Autodesk Revit 2008 a.k.a. DWF BIM Capturer

If AutoCAD is lovingly referred to as DWF Creator and Vault is referred to as DWF On-Demand Publisher, then I guess Revit must be DWF BIM Capturer. Yes this is the DWF blog.

In previous articles I have recommended that DWF files be created from Revit. AutoCAD has 25 years of printer driver honing when it comes to producing plot files. Revit is not as seasoned in this regard. Hence I have recommended that Autodesk customers create DWF files to send to commercial reprographic shops.

Revit 2008 has some things to offer in terms of DWF.

• Revit 2008 is using the 7.3 version of the DWF Toolkit. This features several defect corrections with regard to what's in your DWF files.
• For Revit 2008, the File/Export DWF menu option has been changed to File/Publish DWF.
• Revit 2008 processes markup comments from multisheet DWF files in a more optimal fashion.
• Revit 2008 produces files that can be measured using the area tool of Autodesk Design Review.
• Revit 2008 produces smaller DWF files in that non-relevant model data is not included.
• Revit 2008 automatically defaults to the paper size exported if exporting a sheet to a 2D DWF. The default zoom setting (on the Print Setup dialog) is now Fit To Page. This setting avoids the (usually) undesired result of getting a cropped portion of the 2D view in the DWF file. In addition, you can now define custom page sizes for DWF publishing.
• Revit 2008 allows linked Revit files to be exported to 3D DWF properly.
• Revit 2008 can publish DWF files to Buzzsaw.

Do you know what it's like?
All revved up with no place to go.
Jim Steinman from the Meat Loaf song "All Revved Up With No Place To Go"

Actually I don't. With Revit, I'm all rev'd up with someplace to go! Revit captures more than just the graphics from a design. The metadata from the building information model (BIM) is captured in the DWF and helps DWF go beyond the paper. That's why I refer to it as DWF BIM Capturer. It's a term of endearment. Revit 2008 is another step in DWF's evolution to go beyond the paper.

Comments

[AnTony McPhee]

I've found using DWF export cause Revit to crash in 9.0 and 9.1.
I had to uninstall the lastest version of DWF writer, re-install an older version, and then print to DWF (I can't remember which one, and can't tell because DWF writer has no 'About' info).
Hopefully 2008 will not have this problem.