By Martha Hollowell
Every year Autodesk rolls out a huge number of updated programs. It is getting harder to keep up with what it coming out. But there are always “flagship” products, such as AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, and my favorite, Autodesk Revit.
I used the name Autodesk Revit without any of the discipline specific endings on purpose. If you are using the Autodesk® Building Design Suite, you will find the new Autodesk Revit “Onebox” option. This is Architecture, Structure, and MEP rolled into one program. Any company, especially those with all three disciplines working together, can benefit from this. Training centers can also benefit from this by having to load only one version of Revit even if they are teaching different disciplines.
The naming structure for the tabs and buttons has been streamlined to suit this option. For example, the Home tab (shown in Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012 in Figure 1) has been exchanged for discipline-specific tabs of Architecture, Structure, and Systems (shown in Autodesk Revit 2013 in Figure 2).
Figure 1
Figure 2
You can set up the interface of the Autodesk Building Design Suite version of Autodesk Revit for your specific discipline. Since all of the tools for these disciplines are installed in one copy of the software, by default, all of the tools, templates, and sample files are available as shown in Figure 3. Most users only need their specific set of tools and the interface can be tailored to meet those needs.
Figure 3
The ASCENT training guides are designed to be discipline-specific and therefore the graphics match the discipline of the course. For example, for Autodesk Revit Architecture classes the tabs and default templates are setup for architectural projects while the Structure and MEP courses show their tabs and templates.
If you are teaching a discipline-specific class and want to match the “OneBox” interface to the discipline we include a document at the beginning of each book called “Setting Up the Interface”. This outlines the changes you need to make to the interface so it matches up with the graphics in the book.
How to Set Up the Autodesk Revit Interface to suit your needs.
- In the upper left corner of the screen, expand
(Application Menu) and click
.
- In the Options dialog box on the left pane select User Interface.
- In the Configure area, under Tools and analyses (as shown in Figure 4), clear all of options that you do not want.
Figure 4
- When you clear a selection you are not deleting these tools, just removing them from the current user interface.
4. You can also specify the templates that display when starting a new project. In the left pane select File Locations.
5. In the right pane (as shown in Figure 5), select and order the templates you want to show. Typically, these are set up by the company.
Figure 5
6. Click . The interface and template locations update for this installation of the software.
- You might also want to move the tabs to a different order. To do so, select the tab, hold down <Ctrl> and drag the tab to the new locations.
Check back later and we will post information on the new assembly stair feature in Autodesk Revit Architecture, enhanced rebar in Autodesk Revit Structure, and some advanced pipe routing preferences in Autodesk Revit MEP. Have fun using the new tools.
Martha Hollowell
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