Toposurface from a Text File

I responded to a thread at the Autodesk Community Revit Forums back in May. They described having a survey file and a points file that could be used to create a toposurface. My initial reply focused on resolving this warning, "Imported Toposurface Points are located a large distance from the model and might not display properly. Points will be centered on the model instead".

I offered this advice.

• Import the survey (a DWG file) first using Auto - Center to Center
• Move it so the relevant portion of the site is roughly centered on the Project Base Point/Survey Point
• Select the Survey Point and Unclip it (this prevents it from moving to the 0,0,0 location of the DWG file in the next step, which is far away)
• Acquire Coordinates from the DWG survey file

This resolves the real world coordinates based on the survey data. I felt they'd be able to create the toposurface successfully. Instead, they responded that the toposurface was not created in the correct location. I took another look and experimented with the points file they posted (in the thread) and offered these steps.

• Add a new set of point coordinates to your text file at 0,0,0, on the first line.
• Use this version of the points file to create the surface.

I then commented, "If you followed my directions earlier about acquiring coordinates you should see the coordinate values of the survey file when you select the Survey Point.". Then I recommended the following steps.

• Unclip the Survey Point > Enter E/W: 0' and N/S: 0'
• The Survey Point should jump to the 0,0,0 location of the survey file, far from the project origin.
• Make sure your View Range is set high enough to see all the points of the surface
• Now create your toposurface
• When the points are visible you'll see one point at 0,0,0 but it will be at the Internal Origin (>R2020, Project Base Point in older versions)
• Select all the (toposurface) points > move using the Internal Origin/Project Base Point location as your first pick and the Survey Point as your second pick (see image below).
• This will move all the points down so the toposurface is located properly relative to the survey
• Before finishing the surface > Delete the one toposurface point at 0,0,0
• Finish Surface

I found that adding the extra point at 0,0,0 silences the warning about the distance from origin and it gives us a known location within the point data to select and move the entire surface accurately.

Then another member asked about doing something similar but wanted to report a project elevation of 100'-0" instead of 0'-0". I replied with the following.

In order to show the Project Elevation as 100'-0" you'll need to model your building at that project elevation instead of 0'-0". Then when you establish shared coordinates you can show the true elevation. If I was tackling this I'd create a building model at 100' and a separate "site" model.

I'd import the site data in the site model and create a toposurface. It should be at the real elevation and report the relevant coordinates you expect. Then I'd import the building into the site model, move it into position X/Y, rotate it if necessary into alignment with the site conditions and finally move it up to the intended ground floor elevation. Then I'd use Publish Coordinates to pass the building position information out to the building file.

When you open the building model you can edit the Level parameter Elevation Base to use Survey Point (versus Project Base Point) and it will show the True site elevation values instead.

Just a couple days in the life of a thread at an online user forum (spanning nine months).

Model Review - Check for Mirror Casework and Furniture

This post is dedicated to a practical example of using the new tool for Revit called Model Review. This tool is part of the Subscription Advantage Pack that became available recently. As it happens this tool was acquired by Autodesk from Avatech Solutions a few months ago for a tidy sum. I'm sorry to admit that I didn't spend a lot of time getting comfortable with it before the purchase. I thought I'd make up for ignoring it by focusing on a specific problem it can help solve. I should also mention that Beau Turner recently wrote a few nice articles about the tool on his blog "Will Render for Food".

The problem: Users are mirroring casework and furniture elements and some of those items are not supposed to be mirrored because they have very specific manufacturer codes. A left-handed version has a different code than a right-handed version so mirroring will create a right-handed version that looks like a left-handed version. Tracking this situation down isn't easy the way Revit is on its own.

Enter Model Review: (it was called BIM Review before). We can create our own review criteria that will check the model for mirrored components. This is a default condition that exists in the Model Review configuration and it is easy to use in your own Check file. Rather than spending a lot of time itemizing the process in text here the video will cover that. I've posted the example file so it can be downloaded if you are interested in reverse engineering it. Technically you can just reverse engineer the existing templates...that's what I did.

Railing Encore

I dug up another railing example that I've had kicking around for a few years now. It was inspired by a client who was modeling an addition to an existing school building that had this pattern on its stairs already. There was some pressure to use this in the new work as well.


If you look really close you'll see the railing is "floating" on a cushion of air. The exercise was about making the baluster, not worrying about posts. It was quite a lesson in Automatic Sketch Dimensions.


These are the "secret" dimensions that Revit uses to manage the position of your family's parts when you don't take the trouble to be specific. You don't know they are there? That's because they are off by default in all family templates. You can find them under the Annotation Categories Tab in Visibility/Graphics. I wrote this POST about them in April of 2006. But I digress.

I've posted the file so it can be downloaded if interested.
You can watch a video about ASD's about this too.

Download Example Project File HERE.

Revit User's Residential Example Project - Diary

Robert A. van het Hof, Assoc. AIA created this SITE as an example for a computer user group that was discussing 3D modelling software. Let him know what you think. He says on the site that it is a temporary web site so I don't know how long it will exist, check it out! Here's one of the images he posted:

Face Off

A new family template doesn't get much attention. It is called Generic Model Face Based.rft. From Autodesk Revit's help file:

A face-based family must be created from the Generic Model face based.rft template. A face-based component can be placed on any surface, including walls, floors, roofs, stairs, reference planes, and other components. If the family contains a void cutting the host, the component will cut its host, but only if the host is a wall, floor, roof, or ceiling. When a component with a void is placed on any other host, it will not cut.

Interestingly, a void family, when nested in another, will cut a solid that hosts it.

Take a closer look at this kind of family and see if it might be useful? This image is a face based void applied to various faces of hosts.

This image is a face based family void placed on a solid in another family. Then used an array in two directions. A glass solid was included in the array groups to infill the hole. Some possibilites?


Here's another example using a Face Based "window" hosted in another family to create a "confetti" wall or a seemingly random arrangement of windows. Design belongs to HOK.