Site Contour Lines

[jack.barukh]

I have an Autocad civil drawing with numerous contour lines. What's the best way for me to use the CAD file to my advantage in Revit?

Do I just LINK it into Revit and trace over the contour lines from scratch?

Or. . . .if I do a full explode of the contour lines in Revit, can I somehow re-assign the 2d lines into 3d contour lines?

Help! I'm clueless as to where the best place to start is.

Thanks!

[Overconstrained]

HI there,

Is the civil drawing information in 3D? If so, you can import it into Revit and create a toposurface directly from it.

[jack.barukh]

Hi - thanks for the response.

Well, I just spoke with the engineer and he said that while the lines are not truly 3d lines, if you list them in CAD, there are 3d properties (eg. there is a Z-axis).

So, can I do what you suggested?

Thanks.

[Overconstrained]

Sounds like you might be okay.

Import the dwg into a revit view (usually the site view), then go to your "Site" design bar. Select toposurface - use imported - import instance, then pick your imported dwg.

See how that goes.

[jack.barukh]

should I import as a LINK? Or not.

[Overconstrained]

I don't think it matters. Try it and if it doesn't work just do a straight import.

[luigi]

Hi there Jack...maybe you will find out that the civil did have the 2d lines elevated to the proper elevation,but it is in my experience that they won't be, although you can ask the civil todo that for you... What I usually do in this case, I open my copy of autocad (that is if you have one) and make polylines of each contour line (edit polyline and choose one segment and it will ask you to turn it into a polyline, then Join and then select everything, and all the lines that join that segment will be part of the contour.) Then after all the contour lines are complete, begin changing the property of each contour line for the z axis to be the proper elevation (make sure if the drawing was drawn in Feet/Meter or Inch/mm and assign proper elevation.

Then you can import into Revit (and it can be from a link) and then choose the link when making toposurface...

Hopefully your civil has done this for you, especially since they should have a program that places the elevation marks they got on the topo survey to a proper elevation in acad...and using that to make 3d countour lines...

Take care,

Hi - thanks for the response.

Well, I just spoke with the engineer and he said that while the lines are not truly 3d lines, if you list them in CAD, there are 3d properties (eg. there is a Z-axis).

So, can I do what you suggested?

Thanks.

[jack.barukh]

Thanks to both of you for your help. The contour lines did indeed have z-axis coordinates, so my import into Revit was successful. Thanks again. Much appreciated.

[richelleharp]

Thanks for this post i just installed 30 min ago. And was able to begin my pilot project with this advice.

[richelleharp]

Hi there Jack...maybe you will find out that the civil did have the 2d lines elevated to the proper elevation,but it is in my experience that they won't be, although you can ask the civil todo that for you... What I usually do in this case, I open my copy of autocad (that is if you have one) and make polylines of each contour line (edit polyline and choose one segment and it will ask you to turn it into a polyline, then Join and then select everything, and all the lines that join that segment will be part of the contour.) Then after all the contour lines are complete, begin changing the property of each contour line for the z axis to be the proper elevation (make sure if the drawing was drawn in Feet/Meter or Inch/mm and assign proper elevation.

Then you can import into Revit (and it can be from a link) and then choose the link when making toposurface...

Hopefully your civil has done this for you, especially since they should have a program that places the elevation marks they got on the topo survey to a proper elevation in acad...and using that to make 3d countour lines...

Take care,

I am using your method as my civil contact is a field guy and has little computer skill. In future I would like to import the drawing into revit without having to trace all of the contour lines. Any suggestions?

[dbaldacchino]

Typically, site drawings are drawn in 3d (countours placed at correct elevation relative to sea level). You can just link in the dwg and through the site tools, do a toposurface by selecting the link's layer that contains the contour info.

[richelleharp]

Typically, site drawings are drawn in 3d (countours placed at correct elevation relative to sea level). You can just link in the dwg and through the site tools, do a toposurface by selecting the link's layer that contains the contour info.

I cannot work with the existing lines. Typically I can use autocad commands and offset the boundary to create setbacks and scale the drawing to what I need yet though the layers are not locked or frozen I am unable to do any thing.

[dbaldacchino]

What is the reason you cannot work with the existing lines? Have you read through the help topic "Creating a Toposurface from Imported 3D Data"?

[Steve_Stafford]

Your site contours are AEC Proxy Objects, you have to explode them before Revit can create a topo surface from them.