Step contours

[Terry Richardson]

Hi there I am relatively new to the world of revit and am currently working in a presentation drawing for a nursing home that will require some 3d contour site drawings. At this stage I would like to develop the site contours as steps instead of the usual gradiated surfaces. Is the an easy way to achieve this look without creating the site as a multiple layer of floors?

Thank you

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I can think of a few ways but it's always easier to provide a solution when you know the variables.
Do you have a CAD file with contour lines already on it or will you be 'making it up' as you go along?
Have you already created a Topo surface?
Do you need the topo to behave as a site object i.e. cuttable with a pad, able to be divided into sub-regions (for roads, sidewalks etc), able to host site objects, etc.

[Terry Richardson]

Hi Dimitri

Thank you for your response, we do have an autocad site plan with 3d topo surfaces. It would be our preference to have this work as if it were a site topo, as you suggest able to host a building pad and subregions.. However, this is less important as this is only presentation at this point and when we get past this stage this will be replaced with a proper topo.

Thank you

[damon.sidel]

We did this recently on a project. It's nothing elegant, but it got the job done: we imported the CAD contours (no 3D), created a "site" floor type that had an earth section pattern and was the thickness of the contour step, then just created floors. It's pretty quick since you can pick the chain of lines from the CAD contours. You either need to cut out the building footprint on each floor (locking the sketch to ref planes can help if you edit the footprint) or you can do a trick: add all the floors to an option set. In the option add a shaft that cuts all the floors. That shaft will only cut floors in the option, so you don't have to worry about it cutting your building floors. Finally, we made sure we chose an appropriate site 0 elevation (in our case, Level 6) and all the contours are on that level with + or - offsets. That way they all reference the same level.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

After looking at it a little more carefully I can think of a couple of ways.. but none of them are simpler, require fewer steps or more effective than using floors :Oops:
I like Damon's solution and that's probably the approach I'd take. As noted, it' surprising how quickly it goes if the lines are already there. Sorry if I got your hopes up :cry: