Autodesk Inventor what’s new 2022: Export Revit project

Look at the buildings around you.

When we think of the construction industry, we think of it is being separate from the manufacturing industry. But – every part of every building is an opportunity for manufacturers!

From building products, such as boilers and generators, to prefabricated components, such as roof trusses and bathroom modules.

From components required for on-site fabrication, such as steel and wood, to the final finishing products such as plaster and paint – all components of a building are, all – or in part manufactured before they become a building.

Inventor and Revit interop

For many years, we’ve had the ability to output Revit family (.RFA) files directly from Inventor. If you’re not familiar with Revit families – think of building products that are used multiple times in many locations with a building. Light switches, furniture, ventilation grilles and faucets are all good examples.

With Inventor 2021, we introduced a new ability for Inventor – the ability to link a Revit file into Inventor using Inventor AnyCAD, to use as a design reference.

This is fantastically useful if you are designing a custom building component, such as a staircase – or a system of components, such as a factory line, that need to fit the building perfectly – or that have a high degree of collaboration with other trades on site.

Export Revit project from Inventor

In Inventor 2022, we introduce new functionality which allows us to export a Revit project (.RVT) directly from Inventor.

This closes the loop, allowing us to design in the context of a Revit building model, and then output a Revit project file that can be returned to Revit for collaboration, coordination and review.

By working around a common coordinate system, we can export a Revit project file from Inventor – confident that we can link the Inventor design into the Revit model and it will match up.

Watch this video to see Inventor and Revit working together in action.

Click on this link to find out more about ‘What’s New’ in Autodesk Inventor 2022.

Model simplification in detail

In the video, you’ll see the Inventor model being ‘simplified’ before being exported to Revit.

Our Inventor model contains all the detail required to manufacture our product, which is way more detail than is required to coordinate our design on a BIM (Building Information Modelling) construction project.

Click here to read our next post, which highlights how we’ve improved the layout and functionality of the simplify command in Inventor 2022 and discusses how we might use the new ‘Model states’ functionality in Inventor 2022 to build simplification into our model from the bottom up.