How are you lately! Are you a regular Dynamo Sandbox user or pioneer? Time to share some thoughts!
Our team is reconsidering how many versions of Autodesk products Dynamo Sandbox should support moving forward. For example, the latest stable Dynamo Sandbox 2.8.0 can be used stand alone but the out of box geometry nodes currently support the cases when Revit 2021, Revit 2020, Revit 2019 are installed locally ( same years for AutoCAD verticals and other Autodesk products). If a user only have Revit 2018 installed locally, he or she will not be able to use the geometry nodes while all other functionalities remain the same. In history, in fall season every year our team will drop a single Revit version and add one version of support back. For example, Dynamo 2.9.0 may support Revit 2022 preview release but drop Revit 2019 support.
However, supporting geometry library across many product versions does not come for free. That is why our team are re-evaluating how useful this past pattern is for you and your fellow workers so our team could plan for the best. Depending on your feedback, we may consider reducing the versions Sandbox will be supporting in order to make room for other Dynamo projects and bug fixes. Please share your votes and if you prefer, tell us about your workflow and why you support certain number of versions for Sandbox to support. If preferred, you may also propose when you prefer to see such change.
Cheers,
Dynamo Team
Single Autodesk product version support (e.g. latest Sandbox only support latest Revit preview release)
Two Autodesk product versions support (e.g. latest Sandbox only support latest Revit preview release and stable release)
Three Autodesk product versions support (e.g. no change to current behavior. latest Sandbox support latest Revit preview release, stable releases for two years)
Something to keep in mind is that my office like many others is just now making Revit 2021 available for use. I think my office only has one project in Revit 2021 and we have over 50 active projects. If you were to change to a single or double support system it could be good to trail support for the most current version of Revit by 6 months. This would allow support for a more popular Revit release.
Edit:
Also, some food for thought for people is that Dynamo inside of Revit will still have this functionality. I have never actually used sandbox as I always have Revit open (and dynamo is hotkeyed). It is easier for me to open dynamo through Revit than opining the sandbox. If this helps free up time and could make a better product its something to think about.
Sandbox does not sit upon any host application (Such as Revit) – so any custom nodes containing specific host API functionality will also not be accessible.
But this discussion is about the support for Revit geometry?
With neither any idea nor inclination to know of the commercial/business aspects of software development, I’d request that the version support issue be made redundant with a truly stand alone Dynamo Sandbox, one that can be installed without any host product prerequisite.
A bare minimum Dynamo Sandbox into which custom libraries can be imported.
Even if geometry nodes aren’t included, it could at least serve as a REPL for Design Script.
Dynamo doesn’t have its own geometry kernel. It has to piggy-back on to the one used in Revit, AutoCad, Inventor or 3dsMax (which use the autodesk ShapeManager or LibG). If you install dynamo sandbox without having any of the other software from the “supported” list, you won’t be able to use any of the geometry functionality (points, lines, surfaces, solids, etc.)
If the the current status quo is changed (latest + two versions back), for example Dynamo sandbox 3.0 will work as expected only if you have Revit 2022 installed…
Thanks for the clarification @Dimitar_Venkov, that does sound like a huge amount of hassle for the Dynamo team!
Just wondering aloud (from my total ignorance) could Dynamo be bundled with an existing open source kernel which the team contributes too?
I presume it would be no worse than the translations which Dynamo is already doing between itself and Revit or 3DS Max or Civils or Form-it etc. etc. (if those kernels cannot be bundled with an open source piece of software).
For Dynamo Revit, it might be an advantage to utilise kernel which doesn’t have to be BIM?
Dynamo was designed this way! But, there is a bunch of work creating the wrappers in LibG that would need to be created that would be a bit of undertaking
I suppose this is a conversation about where Dynamo wants to get to…
If there are big ticket goals which we can see the team targetting, it informs everything else… Even if they aren’t there just yet.
So if the team cut geometry from sandbox right now and use that resource to create wrappers for an open source solution down the line, maybe that is ok?
Ah that brings this post into full circle. Knowing that I still think it could be fine to lessen the number of years. But if it does go to one then I would strongly recommend having it be based on the prior version. I bet most users have 2020 installed but only a small percent have 2021.
Does autodesk keep track of the number of installed copies per version. That would give you the defiant answer.
Dynamo team decide to drop to two versions of ASM support after Global launch of 2022 products (April 2021) in exchange of higher velocity of other improvement. Thank you all for your feedback
