Site Tools

[dazza163968596]

I would love to have all of the improvements listed above and add the following.

• Point tag tool.
  

This tool would let you pick a point (say the corner of a building) this tag would report the coordinates similar to the spot coordinate tool but you could then schedule these points and export them to excel or as a csv file for upload into a total station for setting out. this would save me hours.

• Level Line tool.

This would be available in the surface edit mode and would allow you to draw a line or curve that you can set the elevation of, or specify levels at points along the line which Revit would interpolate along the length of the line. This would be great for setting top & bottom of embankments. Currently you have to put lots of points close together which can leak to other points near the embankment to form a ridge of trough in the graded embankment.

• Topo Dimensions

I would like to be able to dimension & pick the edges of sub-regions.

[gravelin]

I would love to
group topo points in the surface and have the ability to select/move/rotate/copy/etc... the groups.

[DanielleAnderson]

I would like:

1. the ability to pick a line or series of lines while editing a topo, that would put points along the line. It's tough to place many points one at a time.

2. The ability to define an area on a topo, and then through as slope arrow, tell Revit "i want this area to slope from this point to this point at this slope, or by this amount." Sloped graded region.

YES! This and curbs and I would be a happy reviteer.

[Andre Baros]

Ditto here that I really don't need a complete Civil package, but here are a few items that keep coming up.

Building pads need to be tweaked... the only solution I've found for pads is to use them and then put them on a workset that doesn't display. Maybe this was the plan, but I can never get them to work correctly in both plan and section, it's one or the other. Either I have landscape in my basement walls, or I have a pad cutting into my footings.

Site relative start and end points. The same way the I can have a stair or wall start at level one, I would like to have it start at topo 1 and go to level 2 or use topo 1 as a reference and explicitly extent 4' down and 10' up. Have you ever tried to place a fence or garden wall on a slopped site? Even a ramp from grade to level 1?

A "site slab" or "site solid" object. This would be like a floor, in that it could have thickness, sweeps, host objects, etc, except that it would be topo hosted instead of level hosted and would confrom to the topo surface shape. This would let you build walkways, ramps, planting beds, etc. attach curb sweeps to them, place railing on them, etc. and have all these items show up in section, etc. (unlike a floor, a "site slab" would cut it's own site pad.

More later, I was just battling with site pads again and found a lot in common with this thread.

[DanielleAnderson]

A "site slab" or "site solid" object. This would be like a floor, in that it could have thickness, sweeps, host objects, etc, except that it would be topo hosted instead of level hosted and would confrom to the topo surface shape. This would let you build walkways, ramps, planting beds, etc. attach curb sweeps to them, place railing on them, etc. and have all these items show up in section, etc. (unlike a floor, a "site slab" would cut it's own site pad.

That is a perfect idea! I think that could solve the issue with curbs and sidewalks.

I am also glad to see that I am not the only one who has issues with pads, I thought I was doing something wrong.

[narlee]

Do you guys find "building pads" useful? Really?

[narlee]

On the sidewalks issue, I'm starting to use roofs with slope arrows, defining the roof as 4" thick concrete, for instance.

But, I agree, that the architecture doesn't stop at the front door (or begin there, depending on your direction of travel !!!) and the site tools are critical to good presentation and good architecture.

Geof Narlee.

[Steve_Stafford]

...Building pads need to be tweaked... the only solution I've found for pads is to use them and then put them on a workset that doesn't display. Maybe this was the plan, but I can never get them to work correctly in both plan and section, it's one or the other. Either I have landscape in my basement walls, or I have a pad cutting into my footings.

I think of pads as the base of excavation. I tend to do one of two things with them. Treat a pad as the compacted crushed stone base and make it the thickness of the intended base or treat it as a "membrane" and make it very thin. Then change the object category setting to use a thin line for CUT too. It ends up looking as though it is a line that shares the underside of the floor slab.

...On the sidewalks issue, I'm starting to use roofs with slope arrows, defining the roof as 4" thick concrete, for instance...

Any particular reason why roofs instead of floors? You can do much the same thing with them too...

[Andre Baros]

I have to use pads to cut out basements on sites with topography... so I set the thickness to .25in right at the bottom of the slab and then put it on a workset that's always off by default.

[Wes Macaulay]

I've lost track of the number of times I place 2 sub-regions next to each other only to have an error telling me that this can't be done. But then 5 mins later it will work on a different part of the topo.

Turn on the triangulation for the topo and you'll see why subregions don't always work - esp if you're using a curved subregion on a topo with lots of points at lots of different heights! If you can simplify the surface in these areas you'll get more reliable results.

Revit makes site modeling so much easier than so many civil apps. I think these civil tools have opened up a Pandora's box for the developers: they probably didn't expect that we'd be asking for road design tools!

With regards to the wish for a slope arrow... I've just gotten out some trace and worked out the grades by hand. Somewhat menial I suppose, but still more enjoyable than putting lines back onto their right layers in AutoCAD.