Site Contour Problems

[rookwood]

I have completed a few tutorials on importing ACAD drawings into Revit with some success.

However, I cannot get any drawings that I or civil engineers, have created in ACAD to convert the imported symbol into elevation points and contours. Even a drawing furnished with a courseware book/CD from CDV Systems did not convert ALL the contours.

I have gone back to the original in ACAD and made certain that the contours are correct relative to the Z coordinate, but no luck. When I use the 'Use Imported' command nothing happens.

I hope I don't have to resort to using the ACAD drawing as a template and create the contours in Revit.

Any ideas as to what I might be doing..or not doing?

[beegee]

After clicking the " use imported" command, select the acad dwg, then select the layers that contain the contour information, then finish sketch, and you should have it.

Also, check out THIS THREAD. (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=6756&highlight=use+imported)

[rookwood]

BeeGee;

Been there and done that. No response after 'Use Import'. It just appears as was before the command.

I have even tried using a new default project file, thinking perhaps I did something wrong with the site plan in my current project. No change.
Revit is not creating the elevations and contours.

[aggockel50321]

Been there and done that. No response after 'Use Import'. It just appears as was before the command.
Once you start the topo surface, and you select the "Use Imported" command, are you then clicking on (selecting) your imported drawing?

Once you do, a dialog showing all the imported dwg's layers should pop up. You then check / uncheck the relevant layers...

[rookwood]

Yes I do select the imported drawing and then select/deselect the appropriate layers.

Nothing happens to the imported drawing and no elevations/contours are generated.

[Tom Dorner]

The contours might be there, just up at an elevation where they are not visable in a plan view. Be sure to switch to a 3D shaded view and zoom extents to verify that a toposurface was generated. Also make sure that you have topo on in the view. If the topo is present in 3D, then you need to adjust your view range to see a plan represntation of the topo.

Tom

[aggockel50321]

Post the .dwg you're using for the import.

[rookwood]

Andrewg;

Here is the AutoCAD file I am trying to import. It was done in ADT2005, so I don't know if that is an issue.

Thanks for you time and help. I will be travelling tomorrow but will check into the forum tomorrow evening when I get to my hotel room.

BTW, my e-mail address is rookwood@msn.com

[beegee]

There you go.

I had no idea waht scale to import the dwg at, so I settled for inches as the base, but that could well be incorrect, so you may need to reimport or resize.
When you open an elevation, you will see that the topo is located some considerable distance above the 0.0 datum level. You will need to Relocate the project to bring the levels and contours into relativity.

[rookwood]

BeeGee;

Thanks for the work, but now I am really confused.

When I imported my original drawing into Revit and activated the 'USE IMPORTED' command, I did not see the nodes you are supposed to get when the command has been completed. I could, however, go to the 3-D view and see the topgraphic lay of the site as in your drawing.

When I opened your drawing, I saw nothing different than what I was getting, so I started playing with your drawing.

When I am in Site view, click MODIFY and select the site plan, I get no option to EDIT the contours. So no change with what I was doing. However, when I am in 3-D view, click Modify, select the contours (they turn red) I now have the option to EDIT. Select EDIT and then the nodes now appear.

Am I missing something. Why can I not edit the contours in the Site view? Also, I noticed in Site view that when I click MODIFY and select the drawing, I get 'DELETE LAYERS', 'FULL EXPLODE' and 'PARTIAL EXPLODE' options. These do not appear on any of the tutorials I have done. This is usually when you get the option to EDIT.

thanks

[beegee]

You will need to Relocate the Project before you can see the topo in your Site Plan view. Its currently way up above your view cut plane. Once relocated, you can proceed to Edit the contours from your Site Plan view.

Currently you are selecting the imported Autocad dwg to edit, hence the options are those available for editing a dwg - 'DELETE LAYERS', 'FULL EXPLODE' and 'PARTIAL EXPLODE' , etc. These are new options in 7.0.

[rookwood]

Thanks beegee,

I am leaving town but will try this when I arrive at my hotel room this evening.

[rookwood]

beegee;

The site contours range from elevation 552' to 642'. I drew a rectangular footprint for the building wall and then relocated the project with the top of foundation set at 630'.

When I went to 3D view, after importing the site plan, the contours were still way above the building. When I edit the contours to check the elevations, they read correctly ranging from 552' to 642'. I check the building elevations by viewing the elevation sheets and they are set correctly.

The only thing I can think of where I may have gone wrong was scaling the civil engineer's ACAD drawing X12 to convert from engineers unit to architects unit.

[beegee]

Check that your elevation base was set to "shared" before you relocated the project. If it was, then there is a problem with the scaling on import.

[SkiSouth]

Rookwood, don't get discouraged over this. Once you see what Revit is doing, it'll come more naturally. Check your view range with your site view under Floor plan. It does not update after you import your data. I changed the site plan view to have a higher offset value and unlimited range and your contours show up in the site plan view so you can edit them.

[rookwood]

beegee: I followed the tutorial for relocating the project and did, in fact, set the elevation base to SHARED prior to relocating the project. I then changed the top of foundation to 630' SHARED, zoomed to fit all, then changed the elevations of bottom of footer, roof, etc. to SHARED.

In 3D view, I zoomed to the imported contours (much higher than the building walls), clicked MODIFY, select the contours, clicked EDIT, then read the node elevations. The node elevations read at the proper range - 552' to 642'.

If you took the drawing you posted of my site plan and just placed a simple rectangular footprint on the floor plan view, I think it will illustrate what I am seeing.

Skisouth: Are you saying the view ranges for the Site Plan and various floor plan views do not UPDATE even after the project is relocated? I realize that you can change the view range if you want to see items outside the range. However, if the project has been relocated with a top of foundation elevation of 630' and the contour range of 552' to 642', wouldn't both contours and building be within range?

It appears that beegee has guided me in the right direction for importing my site plan contour .dwg into my Revit project. My confusion now seems to be that I don't understand why, in 3D view, the building and contours are not in close proximity to each other if the project has been relocated.

[rookwood]

beegee and Skisouth:

I am also using a great cousrseware book from CDV Systems, Inc., Cyril Verley, for Revit 6.1. The book suggests that it is better to create a duplicate view of the desired plan and 'LINK' your AutoCAD .dwg file. The reason being, they say, is that this will allow you to work with the .dwg file in one view and not have to bother with view control to adjust it in a view you are going to plot later.

They duplicate their First Plan view to import the site plan .dwg file.

I did not do this with my project, however. Make sense? Verley was apparently with the original Revit company prior to Autodesk buying them and is some sort of guru when it comes to Revit.

[SkiSouth]

I've never been one to follow everyone's advise. What I do to relocate is lock my levels to each other, and literally change the base elevation of the house to the elevation needed (not 0'-0" but 630'-5") Got to admit, while that WILL force the house to show up, the Relocate or if linked shared location really is easier to work with (sometimes I don't have time to dink - I just force it to get the job done). The linking/relocate really is the right and better approach.

As far as views go, remember that a view is simply a "window" into the project, with independent controls. So If you change the project in anyway, the view will hold the original values set for that view because that's what it does, it's just a view into the project model. Think of a bicycle outside a window you can see. Now someone moves the bicycle so you can't see it. Everything else outside the window is the same, the trees the street, the grass. Same with Revit, simply because you move something doesn't tell the window (view) that you don't still want to see the trees, grass and street. Well, in a house you can't move the window, but in Revit you can or at least in Revit tell the window (view) where to move to in the wall so you can see the bicycle again. So all I did on your site plan was to tell the view where to locate to and then show what object styles were turned on for that view.

I assume you have checked and the structural foundation object style and wall styles, floors etc are turned on to show with the view. Another "Gotcha" is that a hidden line site plan will obsure any objects below it in plan view. If you can't find something you are sure is there, sometimes simply switching to wireframe display will help you understand what's going on with contours. Wireframe will also help you in editing the contours.

[beegee]

Label your contours, then select one of the contour labels and check its properties. It should be set to the same base as the levels, ie shared. ( as long as both the topo and the levels are set to the same base, either shared or project, they should relate ) If it is, and the contours are showing above the relocated levels, post the file with the levels in it for us to look at.

[rookwood]

Here is what I have done:

Saved file under another name; increase field of view to unlimited; relocated the project with top of foundation at 630'; imported site contour.dwg file and executed USE IMPORTED; Nodes now visable for editing; go to 3D view and contours are several hundred feet above walls/foundation.

Saved file under another name; increase field of view to unlimited; did not relocate project; imported site contour.dwg and executed USE IMPORTED; Nodes now visable for editing; go to 3D view and contours are still several hundred feet above walls/foundation.

NO APPARENT DIFFERENCE.

Now, open site contour.dwg in AutoCAD and change all contour elevations to begin at 0'-0"; saved file under another name; increase field of view to unlimited; imported site contour.dwg and executed USE IMPORTED; Nodes now visable for editing; go to 3D view and contours and walls/foundation are right on proper elevation.

Surely, this doesn't mean that I need to change the civil drawing elevations on all projects prior to importing into Revit? It seems that when I relocated the project, it imported the contours 630' above the revised top of foundation (changed from 0'-0" to 630'-0").

I now understand the concept of relocating the project, globally, from 0'-0" to the real world elevation. But I must be doing something wrong for the imported contours to remain 630' above the top of foundation.

[beegee]

Try revising your process thus :-

1. Start project. .> Levels start at 0.0 (project base )
2. Import topo.
3. Relocate your project so that the lowest level is now at 630' ( project base, not shared base )

Topo and levels should now be relative ?

[rookwood]

beegee;

That finally did it. This now begs the question as to when do you relocate a project using the SHARED LEVELS option?

It seemed logical that your earlier advice was on target. However, everything, including the later imported contour drawing, was relocated.

< Edit:: Remainder of post split to New Thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=12741) (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=12741)>

thanx for your patience.