Making Something from Nothing: New Ways of Using InfraWorks for Your Design

JOSEPH HUANG: Hello. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, based on wherever you connected and watch this recorded video. And actually, this presentation in November is the first class, so welcome to the first class of AU 2023. The class name is called "Making Something from Nothing-- New Ways of Using InfraWorks for Your Design." My name is Joseph Huang, and I'll co-present with my colleague Raghavendra Bhat for this presentation.

Let's just start with a brief introduction. I'm Architect and BIM Leader from Stantec's Chicago office. My experience covers from vertical construction to wet infrastructure. I'm working with a whole bunch of engineers for, like, civil infrastructure projects, and especially for hydropower and dams in some Navy projects.

I used to teach. I taught XR, extended reality, at Northwestern University, so please stay at the end. I'm talking, like, real at the end of the presentation because we have prepared some cool stuff related with XR, InfraWorks to XR. The last but not the least, I have a pleasure to co-present with my colleague Raghavendra Bhat for so many years including this year, so we are so excited. Thank you for signing up for this class.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Hi, everyone. I'm Raghavendra Bhat. I'm BIM Implementation Specialist at the Phoenix office. I'm a civil engineer, and I have specialization with implementation using Autodesk products, and as Joseph said, excited to speak this year as well. And you can see a QR code in the bottom, so if you are not able to ask us any questions or if you have a question later, just feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn.

JOSEPH HUANG: OK, so this slide is the agenda of this class, and I just tried to show it like a diagram so it's easy to read. We will start from an overview workflow, how to integrate InfraWorks to the entire BIM workflow, and following up by set up, manage; design, model; analysis, collaborate; and ending with present and share. And you can see from the lower left side, it's interesting, we purposely-- well, originally it was coincident, but later on, I think this was on purpose. We try to cover, just like a ribbon, four major tips-- manage, create, analyze, present and share.

So here is the learning objectives. First, we will learn where and how to find the data to build your model environment. Second, we will learn the efficient workflows between InfraWorks, Civil 3D, Revit, to generate a content-rich site model.

Third, we learn workflows to extract the data from InfraWorks and combine and bring with the Navisworks model with the world shared coordinates. Then last, finally, we will learn the best practice to host and share your federated models by using Autodesk Construction Cloud. And you will see some videos jumping around at the bottom as advertisement, and we will show more details later.

So starting this, some of you might know this is the city of Chicago. It's a great city, and it's a city-- I have been living here for more than 20 years. Before, I stayed in Oregon, and originally from Taiwan. I grew up in Taipei, Taiwan.

Anyway, so looking at this perspective, actually, the majority of the buildings were built after a great fire. Chicago experienced a great fire back to 1871. So Daniel Burnham, the famous architect and urban planner, said some statement, said, "Make no little plans," and that's a quote from a book. And actually, he encouraged all architects and urban planners in Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871, and why I'm sharing this, again, this is not an architectural history class or because I love architectural urban planning.

Like in these slides, those large-scale urban planning originally start from the print, and a century year-- I mean, a century ago, those drawings are done by hand-drafting. Even 20 or 30 years ago, majority of large-scale projects, urban planning, are done by 2D AutoCAD. And look at this, this 3D intelligent model done by InfraWorks Model Builder, only less than 10 minutes.

That's why we try to introduce you to our secret weapon for a lot of proposals, large-scale projects. It's called InfraWorks. InfraWorks was done by SQLite. It's like a database written by C programming language. It's combining GIS information, 3D model, and your design input.

So this is like a BIM design workflow, and you may have your own version of design workflow. But this is the design workflow that can fit for majority of our project types. Stantec's doing a lot of different project types, from buildings, environmental studies, to energy and resources, transportation, and water and wastewater.

So this diagram divided from the planning phase to the design phase, construction, and operation and maintenance. From the planning phase, we use InfraWorks as an aggregator to combine the different datas from aerial photos, from digital terrain-based GIS data, and sometimes we need point-cloud data RealityCapture, even for the-- I mean, sometimes it's photogrammetry or point-cloud laser scanning. And we combine everything to the InfraWorks. 3.1 is like SketchUp, but it's more than SketchUp.

Then in the design phase, we use Civil 3D, Revit, Inventor, and we use Navisworks for crash-detection model connection. And nowadays, a majority of projects are on the cloud, so we use BIM360 Autodesk Construction Cloud for the design collaboration. And without getting into too much detail in construction phase and operation and maintenance phase, I want to end it here, so actually, we try to deliver a message. We can start our design from InfraWorks and end up our design phase with Autodesk InfraWorks, and that's-- I mean, the entire presentation is going to show you how, the process, OK.

So let's take a look at a video. So this is the proposal, one of the proposals I am involved a couple of years ago, a pump storage project in Southwest Oregon. And you can see at the beginning, the potential client won't give us-- I mean, didn't give us anything, so it's basically starting nothing from-- starting from nothing, start from scratch.

And you see there are two-- it's not a swimming pool. It's, like, a cold reservoir. We've got an upper reservoir and lower reservoir, and we combined some components from Revit, from Inventor-- like, this is a pump powerhouse-- and even some details from Inventor. Continue, you see the penstock is connecting the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir.

We use gravity to generate the power, and this is a typical power storage project. But as I said, especially in a mountain area like Southwest Oregon, we need to have a site. And in the beginning, if we don't have a site model, it's so hard to convey to the client the concept, the idea between the upper reservoir and lower reservoir.

So we treat the InfraWorks as a BIM tool in the planning phase, especially from the high-level perspective like urban-scale planning. And zoom in, you will see this is another powerhouse project. And the powerhouse is on the right side, but you can see, we also model-- and it's not easy to do this in Revit or in Civil 3D, but in InfraWorks, they've got a lot of pre-available assays like transmission lines, like substations. And substations, we can always import from Revit, and those trees and water body.

So another diagram here-- so we use InfraWorks, and if we need to refine the site design, we can do it exporting out to the Civil 3D. And all the vertical components, like structural disciplines, mechanical, architecture, fire protection, buildings, we can use Revit, then some fabrication labels like a gate, like-- the special components, we can always use Inventor.

Then this is like our portfolio. It's a whole bunch of examples, so you can see from the desert to the high mountain, from the building with conifer vegetation through the parking lot with deciduous trees. There in the middle, too, is the water treatment plant projects. Now my colleague Raghavendra Bhat will give you the introduction how to start, how to set it up.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Thanks, Joseph. Before we get started on using InfraWorks, like, the advanced level, the advanced workflows, we need to properly take a look at how to get started using the basic functions, right, how do you set up an InfraWorks model from scratch. So let's take a quick look at that, and then we'll move on to the advanced workflows.

The first question that we get, why do we use InfraWorks, right? So I think the single answer is, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? And that pretty much explains it. We use InfraWorks for this reason.

On the top, you see there is a layout, a 2D layout, and in the bottom, you see the same in the model. With perspective of the site layout, you're able to see the adjacent structures. You're able to see where the crane location is, where the equipment locations are. It gives a much more better handling of your project when you're talking to the client, right?

And also, other reasons why we would use InfraWorks as insufficient survey data or information, so you can work with basic level of information and develop your InfraWorks model. It's also a competitive market and shorter turnaround time, right, so with InfraWorks, you can really create really good graphics for your proposals and bids. And also, you can show the urban-scale 3D model with site context.

Yeah, so where do we start, and from where do we get this information as well, right? So you can start with the basic requirements like getting a terrain and ground image. That would be more than sufficient to build your InfraWorks model.

If you get the transportation data, water, buildings, city bodies, utilities, that's an add-on. It's a booster, right? It makes your model look more rich.

But if you have the terrain and ground imagery, that's more than enough to build your InfraWorks model. And also keep in mind what are you trying to get out from this, right? If it's a bid or proposal, you don't want to make a really heavily detailed model. Just getting the basics into it will be more than sufficient.

Let's take a look at some of the options to create the InfraWorks model. This is option 1. We're going to talk about two different options. This is the default option. You can use the Model Builder within InfraWorks to define your model. So when you use the Model Builder, it will allow you to select an area of about 200 square kilometers within which whatever you select, a nice, decent InfraWorks model gets created with the terrain information and also with the satellite imagery. The terrain information comes in from USGS, and the satellite imagery comes in from the Bing Maps. So you will be able to select a certain area within 200 square kilometers, but if you think the area does not need to be rectangular or a square area that you select, you can also define your area within Civil 3D and import a shapefile as well.

And the second option, which I use most of the times, is downloading data from National Map Viewer. This is pretty handy if you're trying to look for specific information, trying to search if some information is available that you can download and create your models. If you haven't already tried, try to go into apps.nationalmap.gov, download it, and you will be able to get into this particular site where you can search for your location, the project location, using the site name. Or you can also feed in the coordinates, and it will take you right on that particular spot.

On the left-hand side, you see a lot of information that you can download, like elevation data, boundary information, imagery, and a lot. Just like a shopping cart, you can select the information that you're looking for, and it will help dive in and see what information you can download. Like you can see in the next slide here, it drills down into the finer elements, right, like what resolution of data you want to download, so you can choose the resolution. Keep in mind that if you're doing a basic level of model, you don't have to get a really high detailed resolution information downloaded, because if you do that, your model is going to be really heavy, and again, I'm not sure if that's worth it at the initial phases of the project.

Once you have that data selected, you can also be able to select the area that you're looking at. For example, in this case, I'm able to look at the specific area that I'm downloading, so I don't have to download a lot of information. I can just make sure this is a specific area of interest, and I'll be able to download it. So add it to your cart, and you'll be able to download that particular information.

So those are the two easy ways where you will be able to start your models using the Model Builder and downloading data from USGS. But now, once you have the data downloaded, if there is some missing information, like boundary lines and stuff, this is a lot that we get asked from our team, saying, we don't have the boundary information to start with. Where do we position our structures? Are we encroaching into some of these adjacent sites? How do we do this, right?

So the easiest way is to use Civil 3D, in this case. So in Civil 3D, if you go into the toolspace and add in the coordinate system for that particular site, and then enable the Bing Maps in the background, you'll be able to see the Bing Maps and all the boundaries, road locations, everything in the site. You can just use a polyline to draw the fence location, parcels. Everything can be just manually added in.

Here, as an example, you can see this is a lot of lines, right? You don't have to draw all these boundaries. You can only draw the boundaries that is the area of interest for your particular project. So in that way, your teams are sure, whenever you're proposing the location of tanks, equipment, or structures, it's within the site boundary limits, and you're not encroaching into any of the other areas.

So once you do this, the next challenge which we usually get is, how do we get our 2D layout into InfraWorks, right? InfraWorks has a really good option to bring in the 2D layouts from AutoCAD, but once you try to use it, you'll realize that it will give you an option to place it using 3-point reference, which is good at times. But now, again, if you use the 3-point reference, it's kind of eyeballing, right? You're not accurate.

Even though you have a layout created in Civil 3D to the right scale, you're not able to position it correctly in your InfraWorks model, so the workaround that we use, this is a pro tip. What we do is, instead of bringing the CAD file directly into InfraWorks, we export that as a shapefile using mapexport command in Civil 3D, so you'll be able to export out the shapefile and import it in InfraWorks. Note that when you import the shapefile as a coverage area, make sure the outline is set as white, so that your boundaries are showing up white in color, and also you have an outline defined, you have a thickness assigned to it.

This is important because you have to do some trial and error to get the right size. Right now, you can see, it's 0.2 feet, but you will have to change the size so that you have the right thickness shown on your drawings. And when you import, make sure you also have the coordinate system applied so that it exactly falls in the right spot when you bring it into InfraWorks, and this is how it would look like once it's imported. So here you can see all the white lines that are on this particular layout. It is a reference for you, so if you want to position your files into-- like, the exports that you do from Revit, right, if you want to position it, you have a reference now. Previously, if you had eyeballed it, you were approximately positioning it, but now with this reference, you will be able to accurately position it with reference to each and every structure.

So I just mentioned about getting the FBX exports from Revit and getting it into InfraWorks, right? What is the best workflow? Do you get the Revit models directly into InfraWorks?

Yes, InfraWorks does have an option to get Revit models, but what we usually suggest to our teams is to use the FBX exports. If you try to get the Revit models, it works, but when you have a larger Revit model or multiple Revit models for different disciplines, you'll have to get them individually, which kind of takes time publishing. And every time there's a change, you have to publish it to BIM360 then synchronize it. There are some steps that needs to be taken to get it into InfraWorks. The easiest way is to use FBX because it has the textures, everything that you are assigned within Revit also appended within that particular FBX file.

One common thing which we tend to forget is these two options in the bottom. One is Use LOD, and the other is Without Boundary Edges, right? So many people just forget to actually even look at them when you're exporting out an FBX from Revit.

What does this do? When you use the option LOD Selected, it helps you lessen the file size of that FBX file because it actually reduces the facets of the polylines within that particular FBX. But if you want a more detailed model, then you can always keep it unselected. And also, if you have the boundaries selected, then it helps you merge two surfaces that come together. And if you have it unselected, it definitely has boundary edges that shows up when you bring your FBX model into InfraWorks.

JOSEPH HUANG: Thanks, Raghu, for providing a great introduction and explaining how to set up the project, how to start. Now I'm going to talk about a design model, a quick-- kind of doing some quick sketch and create your design. For the following slides, I'm going to use a real project, a project site in Nepal, a country with high mountains, and a proposal model I recently created, so I'm going to show you through my design process.

Let me hit the video. Is the video playing? OK, it's playing. OK, good.

Yeah, so I like this part because it's-- for me, this is a quick analysis, although this is not part of analysis functionality in InfraWorks. So we can enable the Terrain Themes, and once we enable the Terrain Themes, it's color coded. And you can quickly analyze the elevation, the slope, the aspect, and you can change the different style.

And talking about slope, so for example, right now, it's talking about a slope. You've got a template. So you can see, the light gray area is, like, more gentle, and the red is more steep. And aspect is kind of an interesting concept. It's like the direction in which the hillside faces, so say they're facing north, it's zero, and clockwise toward 360.

So this is a quick way to analyze your site from a high-level perspective to see the suitability for potential site for your proposed design. So let's see this. If I zoom in, the suitable area, the light gray area, and you will notice, there's a village over there already. So that means that human beings, long time ago, people already settled in this area.

Without exposing our project in more details, we'll just use, like, Autodesk Revit sample file, and let's say we are going to build a school in a high mountain area. And I know Raghu previously mentioned the best practice will be to convert Revit to FBX, but here, I also want to show we can import RVT file directly from BIM360 Autodesk Construction Cloud, the Desktop Connector. And the downside is, if you have any linked models, you won't be able. But the sample model of the school is just a single model, so I'll just quickly bring the Revit sample file, a school, to the high mountains.

And in front of the village, seems like there's the open area, so let's say we are going to build a school. And the first thing we encounter is we need to do some site grading, and there are four design modules in InfraWorks in the Create tab-- Transportation, Structural, Drainage, and Environment. So in order to create something, we need to have a coverage area.

It's under Environment. So this is my personal preference because this is not out of the box. Usually, you won't be able to find a transparent coverage.

So the first thing I would do-- and of course, once you have this in your library, you don't have to do that every time. So what I'm going to do-- and again, those step-by-step instructions are documented clearly in our handouts, so refer to the handouts when you go back to the office. Try to practice that.

So what I did is I duplicated the terrain hole because the terrain hole's already got a transparent in the middle. So once I duplicate that and rename, I call it Transparent Coverage, and I can minimize the outline width as minimum as possible. The coolest thing is that once I create a polygon of transparent coverage, I can right-click and enable that, and what I need to enable that-- because once I enable that as a Shape Terrain, I can change. I can drag it up or down or give a number, elevation number.

So you see, this slide, you still can see the shadow of the school. That means that half of the school, the building is, like, cantilevered, and this is not going to work. I mean, of course we can cantilever, but we need to put a lot of columns, posts, piles underneath. But right now, we can move the Shape Terrain, and for this demo, we move the shape terrain up to align the bottom of the school.

So this is a quick way to change your site topography for your proposal, because usually, we have limited time to do the proposal and provide some nice graphics as a reference embedded to our proposal report or presentation. See the site-- you won't be able to see the shadows anymore.

So if you are not satisfied, you still can right-click the Transparent Coverage. The Shape Terrain will give you the option to edit the vertices so you can modify the boundary, the polygon, and you can even change the individual points, the vertex elevation, and manipulate the site. This is a quick way, much, much faster than Civil 3D, and later on, we will show you another workflow, like, how to bring in InfraWorks to Civil 3D and bring that one back.

OK, so besides Transparent Coverage, you also can use the Grading Area, and grading is more precise. I mean, you can actually import the polygons as a grading area in your model from, say, Civil 3D, but here, you can directly draw the sketch, just create a polygon. And in InfraWorks, a single click is a start, double-click is a finish, and that applies to a majority of cases.

OK, so once we have a grading area-- and by default, you've got a 3-by-1, but you can customize. That, you can customize. You can drag and drop, and you can see, the gradient is more precise.

Instead of, like, the transparent coverage with the shape terrain, move up and down. This one, once you define the area, it gives you the proportion, and you can customize, like, a 4-by-1, 5-by-1, cut slope, field slope. So it's more and more engineering in a quick way.

In this slide, I'm going to show you a hidden treasure. I mean, in the previous interface, we can easily find that from the left-hand side, but right now, I need to find it inside of this. It's like a laser [? rotor ?] icon, and finally, you need to see that. It's called Terrain Statistics, and by doing that, you can quickly get the total length of the parameter. You can get the 2D area, 3D area, also the volume, cut, and fill, and also the number of the volume net. This is a quick way to do an analysis for your site.

Then let's talk about roads. So there are two types of roads, Planning road and Component road. Planning road is, like, a default generated by Model Builder. It's a lightweight road using a [? spray ?] geometry, but Component road's got more possibilities. It's a configurable component, assembles a lot of things, and you've got precise control points.

So if we need to use, say, [? elements' ?] modeling analysis features, say a [? total ?] profile optimization, sight distance analysis, traffic and mobility simulation, we need to convert the Planning road to the Component road, which we are going to show you more details in the simulation slides.

So, OK, I just check like, OK, the neighborhood is using a dirt road, so for the road surrounding the school, I'll also continue using the same type of a road. And now we are going to create some fences along the parking lot, and Fence is a long barrier under the Transportation. So you can customize the fence, like, a different style, from wood to chain-link.

And here is the thing. I mean, once you spend time to customize, you can export it out, save for the next project, or you can reuse from the previous project. So for the folks like you who also need to deal with the firm-wide content library, this is the component you need to think about. You can export, import, and save the style catalog as a JSON file for the next project. It's more efficient.

We also can use a barrier combined with 3D objects for any linear array components, say if we need to design something called urban furniture, streetlights. So if you just go by default under Streetlight, under Environment, you will see it's more random, and you only can adjust the density with the slider. But streetlights shouldn't be random and should be very precise, so we can combine the barrier and search the 3D model and Streetlight with a specific type you prefer. Then by doing this, you've got an option to use the object spacing. Say, like, every 40 feet, we want to build a streetlight.

Then, also trees, so there are more than one way to create trees. This is the video I'm going to hit. So the first is, like, you can use the Row Of Trees, and that's more linear. You draw a line, and you select the Tree type, and you just generate trees, a series-- I mean a row of trees. And once you click any single one, you get a chance to adjust the density.

And this is a quick way, depends on your design, and another type, another approach, is called [? Stand ?] Of Trees. So it's, like, drawing a polygon area, and the same concept, you can adjust the density. And if you prefer any different type-- I mean, this is high mountain, so it shouldn't be, like, a palm tree, but, yeah, this is a quick test to show you can quickly drag and drop, change to a different tree.

Also, there's another type of tree. It's called Adaptive Tree Styles, and by doing that, the adaptive tree is just like-- the geometry automatically adapts to the camera distance, so it's more optimized to performance. When you zoom out, you see less trees. When you zoom in, you see more details. It's like an improved model visualization, also balances the performance at a different level, different detail level.

OK, so the following slides are some projects, real project examples. So a couple years ago, I used InfraWorks for a landscape project, working with two landscape architects, and the interesting thing is, like, nowadays, talking about landscape design, probably people will think, like, oh, use Lumion. And a lot of time-- I don't have Lumion.

I don't know how to use Lumion, and I just use InfraWorks. And we achieve-- we deliver the project in a good way, and the client really appreciates it because there are so many different types of trees. I also can combine with the Revit model and create some signage and some, like, urban-- like streetlight and fence.

And another project, we just do, like, design alternatives with site context. A pump station in Washington State, probably near Seattle area, and that project required a public hearing, so we need to present to the client-- to the residents. Residents is our clients, a public hearing, public presentation, so we provided different options, so from the stone veneer to the vinyl siding, wood siding, and even a different roof style. And this is good way of using InfraWorks. So if you have the InfraWorks and you try to do design optionining, just keep everything original as a master, and you can always add and duplicate the current one and create another new optioning and all the different design options combined inside of the same model.

Another project in Chicago is called flood management terrain-- sorry, flood management tunnel, and this is large scale. And by the requirement, we need to present to the city, to the client, all the underground tunnels, so this is a quick way we can create an animation video and see the tunnel, also see the buildings, residential areas above. We also use InfraWorks for the site logistics.

Now let's move to the analysis and simulation, and for the time being, probably, we'll only show two or three examples. The first is traffic simulation. So we can enable the traffic simulation as long as you have the Java Runtime installed and maintain the latest version.

And it analyzes the traffic in the intersection, and the important part is that it required a Component road. So once you define the intersection, the first pop-up message, InfraWorks will tell you, OK, are you sure you want to convert all the roads as the Component road? And once you say Yes, there is nowhere to go back, so what I did is I created another design option for this traffic simulation analysis.

Without further ado, let's just run the video. So this means at the certain time of the day, like 8:00 AM, in Los Angeles area-- this is a project near Los Angeles, and you will see the traffic in this intersection. And the interesting thing is that I already created some vehicles for random purposes, so you see that yellow car? Right now, it's going to drive into other cars. Yeah. But this is a quick way to analyze, to run the traffic simulation.

This is another one I feel is very interesting, and the functionality changed throughout the different versions of InfraWorks. It's called Sight Distance Analysis. So basically, you can-- and again, that required Component road. So remember the school example, in the high mountain in Nepal? So I just convert the meandering road from the Planning road to the Component road, and once I convert that one, I can just go to the Analysis, Transportation, and Sight Distance.

I can click the Analysis, and what it does is it creates the color coding. And the green means, OK, site clear. Yellow means, mm, not OK, site failure, and why?

Because, you can see, there's a building right here. So it's a little bit dangerous, and if people are driving too fast, it may bump together. And the red means, like, obstruction, so that means, for the designers, you can put some signage, stop sign or slow sign. But this is a quick way to analyze the sight distance.

Now let's see this flood simulation. So I've done this a long time ago, and as you can see, the interface is not the same as the latest one. But it's worth it to show you because we used that one for a real project. It's the Red Rock Hydropower Project. So with a plugin called RiverFlow2D plugin from Hydronia company, we can quickly analyze the specific area to see, in the worst case scenario, the flooding situation.

Now let's move to Collaboration chapter, how to integrate it, integration with other application. InfraWorks has got a couple different export options. The first and most common one, we're exporting now the 3D model as FBX. As Raghu mentioned earlier, Revit can export it now to FBX and bring to InfraWorks, but the same, InfraWorks can export now FBX and bring to other applications like Navisworks.

Besides the FBX, we also have DAE and OBJ file format, and to bring InfraWorks to Civil 3D, we can export out as IMX. We also can open the SQLite model directly from Civil 3D. Raghu will explain that in more details later. The other two options is connected with ArcGIS, so we can export it now as a FGDB Esri File Geodatabase format. And if you don't have the Esri ArcGIS desktop version, then you can publish to the cloud-based ArcGIS.

Then let's explain working in Navisworks to create an overall site model. So as many people know, we treated Navisworks as the federated model. We can run the crash detection, and it's lightweight. We can put all kinds of different file formats through there.

But the situation or challenge we encounter is, the surface from Civil 3D, in Navisworks, it looks ugly. There's no context. I mean, even the Civil 3D-enabled AutoCAD Map 3D, you've got an aerial image, but you cannot see it.

And if we have the InfraWorks model, we're exporting out as FBX, then we bring the FBX to Navisworks, you will see the embedded aerial image of ground images. You've got more idea about the site, the site context, even though it's kind of 2D. I mean, the surface is 3D, but those trees are, like, an aerial photo of ground images. But you still can see, and the challenge is how to bring the InfraWorks-exported FBX to the right location.

So more details here, and refer to our handouts step by step if you want to include the entire model or you want to just draw a polygon as a focus area and the location, the coordinates, and the offset value. And remember, those values, XYZ, you need to remember, get-- the best practice would be to get a screenshot or write it down, and I'll explain why later. Also, some options here for the large-scale project, Large FBX Support, you need to check this box.

So in InfraWorks-- oh, sorry, in Navisworks, we can link FBX, but the location might be off. So here, we need to customize the link of the FBX, and we need to do some units and transformation. So as long as we put the same XYZ from InfraWorks export to the Navisworks here, we should get the right location.

Sometimes, we also need to deal with the units, especially the units from metric to imperial, just need to times the scale factor. And the nice thing about bringing the InfraWorks model to the Navisworks is because you can create a 3D section cut, and you also can combine with the Photoshop, doing some photo montage like this. Now Raghu will show the workflow, how to bring the InfraWorks to Civil 3D and to Revit.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Thanks, Joseph. So it'll be really nice-- we have a InfraWorks model now created, right, with the basic information that we have. It'll be nice to bring this into Civil 3D for further design, and also then make some changes back in Civil 3D and incorporate it back into InfraWorks, or maybe take this data and bring it into your Revit models where you actually have your design, right? So we'll take a look at how we do this.

So in InfraWorks, there is an option to export out in IMX format, so in this option, you actually have an option to specify the coordinates of an area that you want to export out, or you can also choose a smaller area that you want to export. Something to note here is, the InfraWorks model that you create can be of a larger extent, right? You don't know the actual site boundaries, but with the actual site boundaries, you may be-- it might be really good to just crop out a smaller area and send it out to Civil 3D rather than actually exporting out the whole larger surface. It's just going to increase the file size.

When you export out from InfraWorks, there are two options that you get. One is the IMX format that you can import into Civil 3D, or alternatively, you can also import-- directly open the SQLite file. So under Civil 3D, under the Insert option, you see there is an option called Open InfraWorks Model, so that's where you will be able to actually import the IMX file, or also directly open the SQLite file. But if you'll note that if you open the SQLite file, it will open the entire site model, and if you do use the IMX, it just brings in the area that you have exported out previously from InfraWorks.

And when you import the IMX file, one thing which we usually suggest to our teams is to actually define the coordinate system into your Civil 3D file up front, because if you're trying to import an IMX file without defining a coordinate system, it's going to give you a message saying that your coordinate systems do not match, the one in your file and the one that you're trying to import. It's important that you have the same coordinate system defined in both the files, and that plays a very key role because if you're trying to import between different coordinate systems, it's not going to align and position the right [? spot. ?]

So this is an InfraWorks model that was created, and then, this is the entire site, right? So you can see the entire site, and it comes in as a TIN surface. And you can also see some of the roads that have been imported into Civil 3D down here. So it's key to define whether you want to get a smaller area or a larger extent, because in the previous slide you have seen, we got in the larger area of that particular model.

Once you have got the model into your Civil 3D, it is important to define or make changes, right? So it's an existing surface. You may have made modifications to the surface in InfraWorks, or you can also do modification in Civil 3D. What I usually prefer doing is, once you get the Civil 3D-- or the TIN surface into Civil 3D, make modifications here in Civil 3D for grading, because you have really good tools in Civil 3D as well to play with and define the grading.

Once you're done, and if you want to import the surface into your Revit model, there is an option. You just have to select the TIN surface, maybe the Finish Grade, and just click on the Publish Surface option down there. And what it brings you with is an option to export out, whether you want to export out the existing ground surface, the transportation data, or also the proposed ground surface.

If you haven't made any proposed ground surface in InfraWorks, like, say, using coverage areas, you won't see the proposed ground surface. You'll only see existing and transport, right? So choose the ones which you want to export out, and if you have merged these into a single surface-- which is really good, which I usually do, try to have one single finished grading when you're trying to export it out to Revit-- select that and export it out as a DWG.

Please, note that when you're exporting it out you will be able to save it only on BIM360 using Desktop Connector. You'll not be able to save it-- even if you save it on your local, you'll not be able to import it back into Revit if you're not saving it on BIM360. So it's important that you have a project set up on BIM360 to be able to-- or ACC to be able to work with it.

Also, a pro tip here is, whenever you export the surface, it's better to actually look at that particular surface in the Web Viewer because sometimes there could be an error when you're exporting. And when you go back in Revit and try to import the surface, it just errors out, and they could-- your model also could crash sometimes when you're trying to import that large surface. So it's better that you go into the Web Viewer and just validate if the surface has been generated properly. If so, then you can go-- the next step would be go into going into Revit and import that surface.

In Revit, we have an option called Link Topography, which is a really powerful tool, don't see a lot of people using it. We still try to link CAD and generate surface out from it, but what we'll be able to do with the link topography is to import that DWG file we just exported out, and it brings it in as a Topo surface, which you can actually make modifications to it. If you're using 2013 and prior, you'll be able to use Building Pads and assign building pads straight onto that particular Topo surface.

But if you're using 2024, you will see a-- you will see a difference. You will not be able to use the pads, building pads here because the Building Pads option is gone, and you will only see the Toposolid option. But that also works very well. If you have to create a building pad with a Toposolid in 2024, you don't need to use the Pads function, but you can just use the building footprint, like, the foundation or the walls that are actually going within the Topo surface. Just select it and say cut through the surface, and it will automatically add a pad for you.

So before we move on to the next topic, the last thing that we would talk about here is converting surface to contours, right, in Civil 3D, and this is, again, something which everyone forget. If you have a Civil 3D surface that's imported from InfraWorks, it will have triangulations, and if you try to import that surface directly into Revit, you will see a lot of undulated surface. So the pro tip here is to go into the properties of that TIN surface and actually disable the Triangulations and enable the Major and Minor Contours before you export it out. And in that way, you'll be able to get a much smoother surface.

JOSEPH HUANG: OK, so after we learn the model setup, the creation, and the collaboration with other applications, let's talk about how to share your design, because this is so important. After you got-- you have done a lot of efforts. We want to present nicely, right?

So this is very interesting because InfraWorks is a SQLite database. There is no Save button. It's autosaved. Fortunately, they've got an Undo and Redo button.

Also, there is no Render button, and of course, this is not autorendered. I mean, we call this one as the real-time rendering, so no matter how you navigate to the model, the visualization quality is presentable. But if you want to print something, if you want to render something, embed it to your presentation or, like, a proposal, report, then here's a way.