Postpone the Evacuation Simulation feature in favor of Top 100 Revit Ideas

[pieter1]

The new Revit roadmap includes a new "Evacuation Simulation" feature. The roadmap says: "The goal is to display evacuation information like heat maps, evacuation paths, travel distances, and people evacuation animation directly within Revit."

Although this sounds 'cool', I would suggest postponing this feature in favor of Top 100 ideas on this platform. 

Evacuation Simulation sounds great in a 1 minute marketing video, but in practice it seems likely to disappoint. Rather then sucking up developing resources with flashy new features: I'd rather see more Top Voted ideas being accepted.

Evacuation Simulation can be left to external plugin developers, who will be more likely to adopt to local customs, special feature requests, etc. 

 Link to the Revit Roadmap: link

[hstaabprime]

Unfortunately, I am unable to vote for this more than once.

[Anonymous]

Seconded.  Maybe fix the hundred-odd items that we actually use on a daily basis (That are almost completely broken) before trying to implement way off in left field glamour implementations.

[pieter1]

This was a Revit Idea that was moved by the moderators to the Architecture Forum. Not really sure why that happened ... (especially as people can't vote on it anymore). Too bad because a lot of people seemed to be in agreement. 

[Discussion_Admin]

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@Anonymous wrote:

This was a Revit Idea that was moved by the moderators to the Architecture Forum. Not really sure why that happened ... (especially as people can't vote on it anymore). Too bad because a lot of people seemed to be in agreement. 

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While your feedback to the road map is appreciated the idea board is not the place for this.

We do not want the product idea board not become a sounding board so to speak

For these types of things using the feedback link in my signature is best.

Thanks
Discussion_Admin

[pieter1]

We've provided feedback with regards to this issue on the different roadmap pages, on the public forum, on the beta forum, during calls with the factory, through our re-seller, ... but so far it has stayed silent.

Gathering a lot of votes on the ideas platform seemed like our last option to make our voices heard (aside from starting an online petition like the community had to do for the text editor).

Why are development resources assigned to large new features that are not popular, while there's an enormous backlog of popular ideas (70 ideas with over a 100 votes). The previous roadmap promised that more ideas were going to be accepted but the new roadmap does not deliver.

I'll submit this feedback once again through the link in your signature, but that link just feels like a pit where feedback goes to die. 

[dgorsman]

There's a couple of things to consider:

• Those doing the evacuation simulation development may may not have the skill set appropriate to the other ideas.  Their budget may not be transferrable.
• The evacuation simulation feature, while not publicly in demand, may be to support requirements from a major client who can "vote" well in excess of what's in the Idea Station.
• The more popular ideas with the community may have already been slotted into the development schedule at a later point, taking into consideration other development directions and features
• Ultimately, the developer is free to make choices as to what gets worked on, and on what schedule, regardless of what "we" feel about it.  Doesn't mean they don't care, or don't know what they're doing.  We just have next to zero control over it.
• The roadmap specifically promises nothing.

[pieter1]

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

As for your first three points. I'm not saying there's no good reason per se. I'm frustrated that there's no in depth communication about any of this. 

When the factory put up a detailed explanation why downsaving was no viable option, we were able to see their logic and accept it. However, such comments are far too rare. 

If the factory asks its customers to invest time in submitting and voting on ideas, it should invest some community resources in explaining its decisions.

As for your last two points: agreed, a company is allowed to do whatever it thinks is best. But are you suggesting that means a customer shouldn't complain when they think the company is making the wrong move? 

[pieter1]

Also, the roadmap specifically mentions: "We continue to post updates periodically, and your feedback helps!  Let us know what you think." So I don't think (hope?) the factory will be annoyed/disheartened with this feedback. It seems like that's one of the main objectives of the public roadmap, no?

Based on the kudos in the topic, we can see that it has at least been read by the factory PM's. Hopefully at some point they will engage like they did with the backsaving idea, so that we can get some more insight in the reasoning behind the current priorities.