Relocate this project

[Bryan Thatcher]

How can i tell if a project is located correctly in real world coordinates. I'm working with civil and don't want to change it if it's already set up. Thanks.

[patricks]

If in 2010, just go to a site plan view and click the light bulb to reveal hidden elements. You'll see little icons showing the Project Origin and the Shared Origin location. Those should also tell you the rotation from true north.

If your file is NOT set up with a true north orientation and coordinates, then all the values should be zero (north/south and east/west distances as well as rotation from true north).

[Bryan Thatcher]

i'm not seeing the icons.

[patricks]

In a floor plan or site plan, there should be a little circle with crosshairs for the project origin and a triangle for the shared origin. In a new project both points are in the same place. If you have acquired coordinates or otherwise relocated the project, they might be in different places.

[Bryan Thatcher]

is this only in 2010?

[Scott Womack]

Yes. It was one of the non-UI enhancements they made.

[Bryan Thatcher]

this project was modeled in 09. If I open it in 2010 will I be able to see the coordinates if they have used them? Thanks.

[TroyGates]

In 2009 you can use the tool on the Tools Menu > Shared Coordinates > Specify Coordinates at a Point to determine what the coordinates are for a point in your project.

[Bryan Thatcher]

OK. the Revit file was originated with out any civil information whatsoever. How can I incorporate the survey information after the fact. The civil department wants a point in the drawing that they can reliably insert at, rotate and scale each time we get new files. How do I accomplish this? Thanks.

[cliff collins]

Does this help?

Here's David Conant's additional information about Shared Coordinates in Revit. Despite what David says about Revit not liking large coordinates, Revit has floating point precision, but limitations in Window's display system forces the Factory to impose some guidelines, which are discussed here:
Factory says: This is one place where you have to follow the rules.

Revit's internal calculations do not like very large coordinate numbers. There are many number systems used in an app like Revit, some for calculating values, some for driving the display, etc. In some cases these systems differ in the precision of the numbers they can use. When numeric values are small, these differences in precision are insignificant. When numbers get large, the differences while still small on a percentage basis become large enough to effect the reults of display and operations. Thus, it is important to keep your Revit project near Revit's origin. (near means within 1 mile/1.6km) Revit's origin is near the center of the space made by the elevation symbols in the default template.

The Rules
•Always build your building near the starting point of the default template.
•Model it with Project North pointing directly up. (lay it out as you would have it appear on sheets)
•If you are using a dwg based site, Link your site file Center To Center.
•Move or rotate the SITE under your project until it is correctly positioned relative to the building. (do not move or rotate the project itself).
•Use the Acquire Coordinates tool and pick the site.
This will set your project's shared coordinated to those of the dwg's wcs. True North will be the dwg's Y axis. Now your building knows where the dwg 0,0 is, but it can still record its own information in well behaving small numbers. It knows and can orient to either True North, or Project North. Once the shared coordinates are set, subsequent imports can be made origin to origin using shared coordinates.


cheers.........

[patricks]

Revit still doesn't like CAD files that are far from the origin, either, even if all the CAD information is contained in a small area.

Prior to 2010, it just made a warning message when linked in, saying that it would be placed at the center of the Revit drawing. This caused problems, though, because it would center the CAD link even in the Z direction, which caused problems when trying to acquire coordinates to create topo for site models.

In 2010, it won't even let you import/link the CAD file at all if the CAD info is more than 2 miles from the 0,0,0 origin.