getting contour lines into revit

[brett549635]

Could someone please help me, this is for architecture school.
I need to create a topo surface in revit of our site using the create from imports file
I have the shape file from gis, but I cannot get it to work.
I've tried everything, exporting the shape file to cad, but this does not work because the elevation data is not coming in. also i tried the map 3d route where you "Import and Elevate contours, but there is no elevation data when i look at the individual lines.
In gis the elevation data is in the attribute table but its listed as elev, i've even make a new one called elevation because I read somewhere that it was needed for the exporting to cad.
Any help would be much appreciated.

[Mike L Sealander]

As far as I know, the Topo tool doesn't read a shape file, it reads the raw surveyor points. Surveyors go out and click their little machine at certain locations on the planet, and these points have spatial location attributes: XYZ coordinates, and sometimes other data. I think a GIS shape file is generated from those original points. So, it seems you need to determine if you have those points in a file. Two back-up methods exist. You can import a CAD file with contours and use the Topo tool to create points within Revit. You kind of just click on the imported CAD contour lines. Set the elevation to 100 feet and click on the 100-foot contour. Set the elevation for new points to 102 feet and click on the 102-foot contour, and so on. The other, sloppier, method is to make a scanned JPEG of a paper copy of the site and import the JPEG into Revit and draw points on top of that. Topography in Revit is kind of weird, so don't set your sights too high when it comes to precision.
Good luck.

[damon.sidel]

I found this:
http://www.thecadmasters.com/wordpress/index.php/2011/03/16/assign-elevations-to-contours-from-an-esri-shape-file/
It may be helpful, but it also may mean you need another Autodesk product like Civil.

[brett549635]

thanks, that actually helped, but now i have another problem.
Each elevation comes into revit on a " different level per say, like one long column,
but i doubt any one in the revit forum will know.


I found this:
http://www.thecadmasters.com/wordpress/index.php/2011/03/16/assign-elevations-to-contours-from-an-esri-shape-file/
It may be helpful, but it also may mean you need another Autodesk product like Civil.

[Craig_L]

You need it in a TIN format, then its just a straight forward import.

[MikeJarosz]

I have used a simple xyz text list that I extracted from Acad to create Revit contours. Acad has some good data extraction tools. However, the list may become too long to use in a text editor that holds everything in memory, like notebook, notepad or even Excel. I had the Unix SED editor, which does not require the text to be in memory. It could edit a 10 million line DXF file without choking.

[damon.sidel]

Each elevation comes into revit on a " different level per say, like one long column...

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Could you elaborate? Also, could you post the shape file so I could play with it?

[patricks]

Civil survey contour lines are really just triangulated using the surveyor's points, same way Revit triangulates contour lines based on points.

For this reason I have found it better, and more accurate, to use the actual surveyor's points to create my Revit topo, rather than using the survey's contour lines. Using the former will usually result in the same, or nearly the same, contour lines as the survey, with little error. Using the latter always results in me having to go around and add a bunch more points to FORCE the Revit contour lines to conform to the survey's contours. The survey points generated the contour lines, to it's better to use that to generate your Revit contour lines.

Having said that, I have successfully used a points text file I received from a surveyor, which I converted into a CSV file using Excel, and then used that to generate the points in Revit. Much faster than entering points manually (which I have done if not too many), and more accurate than using the survey contour lines alone. You just need to watch where the X and the Y coordinate of each point is listed in the text file, or you'll have stuff coming in rotated and/or backwards. Sometimes after creating the file in Excel I have to swap the X and Y coordinate columns so that Revit will read it correctly.

[mermercad]

Patricks-
I'm using Civil3D and trying to help the architect import the csv file of the points into their Revit model. They don't know how to do it. I've provided them contours, but contours don't create as good a surface as points. How do you import a csv file into Revit?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Meredith

[Duncan Lithgow]

I have no experience using it, but does the 'new' Site Designer extension help with this issue?

Site Designer for Revit from AppExchange (https://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/en/Detail/Index?id=appstore.exchange.autodesk.com%3Aautodesksitedesignerextensionforrevit_windows64%3Aen)

[rbcameron1]

If you're still in school, I'd recommend learning something like Dynamo. The site designer tools are a little clunky just because of the way Revit works, but I bet you could rebuild the entire site file in Dynamo in a few quick steps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqdS9Qjd3io It wouldn't be perfect or exact, but academically, it'd be waaaaay quicker and if tuned properly, no one would know the difference. ;)

Cheers