3D model.
  • Navigate back to your previous view from a 3D model
  • Isolate and focus on content that applies to the current location, levels, or object selections.

Place Me (formerly known as Drop Me) tool to navigate from 2D to 3D

When exploring a 2D sheet, you can now switch directly from a location on a 2D floor plan (new: as well structural plans and reflected ceiling plans) to that very location in the corresponding 3D model where you can explore the model in ‘First Person’ mode. When finished, you can quickly go back to your previous view in the 2D sheet with a single click.

This eliminates the need to continually navigate back and forth between sheets and the project model to evaluate the design.

  1. Click ‘Place Me’ Icon from the viewer toolbar
  2. Select a location on a floor plan (new: as well structural plans and reflected ceiling plans) of a 2D sheet
  3. Change orientation or wait to auto-transform
  4. Start exploring 3D in ‘First Person’ mode
    Note: for selecting objects ‘First Person’ mode needs to be ended

Explore the model in ‘First Person’ mode:

 

Important notes:

Place Me is only available for:

  • Newly published data. That is because the Drop Me tool requires some additional data that is not available to the web client in earlier published models. The model publishing process has been changed to now provide these new data. Models published after August 29th are already ready for the Place Me tool.
  • Views with the Crop View check box enabled in Revit:
  • 2D sheets with floor plan views (new: as well structural plans and reflected ceiling plans) . Other sheets with callout or area plans are not supported at this time.
  • Views without view breaks. Views containing view breaks or view splits are not supported at this time.

 

Back to Last View

With Back to Last view, as you navigate through the model you will always have the opportunity to return to your previous view by selecting the ‘back to last view’ button.

With this new feature, you will be able to efficiently move in multiple directions and save time during model navigation.

Content awareness

The content awareness feature minimizes the list of sheets and views. It focuses attention to the ones that matter the most by automatically providing you with a prioritized list of ‘top’ content results in the content browser.

Content is automatically prioritized for three cases:

  • Current location in a 3D model (only show views for my current location)
  • Level isolation (viewing a single level in a building)
  • Selected elements (easily understand which views contain the selected element)

Two examples of sheets prioritized on top of the content browser:

In the next weeks we plan to add more features, like enabling Drop Me tool for other views that floor plans, or a Minimap for a better orientation while navigating a 3D model. So stay tuned please, and try out Hypermodeling now.

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Markus Briglmeir

Markus Briglmeir CAD and 3D are the topics that inspired Markus starting from the times at university. In his roles as landscape architect & AutoCAD user, project manager, solution implementer, educator and software presenter Markus gathered a lot of experience in the infrastructure and business. Over the years cloud based solutions got more and more of his focus. Markus now works in the Autodesk BIM Project Delivery team as Product Manager on the Design Collaboration module based on BIM 360. More: member of Autodesk Switzerland, and Bayern Munich Football club, Landscape Architect and Manager of a Bavarian Brass band. Likes Rock & Rocks, Bike & Ski. Plays Drums & Percussion in private and with BIM 360 in professional life.

15 Comments

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  1. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

    Update on the Drop Me tool – temporarily not available for newly published models

    We know you like and use the new Drop Me tool a lot. Unexpectedly the processing of the required data for Drop Me fails for large and complex models during the model publishing process. As this as well increases the general publishing time, we decided that it’s best to temporarily turn off processing data for the Drop Me tool for all newly published models. This allows us to address this issue fundamentally. The Drop Me tool is still functional for already published models, but it will not be available for newly published model versions.

    We meanwhile identified the underlying cause of the issue and started working on it. Please accept our apology for any inconvenience, we will post an update on time schedule here as soon as possible.

    Markus & team

  2. AvatarBill.Knittle

    Marcus, I’m not seeing the Content Awareness behavior when selecting an element. The Content Browser does not seem to update either in viewing a recently published model or during the creation of a Package.

    1. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

      This is the expected behavior: the models got re-published, and the object that is selected in the model is visible on a view, that view will be shown at top of the Content browser in an extra section ‘Views containing selected object’.

  3. AvatarChad-Smith

    Hmmm, Hypermodeling is a bit of a misnomer.
    Shouldn’t it be more like Hypernavigating?

    1. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

      Good point Chad. You mean as the model is created in Revit and just published, with no extra modelling work needed for ‘Hypernavigation’?

    2. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

      We got similar feedback from other users as well, and re-considered the wording we use. The new set of features enables contextualized viewing and navigation between 2D sheets and 3D views in the hypermodel. No special modelling involved in Design Collaboration. The modelling itself happens in Revit already, without a need of additional steps to enable these new ways of viewing and navigating. Just publishing a Revit model enables these new features.

  4. Avatarjhe@moe.dk

    I was thrilled to see the new DropMe-feature, but I can’t get it to work properly.
    After reading the release notes more closely I published some Floor Plans and now I can activate the DropMe button but then nothing more happens in the 2D Sheet.
    The view is cropped, I have created a brand new project on BIM 360 and uploaded new models, but it won’t work. Tried both Chrome and IE. Has it got anything to do with Revit version? I’m uploading from a 2019.0.1.
    Regards /Jesper

    1. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

      Hi Jesper,
      This sounds very much like an issue we detected with Revit projects using metric units. Could that be the cause in your case as well?
      Either way, a fix addressing the metric units issue is on the way.

      Thanks,
      Markus

    2. Avatarjhe@moe.dk

      Hi Markus. Yes, the models are in metric, so that might be the problem.
      We’re looking very much forward to the fix.

    3. Avatarjhe@moe.dk

      Hi Markus. The DropMe-feature is working in my metric-models now, but I get a wrong location in my 3D-view when jumping from the sheet.

    4. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

      Heeey,
      That was fast, we brought support for metric-model live some hour ago, and I guess you are the first one to try it out.
      Sad to hear it moves you to the wrong position, we haven’t seen that before. As it is hard to trouble shoot here, would you mind sending me some more details like screen shots or a quick video via markus.briglmeir@autodesk.com. Interesting for us as well if that happens just for one models, or for others as well.

      Thanks for posting,
      Markus

  5. Avatarrholland951

    Is this technology also being added in to the standard Document Mangement BIM Viewer?

    1. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

      Models need to be published using Revit Cloud Worksharing to be processed and prepared for this new set of tools. So it’s just available for Revit models that are published to BIM 360 Design Collaboration. There are not concrete plans to add it to Document Management midterm as of now. Currently the focus is on adding new capabilities to the current experience within Design Collaboration over the next weeks.

      Thanks,
      Markus

  6. AvatarmmaloneyVHABU

    Markus,, is this for Projects Folders, or Plans Folders, or Both?

    Mike Maloney

    1. Markus BriglmeirMarkus Briglmeir (Post author)

      Good question, this is a current limitation. Design Collaboration is for Projects Folders only currently, we strive to support Plans Folders as well in the future.

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