Inside the Factory Sessions

We are kicking off a new series for the Revit Blog: Inside the Factory Sessions. Through these conversations we hope to provide greater transparency to you, our customers and community, to what goes into the making of Revit. In each session, we’ll tackle a different topic: performance in Revit, the development process, openness, the product roadmap.

We value your feedback, your suggestions for topics, your points and counter-points, and we’re going to do our best to ensure you are heard. Have a question about the making of Revit? Want to suggest a topic you’ve been wondering about? Leave us a note in the comments or send questions you’d like us to discuss to revitfeedback@autodesk.com.

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Episode 8: Revit Public Roadmap Update from Autodesk University

In this episode: The Revit product management team takes your questions about the Revit Public Roadmap in this live ask-me-anything session from Autodesk University 2020. This wraps the series for 2020.

Episode 7: The BID Vision with Peter Thompson

In this episode: Peter Thompson, Vice President of Building and Infrastructure Design Products, joins the Inside the Factory gang to peer into the future of AEC toolmaking at Autodesk.

Topic Tracker:

01:35 — Revit and the “here and now”
02:57 — Back casting from a future state
04:58 — Six opportunities for better customer outcomes
13:06 — Deduplication, componentization, and open dataflows: key projects in development
22:10 — Closing thoughts and the look ahead

Episode 6: Customer Research

In this episode: Director of Experience Design Rebecca Richkus and Senior User Experience Researcher Yina Turchetti share the Autodesk approach to customer research and how it informs the making of Revit and the present and future state of AEC software.

Topic Tracker:
00:44 — Research at Autodesk
03:00 — What types of research? From beta to the big picture.
06:45 — Research with who? A big AEC tent full of everyday users.
14:46 — Research as the antidote to opinion
15:50 — How to join the product research community
19:20 — Sharing feedback and closing the loop

Episode 5: Understanding Automation

In this episode, masters of design automation toolmaking Zach Kron and Sol Amour share with our host Aaron Vorwerk how to take a computational mindset in tackling design problems, and discuss thoughts on the future of AEC software development.

Topic Tracker:
01:30 — What is automation and why do it?
05:31 — A short history of Dynamo and the creative power of APIs
09:00 — The basics of Dynamo: open source, visual, programming language 13:05 — How Dynamo works with Revit and the developer learning pathway
17:00 — Developers as AEC force multipliers and the emerging workforce 21:07 — Making computational tools more like “Good Grips”
23:36 — “Eating our own dog food” and AEC ecosystem cross-pollination
27:00 — Dynamo, Legos, and building prototypes
30:24 — “Am I doing it right?” Computational pragmatism and diving in.
32:35 — Automation in the Cloud?
37:15 — Closing thoughts on computation and systems thinking

Episode 4: “Ask me anything” Double Feature

An AMA with the product people that make Revit. Our panel takes your questions about what goes on inside the factory.

In this episode:
– Sasha Crotty, Senior Product Manager, Platform
– Harlan Brumm, Senior Product Manager, Architecture
– Aaron Vorwerk, Senior Technical Marketing Manager
– Martin Schmid, Product Manager, MEP
– Kyle Bernhardt, Director, Building Design Strategy

Episode 3: Revit Cloud Worksharing

In this episode: we discuss Revit Cloud Worksharing with Autodesk Senior Engineering Manager, Mohit Mehta. Topics covered include data privacy, uptime and resilience, and the role of the Cloud in extending the experience of working in Revit.

Topic Tracker:
00:20 — Mailbag
03:15 — What happens to my data?
05:30 — Hosting data outside the United States
06:00 — Uptime and health.autodesk.com
07:45 — The process of resiliency
10:50 — Resiliency and performance
15:15 — Being part of the critical path
17:00 — 99% uptime and downtime mitigation
18:14 — What happened to Communicator?
21:10 — Will we all move to the cloud?

Episode 2: Forums, Feedback, and A Balancing Act

In this episode: Our team discusses the role of forums and feedback in forming the Revit Roadmap. Then we are joined by Burns & McDonnell Engineering’s Senior Specialist and Building Solutions Manager, Jeff Campbell, to give his perspective on the “give and take” of working with the development team to improve Revit.

Topic Tracker:
02:26 — Revit Ideas
09:46 — Not all ideas are equal in terms of effort
12:17 — Beta program, user research, customer meetings, and feedback
18:06 — What makes the Roadmap?
24:10 — Closing the loop
25:58 — Jeff Campbell of Burns & McDonnell Engineering joins
28:23 — The “give and take” of engagement with Revit development
34:58 — New features and working together through rough patches
38:08 — Transparency and the “why” of developing Revit

Wondering how you can provide direct feedback on new Revit features and functionality in development? Join the Beta program by requesting access at revit.preview.access@autodesk.com.

Episode 1: Performance Matters

In this episode: Revit Senior Product Managers, Sasha Crotty and Harlan Brumm, share thoughts on performance and testing in Revit, covering recent advancements and the roadmap for improvement with Senior Technical Marketing Manager, Aaron Vorwerk.

Topic Tracker:
05:37 — Multi-threading and parallel processing
11:43 — Optimizing Revit performance
19:45 — Recent performance upgrades
23:39 — Platform development and portfolio benefits
28:03 — Hardware, software, and testing
32:36 — Performance roadmap
35:38 — Issues with your model — send it to us!