CAD/BIM Tips & Tricks
Revit 2024: The 5 Most Popular Features Plus What’s Hot in Revit 2025
9 September 2024
If you’re running an earlier version of Revit® and wondering what you may be missing out on, here are some of the most popular features in Revit 2024 for which users are showing some love:
- Toposolids: Users have truly shown their appreciation for this one. This long-awaited upgrade replaced toposurfaces with solid geometry for site modeling. If you want greater flexibility, improved accuracy and a more realistic representation of terrain, toposolids is the way to go.
- Dark Theme: A dark theme is finally available. While some believe this is a more eye-friendly experience — especially for extended working sessions or low-light conditions — that’s not always true. For some users, dark mode is helpful because it seems easier on the eyes than a glaring, bright white screen. However, a dark screen causes your pupils to dilate which can make it harder to focus. For folks with vision issues, the dark screen can cause blurriness or a halo effect. But if you prefer dark mode, well, now you have that option.
- Improved Site Tools: The massing and site tabs have been reorganized for a more intuitive workflow. Additionally, powerful new tools allow for the creation and manipulation of new toposolids directly from existing toposurfaces.
- Textures: This visual style allows users to see textures without having to rely on realistic mode that requires lighting and other settings. Using textures is much faster than using realistic mode and can be used in plans, sections and elevation views for greater clarity — which is always helpful in presentations.
The newer versions of Revit sport features that users are loving.
- Other Workflow Enhancements: Several features streamline the design process, such as the ability to search within the project browser, open sheets directly from the drawing area and control the draw order of elements in 3D families.
If these Revit 2024 additions sound helpful to you but are not part of your current Revit version, well, you know what to do. But wait! There’s more to come with the most popular features in Revit 2025, so hold on a second before making a decision.
- Enhanced Toposolids: With all the love being shown for this feature in Revit 2024, Autodesk® cleverly added significant improvements to working with toposolids. This now includes the following features:
- Excavation with Toposolids: You can now directly excavate a toposolid with elements like floors, building pads, roofs and even other toposolids.
- Improved Accuracy: Individual excavation volumes for different elements can now be viewed when a toposolid is selected.
- Smoother Shading: Toposolids can now display smoother shading for a more realistic appearance in 3D views.
- Family Editor Flexibility: The Family Editor now allows the creation of arrays with zero or one element, addressing a longstanding limitation for Revit users.
- Streamlined Wall Placement: New options for “Auto Join” and “Auto Join & Lock” streamline wall placement and ensure openings are automatically cut through connected walls. Handy, very handy.
Want to know a building’s carbon footprint? The “greenitects” will appreciate
this one.
- Improved Collaboration: Autodesk has made collaboration even easier with features such as:
- Background PDF Export: Allows for exporting PDFs in the background without interrupting your workflow.
- Coordination Model Change Monitoring: Yes, it sounds like a mouthful, but it saves you time by making it easier for you to track changes made to the coordination model by different project stakeholders.
- Other Popular Features:
- Total Carbon Analysis with Insight and Forma: Integrates with Autodesk Insight for a more comprehensive analysis of a building’s carbon footprint. The “greenitects” will appreciate this one.
- Concrete Modeling Improvements: This solid improvement offers better tools for detailing and reinforcing concrete elements.
- Sheet Collections: This is not a laundry service. It’s a new feature for managing and organizing project sheets more efficiently.
The Glass Is Half-Full: Ignore the Naysayers
Overall, the glass definitely seems half-full for Revit users. Revit remains the most popular BIM software worldwide with millions of users. Of course, some critics claim that while Revit 2024 was a good release, Autodesk added no major features to Revit 2025 and simply improved upon existing features.
To them, we say this is progress. And if you don’t like progress, it’s time to hand in your cell phone, computer and car keys. Progress often happens slowly and we didn’t go from club-carrying cave-dwellers to sentient, productive members of society overnight. But we got there nonetheless. At least, we’d like to think most of us did.
Some of them work at Axiom as CAD/BIM Consultants, ready to answer your questions or help you find the best productivity-boosting tools for your situation. Call 727-442-7774 to get any questions answered. Alternatively, visit AxiomInt.com to check out our time-saving tools for Revit, access a free trial or chat with us online.
