Autodesk Revit 2026 officially lands today, and with it comes a blend of foundational upgrades and future-forward experiments. As a longtime author of this annual review for AECbytes, I always look forward to seeing how Autodesk pushes Revit forward—sometimes subtly, sometimes radically. The 2026 release brings a bit of both. From dramatic performance gains to enhanced modeling tools, Revit 2026 lays important groundwork for the platform's future.
One of the most intriguing additions in Revit 2026 is the Accelerated Revit Graphics Tech Preview—a promising early step in modernizing Revit's aging graphics pipeline. When enabled (via the Graphics tab in the Options dialog), this feature brings noticeably smoother navigation, especially in 3D views. Most geometry—including linked RVT models—renders more responsively, complete with surface patterns, colors, and silhouette edges. However, lineweights and line patterns remain unsupported in this preview.
The per-view toggle (located in the top-right corner or via the right-click menu) provides flexibility, though it's worth noting that sheets, activated viewports, drafting views, legends, and modes like Realistic or Shadows aren't supported yet. Also, while the GPU now plays a more meaningful role in rendering, enabling this feature across multiple views may spike overall RAM usage—so plan accordingly. No changes are made to your project files, so feel free to experiment without risk.
I have tested this on some very large projects, and the performance enhancement is night and day. I am also on the monthly Sprint reviews for this feature, so I have seen its development and where it is headed, which is good for the end user!
Autodesk continues migrating creation and modification settings from the longstanding Option Bar to the contextual Ribbon tab. While this may seem minor, it's part of a broader push for UI consistency and discoverability. Since this is more of a housekeeping effort than a groundbreaking feature, I'll keep the commentary brief—but long-time users will likely notice the shift. The example below highlights the change related to annotation tools, but others, like the Wall tool, have not yet moved.
In a case of déjà vu, Reference Label Parameters have reverted to an instance-based implementation, allowing each reference view object to carry a unique value. This is a return to an earlier behavior that many users missed. Now, global and shared parameters are fully supported, and a new “Default Reference Label” parameter adds even more control. This is a win for documentation fidelity and coordination.
First introduced in Revit 2025, Sheet Collections continue to mature. You can now define custom parameters that appear not only on title blocks but also in the Project Browser (node titles) and even in schedules—where they remain editable. This dramatically improves organization and document control for large, multi-set projects.
The Sheet List Schedule also sees new fields, including Sheet Width, Height, and Scale. A particularly smart addition is the Primary Title Block parameter, which ensures schedules pull data from the correct title block—especially useful for firms working with sheets that contain multiple title blocks. If your practice uses only one title block per sheet, you can likely ignore this feature, but it’s a thoughtful step for more complex workflows.
Revit 2026 introduces View and Sheet Positioning improvements that streamline how views are placed and aligned. Now, you can align views based on either the View Origin (the default) or a View Anchor. Views with crop regions—especially those defined by scope boxes—can be precisely positioned relative to sheet corners. Even better, the placement data can be edited from any view that uses that defined position, improving consistency and reducing rework.
Coordination models, those lightweight, multi-format reference models, now benefit from enhanced graphical appearances, making them easier to interpret during the coordination process. While details are sparse, visual fidelity and performance both appear to be improved in this release.
A small but welcome improvement: the Manage Links dialog now includes a “Show Imported CAD” option. Previously, these could only be viewed through a view's Visibility/Graphics dialog. This streamlines the process of tracking and managing CAD imports, especially on large multidisciplinary projects.
Autodesk reports that IFC orientation and load performance has improved by up to 50%. While your mileage may vary, anything that makes openBIM workflows more responsive is a win for teams working across platforms and continents.
Modeling workflows get some key enhancements in this release. Walls, floors, ceilings, and roofs can now be created without core layers, allowing for better finish detailing and cleaner joins. A new Layer Priority setting, independent of Function, offers better control over how layers clean up—crucial for those who care about tight detailing.
There’s also a clever feature that lets you auto-generate walls by selecting a room or segments—with the Tab key toggling whether or not to include structural columns. This is a handy tool for laying out interiors or retrofitting existing spaces.
Toposolids, first introduced in Revit 2024, gain some serious power in this release. You can now copy and paste points and lines across floors, roofs, and toposolids. New subdivision tools add flexibility, including negative-height subdivisions (ideal for depressions or cutouts). A new Cut Void Stability toggle increases the likelihood of successful Boolean operations.
The maximum point threshold for a toposolid has also increased from 10,000 to 50,000. This is user-configurable via the Revit.ini file but pushing it too far could introduce performance concerns. These changes, along with better cut/fill accuracy and support for complex linked topography via ACC, make toposolids a more production-ready tool.
Coinciding with the release of Revit 2026 is the limitation of sending runs to the original Insight. That is intended to give way to the new Next Gen Insight tool, now fully integrated into Revit 2026, which merges HVAC Zones and System Zones into a unified concept. These new System Zones can now have types (making it easier to standardize and reuse them across projects) and can be scheduled with most, if not all, relevant data. With a growing emphasis on carbon tracking and sustainability, this update positions Insight as a more holistic and useful tool for early-stage design and engineering.
The electrical portion of Revit has received an important update on how wires are sized. The new Electrical Conductor and Cable Settings dialog shown below has four tabs to specify how wires should be sized. This relates to a post (and Revit Idea from 2017) I wrote: see https://bimchapters.blogspot.com/2017/05/revit-idea-change-how-wire-is-auto.html. I am not entirely sure if this allows for “engineering judgement” overrides. I will check and update this article.
Revit 2026 may not be the flashiest release, but it’s a meaningful one. It builds on past innovations while laying down infrastructure for future gains—especially around graphics, system zoning, and documentation control. For those of us deeply embedded in daily production workflows, these kinds of thoughtful, incremental changes make all the difference.
Stay tuned for deeper dives and testing benchmarks once we get hands-on with production builds in the coming weeks.
Daniel Stine is the Director of Design Technology and leads the internal research program, Investigations, at the top-ranked architecture firm Lake|Flato, in San Antonio, Texas. He is a registered architect (WI), educator, author, blogger, and international speaker. In addition to teaching graduate architecture students at NDSU, he has written 19 textbooks, which are used extensively in the academic market.
Committed to climate action, Dan was on a six-person team commissioned by the AIA to write the AIA Climate Action Business Playbook. He serves on the national AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Leadership Group. He also chairs a national Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) committee.
Dedicated to furthering the design profession, Dan has given presentations on building performance and design technology in North America, Europe, Singapore, and Australia. He has also presented at AIA conferences, AIA-COTE working groups, universities, lightfair, NVIDIA GTC, Autodesk University, and more.
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