I'm confused about True North and Project North

[-Nevian-]

I'm fairly new to Revit, and I'm trying to set up a project so that it is has the correct orientation. I work with HVAC, so I receive architectural files (ifc and dwg). The team uses an agreed upon project base point outside the building (0,0,0). I am unsure about what to do next. If I link a drawing it appears at a skewed angle where straight up is north. In order to make drafting easier I've tried to rotate the project base point to a more convenient angle (just using the rotate tool). Then I've rotated True North back the same angle so that in the properties dialog True North actually shows the model at the true skewed angle, and Project North shows the model at an drafting-friendly angle.

My first question - is this the right way to go about it?

[Steve_Stafford]

Sounds fine, as long as using Rotate Project North is before you really get going.

For future reference, Revit's bias is starting with Project North. That means linking the other files and rotating them so they are oriented to whatever project north you think makes it easier to go on paper so to speak. Once those files are in position you can use the Acquire Coordinates tool on the DWG file (usually a survey) to align your model's shared coordinate system and True North with theirs.

This way Project North is assumed at the outset and True North is defined once that is clear what it is.

[-Nevian-]

Thanks for answering :)

I did do this before I started doing any modeling. The reason I wonder if this is the correct procedure is that I'm experiencing a problem with links when I do things this way. When I receive new architectural drawings (dwg) and try to link them after I've done this rotate procedure, they won't look right. Certain parts or elements of the linked file will appear detached from the main part and display far away from the rest. This can be things like all the toilets, grid lines (but not the numbers), rectangles, room boundaries etc. I've attached an image of how it looks. If I load the links while True North and Project North are the same there is no issue and everything looks good. It should be noted that these links are created by ArchiCAD, so it might be a compatability issue? Any ideas?

[Steve_Stafford]

It sounds like the IFC data isn't reconciled with the orientation, or at least how Revit approaches it. FWIW, I've been working on a project this year that has an ArchiCAD model supplied in IFC format. The versions have varied depending on who has dealt with the export in their office. The usual person sends a very usable file while the other person sent a model that was not prepared nearly as well. In my case their model is for reference only and we are not hosting any elements to it so it can be thrown away each time a new version is provided. That's probably less true for you.