Site contours moving

[Alex Page]

I imported a 3d dwg survey and used it to creat my topograhy...excellent, all contours line up pretty well, a couple of approximations, but that is fine

BUT...when I move my topo to suit the location of my house (which of course I do quite often to get the site in the right place after looking at sections and 3d etc), if I move the imported dwg to sit over it again, MY CONTOUR LINES HAVE DISPLACED SIGNIFICANTLY from where they should be!!!!!!!

(Refer attached - coloured lines are contours in dwg)


This is a nightmare...how on earth could this happen....
I did some tests and it happens all the time...Is my logic out????

[beegee]

Forgive me if this sounds like a silly question, but you are moving the topo in plan , right ? Not in a 3D view

[Alex Page]

Oh.....thank the gods.....its my logic!
Of coarse, I was also moving it up and down slightly, so the contours, since they are set to every 1.000 meters will move as well

[Alex Page]

Now Ive got a 'philisophical/ logic/ best practice' question

Of coarse, I dont want the levels of the site to change...so...

What is the best way of placing/ moving a house to the best position on the site?

If I move/ rotate the house in plan or move the house in elevation (up/down or sideways), I have problems with some stuff not moving because of constraints etc so generally I find this a no go.

To tweak its position on the site to suit cut/ infills, best view,best sun, lay of the land etc etc I would like to move the site, sometimes in elevation...works really well...BUT then the contours change levels which, of course, I dont want to happen in my site plans

Whats the best practice...is this why some users seem to like to link the site instead of workset it?
Generally Id like the site to be in the main model in a different workset, mainly for ease of use...but then again, since I have to move the pads back to under the house as a seperate exercise if house/ site relationship changes, I guess it's almost as easy to go into seperate 'linked' site plan and move them there.
(A different question If the site is in the same main model, is there any way of locking the pads to the floor slabs of the house, so if I move the site or house, the pads stay under the house?

Yikes....as you can see, Im struggling to come up with a best practice solution for my office, how do other people deal with this???

[Steve_Stafford]

Pay close attention to Phil's COMMENTS among the others in the thread.

[Henry D]

In that post Steve refers to, David Conant and Phil Read seem to be saying two different things, one says to link the building into the site and the other says to link the site into the building:

Phil says "As a best practice I would advocate linking building into the site - even if you have only one building for the site.

David says: "Other advantages of linking in the site include"

For one building, I would think it's better to link the site into the building file rather than linking the building into the site file ...then you don't have to duplicate your project information into a site file and you also have all your Sheets together in one file.

[Steve_Stafford]

There is nothing to prevent you from doing both:

Create a site plan, create a bldg plan...link the bldg to the site, rotate move etc...then publish the coordinates of the site project to the bldg. Then open the bldg project, link the site using shared coordinates and it drops on the bldg in the proper location. Very