True North / Project North

[MikeJarosz]

I created a Revit topo from a CSV list of points. It worked perfectly. The points came from a survey done in Acad. The Acad drawing has a north arrow pointing straight up, so I am assuming that the plan, as drawn, is oriented to true north. I can find the site on Google earth and the orientation there matches my drawing, so I'm pretty sure I'm facing true north. I inserted the Acad drawing and acquired coordinates. Everything lines up perfectly.

The site is a long rectangle, more or less. The short side of the site is at the top. I want project north to rotate the site about 90 degrees, so that the long side is at the top and the site is horizontal on the sheet. I placed a model line horizontally from the tip of the drawing north arrow then used the "rotate project north" tool to align to the line. Although Revit notified me that 58 objects were reoriented, Everything looked the same!

I sort of expected the view to jump to the project orientation. Obviously, I'm not understanding something here. What am I missing?

[CAtDiva]

I'll start with a simple question: in your view properties, is the orientation set to "True North" or "Project North"?

[MikeJarosz]

That was it. After creating project north, I left the setting on true north.

Even geniuses like me make mistakes sometimes! :lol:

[CAtDiva]

That was it. After creating project north, I left the setting on true north.

Even geniuses like me make mistakes sometimes! :lol:

:lol: I did wonder ... but then again, I only knew the answer 'cause I had the same problem once ...

[MikeJarosz]

Next question.

The project north tool can align to a line: n/s OR e/w, whichever is closest. This resulted in a n/s orientation, but I want e/w. Can I take the result and rotate it again by 90 degrees without screwing something up?

[CAtDiva]

Next question.

The project north tool can align to a line: n/s OR e/w, whichever is closest. This resulted in a n/s orientation, but I want e/w. Can I take the result and rotate it again by 90 degrees without screwing something up?

Yes ... just remember, the rotation you do to project north is opposite the direction you want the plan to rotate (for example, if you want the plan to rotate 90 degrees clockwise, you rotate project north 90 degrees counter-clockwise).

[Craig_L]

As far as I remember (been a while since I had to bother aligning a project) the project north paramater is simply what direction you view the project from ie it requires no rotation its just view orientation (like changing the UCS in CAD or rotating a viewport).

[MikeJarosz]

I'm having trouble understanding how project north, links and worksharing interact with each other. I received a survey in Acad. I created a Revit topo using a csv point file. I then linked the Acad file into the Revit topo so I can get site features like trees and roads from the Acad. The two files coincide nicely. When I switch back and forth between true and project north, they flip in sync. So far, so good.

The site is large and there will be several different buildings on it. Since topo files are usually heavy, I want the topo file to be a link, so that each building team can load or unload the topo as needed. The site is a long rectangle in shape and points almost true north with the short side on top. I want the long side to face project north which means a 90 degree rotation. Again, in the topo Revit file, everything works fine.

The trouble starts when I link the topo into another Revit file. First of all, we are using Revit server for three project teams. The teams will be in NY, KY and FL. To save the topo on the Revit server, it has to be workshare-enabled, so I enabled worksets.

One of the buildings on the site will be the Administration Building. I made a new Revit file for that and saved it on the server. Just to be sure everything is in sync, I linked the Acad survey into the Admin file. I now have the survey in both the Admin and the Topo file. When I linked the Topo into the Admin, it comes in in the rotated project position, while the host Admin Building remains in true north position. I have been struggling to get the two in sync with no luck.

Any suggestions?

[CAtDiva]

I'm having trouble understanding how project north, links and worksharing interact with each other. I received a survey in Acad. I created a Revit topo using a csv point file. I then linked the Acad file into the Revit topo so I can get site features like trees and roads from the Acad. The two files coincide nicely. When I switch back and forth between true and project north, they flip in sync. So far, so good.

The site is large and there will be several different buildings on it. Since topo files are usually heavy, I want the topo file to be a link, so that each building team can load or unload the topo as needed. The site is a long rectangle in shape and points almost true north with the short side on top. I want the long side to face project north which means a 90 degree rotation. Again, in the topo Revit file, everything works fine.

The trouble starts when I link the topo into another Revit file. First of all, we are using Revit server for three project teams. The teams will be in NY, KY and FL. To save the topo on the Revit server, it has to be workshare-enabled, so I enabled worksets.

One of the buildings on the site will be the Administration Building. I made a new Revit file for that and saved it on the server. Just to be sure everything is in sync, I linked the Acad survey into the Admin file. I now have the survey in both the Admin and the Topo file. When I linked the Topo into the Admin, it comes in in the rotated project position, while the host Admin Building remains in true north position. I have been struggling to get the two in sync with no luck.

Any suggestions?

When I worked on a project in this way, I started like you did with the site file. What I found to work best was to link all the other files into this file (as "overlay" not "attach"), then publish the shared coordinates to each of the linked files. When you then link the sight into your individual building models, you use the "Shared Coordinates" setting, rather than center-to-center or origin-to-origin. This allowed me to draw my plans at the orientation I wanted but keep the site at true north. Steve Stafford has a good "shared coordinates" blog post that I referenced to figure out the nuances, but I'm not in a good place to dig that out right now.

[dkoch]

...Steve Stafford has a good "shared coordinates" blog post that I referenced to figure out the nuances, but I'm not in a good place to dig that out right now.

http://revitoped.blogspot.com/2012/05/shared-coordinate-post-summary.html

[patricks]

I always keep any site files with True North and Project North aligned, facing straight up. If it's just one building on the site I might rotate Project North to align to the building, but generally I keep it straight up. If you need certain views to be sideways on a sheet, it's usually easier to just rotate the crop region rather than messing with True or Project North settings.

[MikeJarosz]

If it's just one building on the site

Unfortunately, it's more like 10 buildings. After much headscratching, I finally got this site to work. I just linked the first two buildings into the site plan. Really cool to see one building done by a team in Miami along side another one done in Kentucky.

[MikeJarosz]

The results of this effort are posted here:


http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?155670-Multiple-instances-of-a-link&p=1265769&viewfull=1#post1265769