rotating north, linked projects, project north, etc.

[Justin Marchiel]

I have a project where a user started to create buildings that where going to be linked into a site project. on screen we default up is north, down south. so the user started creating the buildings with there current orientation relative to north. the building are rectangular and run north south, so to document the building we would need to rotate the building so that north is to the left of the page.

I would have like to start out with north to the left, but the building is to far to want to rotate it now. it would be easy to rotate the project just by using the rotate to true north (and faking the orientation), but i am worried about what will happen when we link it onto a site.

will i have issues with the faked rotated project, or does the publish coordinates fix this issue. I have limited knowledge of the linked files and publish coordiates, so i am looking for any advice.

Thanks

Justin

[nandini]

why dont you do a save as copy for back up and just go ahead and do what you are thinking of...nothing fails to try.

[Wes Macaulay]

You're in less trouble if you have to reorient true north than project north. If you link said building onto a site, you can publish the building's orientation back to its own file. So after you've done this, in said project, when you change the plan orientation to true north, it takes on the rotation given to it in the master file. Give it a go and you'll see how it works.

[patricks]

You can rotate your crop region, and project north and true north should remain the same, and notes and tags will still remain readable. I did that recently on a project where project north was up on my floor plans, but I had to rotate it so that north was to the left on my site plans because of the shape of the site.

To rotate your plan so that north is to the left, display the crop region and pull it out really far from the building. Then select the crop region and use the rotate tool to rotate it 90 degrees TO THE RIGHT (clockwise). This will make the building appear to rotate to the left. Then adjust the crop region back down around your building and place it on your sheet.

[Justin Marchiel]

You can rotate your crop region, and project north and true north should remain the same, and notes and tags will still remain readable. I did that recently on a project where project north was up on my floor plans, but I had to rotate it so that north was to the left on my site plans because of the shape of the site.

To rotate your plan so that north is to the left, display the crop region and pull it out really far from the building. Then select the crop region and use the rotate tool to rotate it 90 degrees TO THE RIGHT (clockwise). This will make the building appear to rotate to the left. Then adjust the crop region back down around your building and place it on your sheet.

interrresting work around. how did you find the file to work on? how does tagging work in this senario? is all your text and annotation come in right reading with your crop region rotated?

Justin

[patricks]

All notes, annotations, tags, etc. read correctly even w/ the crop region rotated.

I personally don't even consider it a workaround. To me that's just how it's done if you need Project North to be in an orientation other than straight up.

I'm not sure but I think if you do it early in the project all the subsequent created views will already be in the correct oritentation. Otherwise you'll just have to rotate the crop region of each plan view.

[Justin Marchiel]

thanks!

Great tip!

Justin

[Wes Macaulay]

Reverse-rotating crop regions is indeed a good tip but I've never understood why you have to rotate it backwards! It's an even better tip for those instances when you need to align an angled wing of a building to the orientation of the sheet.

A more comprehendable method is to draw a scope box in your view, then rotate it in the direction you want the view rotated; then change each view's Scope Box to the one you created and rotated.

We've had problems when exporting views with rotated crop regions back to AutoCAD -- it seems Revit gets confused about which area of the view is getting cropped, and it crops the wrong area, so half your floor plan is missing when you open it in AutoCAD. We usually have to turn off the crop region when creating DWGs. This is still a problem when you use scope boxes as well, unfortunately.

[Justin Marchiel]

i was just playing with this and it is really great!

One question that i have is there a way to get the crop region back to the original orientation? I guess you would need to know the exact angle that you originally rotated it.

Also on a master site plan how does the publish coordinates work with this? Does the coordiantes only really help with elevations relative to other buildings? I just loaded some buildings into a file. i am not sure why or if i need to publish the coordiantes. Is this required?


Justin

[patricks]

I don't think we had any problems exporting the site plan views that were rotated on the last big project I worked on.

As for rotating the opposite way, I know exactly why it works that way:

Imagine you are standing with one arm stretched straight out in front of you. Imagine there is an object to your left that you want to grab and bring over to be in front of you. The object needs to move to the right in order to be in front of you. But to do that, you have to rotate your arm to the left, grab the object, and then rotate your arm back to the right.

That's what Revit does. If North on your plan is up, and you need it to be to the left, you have to first rotate the crop region to the right. What used to be the top edge of your crop region is now on the right side. Then Revit takes the right side of the crop region and moves it back to the top, and rotates the building to the left along with it. Presto, now the North side of the building is oriented to the left in the view.

It's the same way with True North. If Project North is 15 deg. to the right of True North, then when you specify where True North is, you have to go 15 degrees to the left. Then Revit takes the project and rotates it 15 degrees back to the right so that True North is back to straight up, and Project North is 15 degrees to the right.

Get it? :D

*edit* another way to look it is, if you want North to be to the left, that means the top will be the east side. So that means you have to rotate the top of your crop region to be on the east side, which means rotating it to the right. That will make North become oriented to the left.

Still get it? ;)

[johnf.77896]

great explanation patricks

John Fleming
GMK Architecture, inc.

[Wes Macaulay]

One question that i have is there a way to get the crop region back to the original orientation? I guess you would need to know the exact angle that you originally rotated it.

Also on a master site plan how does the publish coordinates work with this? Does the coordiantes only really help with elevations relative to other buildings? I just loaded some buildings into a file. i am not sure why or if i need to publish the coordiantes. Is this required?To reset the view, switch to True North and then back to Project North.

If you're rotating the buildings when linked, and the host file is oriented to true north, then publish coords to all the linked files.

And Patrick, now that you put it that way, it all makes sense. Of course I got lost reading your post, but then I sat down and cut a hole in sheet of paper and rotated the hole. Then I finally got it... :beer:

[Justin Marchiel]

To reset the view, switch to True North and then back to Project North.

If you're rotating the buildings when linked, and the host file is oriented to true north, then publish coords to all the linked files.

And Patrick, now that you put it that way, it all makes sense. Of course I got lost reading your post, but then I sat down and cut a hole in sheet of paper and rotated the hole. Then I finally got it... :beer:

I guess what i am asking is what is the real value of publishing the coordinates? I just thought it is the right thing to do from reading the posts, but what does it actually do?

Justin

[Wes Macaulay]

In the files that have been linked, it sets their True North orientation in each view; you'll see no change if your views are set to Project North. And when importing data, if everyone is using the same origin, DWGs will come in at the shared location and correct rotation. When exporting using Shared Coords, the resulting DWGs will be at their correct location and rotation as well.

[Wes Macaulay]

Ok Patrick, I just rotated True North and I don't know how I even thought I was doing it in reverse before :mrgreen:

It just makes so much more sense now... because in fact you are rotating the crop region, not the objects in the view.