Wednesday, April 20, 2016

What is New for Navisworks 2017

The answer is not a lot. Here's a list of the new features they've taken time to document. The list is so underwhelming I've just taken it off their site verbatim to underscore it's half-hearted attempt. Note the UI description - "we made some changes". I saw a tweet about reading through the list in two seconds and I thought they were kidding; they weren't.

European Region Support
Navisworks 2017 provides access to BIM 360 Glue projects hosted both in the United States and Europe. Just select your regional server after sign-in.

BIM 360 Shared Views
Navisworks 2017 continues to support synchronized Shared Views with BIM 360 Glue, providing real-time access across BIM 360 Glue connected clients . Shared Views assist review and analysis activity in your BIM360 Glue project team, for closer collaboration.

Shared Views created in any BIM 360 Glue connected client retain view fidelity, including:
  • Object Visibilty (hidden state)
  • Object Overrides - color and transparency (transparencies are fixed at 95%)
  • Section Planes and Boxes
Shared Views can be renamed, moved into folders created in BIM 360 Glue and saved directly in Navisworks.

UI Improvements
We've made some changes to the Navisworks BIM 360 and Home tabs, making access easier and offering a more intuitive user experience.

CLIC Licensing
The introduction of CLIC brings cohesive access via single license, that supports both desktop and cloud services.

Faster Model Display (faster is always better, my words)
Improved speed of synchronizing data and display of model list, and faster streaming of BIM 360 models.

Autodesk 2017 Product Integration
Providing support for the latest Autodesk applications is fundamental to Navisworks, ensuring that the latest version of design models and data can be reviewed and analyzed. Updated file readers, exporters and integrations include:
  1. AutoCAD 2017 file reader and exporter
  2. Civil 3D 2017 file reader and exporter
  3. Revit 2017 file reader and exporter
  4. Inventor 2017 file reader
  5. 3DS Max 2017 file exporter
  6. Recap 2017 integration
  7. Vault 2017 integration
  8. Intergraph CADWorx Plant file reader updated to include support for additional properties including User data and Insulation.
I can't help but reading through that imagining, "Awe...we were so tired from the last two releases, cut us some slack dude...". Maybe they are working on some killer stuff that couldn't be wrapped up in the yearly release cycle? Optimistically, at least getting up to speed with Navisworks 2017 this year won't take long.

2 comments:

Brenda said...

With the increased emphasis on Autodesk's BIM 360 cloud services, I'm actually surprised there was even this much changed.

Unknown said...

But don't we need NW in the office to support BIM360 on site? Underwhelmed is an understatement.... NW isn't end of life is it??!!