Site and Shared coordinates

[dbaldacchino]

Ok, just when I thought I knew all there is to know about shared coordinates :)

I just want to verify something...I have a site Revit project and linked in the site dwg file (origin to origin). I acquired coordinates from the dwg (I don't want to mess with the file since we're still in ADT 2006 and Revit will render the file incompatible otherwise). So now the site rvt project shared coordinates are synchronized with it. Now I link in the Revit Building model and place it on the site, giving it the rotation necessary etc. Now I published the shared coordinates to the RB model and saved the location. So far so good.

Now I went to the RB model and linked in the site dwg (the one used in the step above). If when I link it in, the current view is set to True North, the dwg will have the wrong orientation. If I change the view to Project North and then link in the dwg again, it comes in at the correct location and orientation. Is this normal?

[Scott Womack]

I believe this is normal. When you published the coordinates from the file you linked the builing into, it took them, and made its Project North match the published north, but did not actually turn the model.

[LRaiz]

No this is not normal. Furthermore I can not reproduce the behaviour that you describe(using 9.0). When I follow your description and open RB model that already received shared coordinates and then change view to True North the model rotates as it should. And when I later link in site.rvt by shared coordinates it comes in correctly to match True North orientation. I suggest retracing your steps to see if you made a mistake.

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks Leonid. Using the above process, it has happened to me yesterday too on a test project while showing someone how to do this without publishing back coordinates to the dwg. I'll try assemble an example and if I can reproduce it, I'll post everything here and send it to Support. Thanks for confiming.

[LRaiz]

1. I think that acquiring coordinates from dwg is the right way of doing things because as a result shared coordinates will be exactly the same as surveyor coordinates.

2. As I said in my previous post I could not reproduce the problem. Things worked OK for me using 9.0

[dbaldacchino]

Ok, I was able to reproduce the same issue and I need to trace what I'm doing wrong.

a) site.dwg is drawn with true north running vertically, which is how most site plans are drawn (building rotated 8 degrees)

b) Building.rvt is drawn with orthogonal walls. True North should be off by 8 degrees but I did not rotate true north in this file.

c) Site.rvt:I linked in site.dwg Origin to Origin, then acquired coordinates from it. Now I went to the site view (true north) and rotated true north by 8 degrees. The site looks as if nothing happened, but Level 1 (which is set at project North) is now orthogonal, which is what I want. Now I linked in Building.rvt Origin to Origin or center to Center....doesn't matter as it will be moved around to fit site. I positioned it where it needs to be on the site and published coordinates to it. Saved the site.rvt file and saved locations back to Building.rvt. I was prompted to save location in dwg even though I never touched the dwg after linking Origin to Origin, so I selected the option to not save but to retain its position (don't want to make it "Not Shared").

Now I went to Building.rvt and opened the site view (true north). I linked in site.dwg By Shared Coordinates and the site comes in rotated by 8 degrees. So I undid, went to a Level 1 (plan north) and re-linked site.dwg By Shared Coordinates and it came in properly.

Why is this happening? In the attached Building.rvt, I left the dwg out so you can link it in separately in both views and see the rotation. Thanks for looking into this.

EDIT: I phrased my last sentence wrong in the previous post...I meant thanks for looking into this (I was supposed to type "conferring"....too big of a word for me!). Also, I am working on 9.1.

[dbaldacchino]

I believe I found the problem and it might be a little bug in 9.1.

When I go to File->Import/Link->CAD Formats, the dialog comes up and I check the "Link" option, select Black and White, and positioning By Shared Coordinates. See image "Dialog 1" and notice that "Orient to View" is greyed out and checked. This is the culprit...since it was greyed out, I didn't think much about it since you cannt change it. To activate it, I have to click the Current view Only checkbox and uncheck it again....now I can unckeck "Orient to View" since it's no longer greyed out. (see image "Dialog 2"). Now site.dwg lands properly in the site view that is set to true north.

I tried this in another version of Revit and the Orient to View option is not greyed out as in Dialog 1.