History
Charles River Software was founded in Newton, Massachusetts, October 31, 1997 by Leonid Raiz and Irwin Jungreis, key developers of Parametric Technology's Pro/Engineer software for mechanical design, with the intent of bringing the power of parametric modeling to the building industry. With funding from venture capitalists Atlas Venture and North Bridge Venture Partners, Raiz and Jungreis hired several software developers and architects and began developing Revit in C++ on the Microsoft Windows platform. In 1999 they hired Dave Lemont as CEO and recruited board members Jon Hirschtick, founder of SolidWorks, and Arol Wolford, founder of CMD group.
From the outset, Revit was intended to allow architects and other building professionals to design and document a building by creating a parametric three dimensional model that included both the geometry and non-geometric design and construction information, what later become known as Building Information Modeling or BIM. At the time, several other software packages such as ArchiCAD and Reflex allowed working with a three dimensional virtual building model, and allowed individual components to be controlled by parameters (parametric components). Two key differences in Revit were that its parametric components were created using a graphical "family editor" rather than a programming language, and all relationships between components, views, and annotations were captured by the model so that a change to any element would automatically propagate to keep the model consistent. For example, moving a wall would update the neighboring walls, floors, and roofs, correct the placement and values of dimensions and notes, adjust the floor areas reported in schedules, redraw section views, etc., so that the model would remain connected and all documentation would be coordinated. The concept of bi-directional associativity between components, views, and annotations remains a unique and distinguishing feature of Revit. The ease of making changes inspired the name Revit, a contraction of Revise-It. At the heart of Revit was a parametric change propagation engine that relied on a new technology, context-driven parametrics, that was more scalable than the variational and history-driven parametrics used in mechanical CAD software. The term Parametric Building Model was adopted to reflect the fact that changes to parameters drove the whole building model and associated documentation, not just individual components.
The company was renamed Revit Technology Corporation in January, 2000, and Revit version 1.0 was released on April 5, 2000. The software progressed rapidly, with version 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, and 4.1 released in August, 2000; October, 2000; February, 2001; June, 2001; November, 2001; and January, 2002, respectively.
The software was initially offered only as a monthly rental, with no option to purchase. Licensing was controlled by an entirely automatic process, an innovation at a time when human intervention and manual transmission of authorization codes was required to buy other types of design software.
Autodesk (the developers of AutoCAD) purchased the Massachusetts-based Revit Technology Corporation for US$133 million in 2002. The purchase allowed more research, development and improvement of the software. Autodesk has released several versions of Revit since 2004. In 2005 Revit Structure was introduced, then in 2006 Revit MEP. After the 2006 release Revit Building was renamed Revit Architecture. Since the release of Revit Architecture 2009, it has become the BIM (Building Information Modeling) standard in the AEC industry.
In 2012 Revit LT became the newest version of Revit on the market. It is a light version of Revit with a number of features such as rendering and multi user environments crippled.
With their Revit platform, Autodesk is a significant player in the BIM market together with Bentley (developers of Microstation), Trimble (developers of SketchUp), Nemetschek (makers of ArchiCAD, AllPlan and Vectorworks), and Gehry Technologies with CATIA based Digital Project.
Read more about this topic: Autodesk Revit Architecture
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