& Construction
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Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
& Manufacturing
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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Transcript
00:05
I try to make it so my building team can stay out of AutoCAD.
00:09
If we need to insert AutoCAD, that's fine.
00:12
They can link in AutoCAD, that's fine as well. But it really should be AutoCAD files that we have prepared for them.
00:19
With clean, dependable data, as the architectural lead,
00:23
we are now confident to set the project coordinate system, and then distribute that to our team.
00:29
The objective of this video is to start a new Revit project and set a world coordinate system.
00:35
This important model can be used as the central location for our shared coordinate.
00:41
So I'm going to jump into Revit. For models, I'd like to go to New.
00:46
For the template file, I'll choose the architectural template out of the box.
00:50
You will probably want to choose a template file that is set up for your company's standards.
00:55
Let's click OK. Perfect.
00:58
Under Floor Plans, let's go down to our Site Floor Plan.
01:03
If you don't have a Site Floor Plan in your template, let's go to our lowest level that's at 0.
01:09
I want to make sure that our project base point and our survey point are both visible.
01:16
To do that, type in VG for Visibility Graphics,
01:19
or of course in our Properties, you can go to Visibility Graphic Overrides and then click Edit right here.
01:25
Scroll down until you find Site. Expand site and make sure that project base point and survey point are both visible and turned on.
01:35
Click OK. Go to the Insert tab. On the Link panel, click Link CAD.
01:42
You have to link CAD to acquire the coordinates.
01:46
Click Link CAD. Let's scroll to our project we are working in. Go to Site Civil.
01:54
Go to AutoCAD.
01:56
And here is that XSITE Next 5.
01:59
Now that we've recovered it and performed an audit on it, that still doesn't mean it's not going to throw errors.
02:05
One of the errors I'm afraid of is the extents of this thing. If it gets too far away from our project origin, it'll cause issues.
02:13
We'll deal with that down the road. For colors, I like to preserve them.
02:17
That's because I just like to see the native colors. If they're black and white, I get a little confused sometimes.
02:23
Layers and Levels, I like to include all.
02:26
I do this because, perhaps, if there's a layer turned off that I can't see now that I might need down the road,
02:32
I can actually turn that on within Revit.
02:35
Import Units, I happen to know that this has got to come in at feet.
02:41
This could be trial and error for you.
02:43
If it comes in seemingly too small,
02:45
you're going to have to change your import units until you take a distance and you see that it's the correct scale.
02:53
I'll uncheck Correct lines that are slightly off access.
02:57
And I'll uncheck Orient to View.
02:60
I want it to be placed just as it is in AutoCAD.
03:06
For positioning, instead of Origin to Origin, I can choose Center to Center.
03:11
Either of these work, but I know that center to center is going to place it smack dab in the middle of my model.
03:17
It knows that that's the lowest level with datum applied to it at zero feet.
03:23
Click Open.
03:27
Okay, I was afraid of this. Geometry in the file XSITE - Next 5, has extents greater than 20 miles.
03:34
This is bad. This is going to cause issues in your models.
03:38
We're going to bring it in now because we want the coordinates.
03:40
But in the next video, we're going to W block that out and make it much smaller.
03:44
That way it's going to get rid of this issue.
03:47
If you ever get this, you need to back out and you need to fix that site model so you do not get this dialog.
03:55
Click OK.
03:60
They keep warning us. We know. Let's close out of here.
04:05
Now we see we have our AutoCAD inserted.
04:09
Nothing special. If we click on the project base point, these are all zeros.
04:14
What we need to do now is acquire the coordinates from our AutoCAD file that we've linked.
04:20
On the Manage tab, on the Project Location panel, click the Coordinates dropdown.
04:28
Let's select Acquire Coordinates.
04:31
Hover over your AutoCAD until you get a tooltip indicating that you're going to select it.
04:36
Once you see the tooltip, pick it. Doesn't seem like it's done anything, but it has.
04:41
If we click now on our project base point, it's changed our northern and easting.
04:46
Our elevation is still at zero. I'd like to fix that now. I happen to know that our elevation needs to be at 5388.
04:54
I'm in New York, this is Colorado. This seems really high to me, but that's what it is.
04:58
Click into elevation, type 5388, hit enter. Now what I'd like to do is I want to physically move this.
05:08
Down to where I think I want my first building to go. Now, the project base point is specific to just this model.
05:16
When we create an architectural model, we can move that project base point anywhere we want, and it won't affect this model.
05:23
Keep that in mind. This is just for the building you're working in. I'm just moving it for convenience right now.
05:31
So, select it, click move, click a base point,
05:39
and I'm going to move it way down here to this corner.
05:46
I'm going to zoom out. This little red circle here is going to be my survey point.
05:52
Now, once we move our survey point, everything we locate in our site is going to be based on that survey point.
05:59
So we have a survey point and then we have a building point.
06:05
Select your survey point in this case I want to unclip it.
06:09
Notice that you can't edit any of these items so click unclip.
06:15
For elevation, I'd like to use 5388.
06:20
Hit enter. On the modify panel, click move.
06:26
Click the point.
06:30
Let's find that survey point.
06:32
I want to snap to the center of this.
06:34
So if I type S for snap and C for center, hover over my circle, notice that it's going to pop it in the center.
06:44
I can now change the clip state of my point.
06:49
Now, on the Manage tab, on the Project Location panel, click the Location icon.
06:59
Make sure Define Location is Get Location from Survey Point.
07:04
It's on Colorado State Plain, because it's our lat long.
07:08
Our weather? Denver.
07:11
Perfect. Click OK.
07:14
One more thing I'd like to do is, on the coordinates drop down, let's click specify coordinates at point.
07:21
I'm going to zoom in on our survey point.
07:26
Pick it. Now it's official. This is the shared coordinates point for our project.
07:33
Click OK.
07:36
Now, I just want to save my model. So click Save.
07:42
I'm going to scroll out to my site's civil directory.
07:45
My standard is to call it, all caps, SITE_CIVIL.
07:53
For my options, maximum backups, I'm just going to select one.
08:01
Click OK. Click Save.
08:04
Now it's going to want us to save our XSITE - Next 5.
08:08
It just puts a position in this drawing, but it doesn't matter anyway. Because we did a Save As. We were smart about it.
08:16
So no matter what we do, it's not going to affect the drawing that we got from the civil engineer. So we'll just click Save.
08:24
And rest assured you're not hurting a thing. There we go!
Video transcript
00:05
I try to make it so my building team can stay out of AutoCAD.
00:09
If we need to insert AutoCAD, that's fine.
00:12
They can link in AutoCAD, that's fine as well. But it really should be AutoCAD files that we have prepared for them.
00:19
With clean, dependable data, as the architectural lead,
00:23
we are now confident to set the project coordinate system, and then distribute that to our team.
00:29
The objective of this video is to start a new Revit project and set a world coordinate system.
00:35
This important model can be used as the central location for our shared coordinate.
00:41
So I'm going to jump into Revit. For models, I'd like to go to New.
00:46
For the template file, I'll choose the architectural template out of the box.
00:50
You will probably want to choose a template file that is set up for your company's standards.
00:55
Let's click OK. Perfect.
00:58
Under Floor Plans, let's go down to our Site Floor Plan.
01:03
If you don't have a Site Floor Plan in your template, let's go to our lowest level that's at 0.
01:09
I want to make sure that our project base point and our survey point are both visible.
01:16
To do that, type in VG for Visibility Graphics,
01:19
or of course in our Properties, you can go to Visibility Graphic Overrides and then click Edit right here.
01:25
Scroll down until you find Site. Expand site and make sure that project base point and survey point are both visible and turned on.
01:35
Click OK. Go to the Insert tab. On the Link panel, click Link CAD.
01:42
You have to link CAD to acquire the coordinates.
01:46
Click Link CAD. Let's scroll to our project we are working in. Go to Site Civil.
01:54
Go to AutoCAD.
01:56
And here is that XSITE Next 5.
01:59
Now that we've recovered it and performed an audit on it, that still doesn't mean it's not going to throw errors.
02:05
One of the errors I'm afraid of is the extents of this thing. If it gets too far away from our project origin, it'll cause issues.
02:13
We'll deal with that down the road. For colors, I like to preserve them.
02:17
That's because I just like to see the native colors. If they're black and white, I get a little confused sometimes.
02:23
Layers and Levels, I like to include all.
02:26
I do this because, perhaps, if there's a layer turned off that I can't see now that I might need down the road,
02:32
I can actually turn that on within Revit.
02:35
Import Units, I happen to know that this has got to come in at feet.
02:41
This could be trial and error for you.
02:43
If it comes in seemingly too small,
02:45
you're going to have to change your import units until you take a distance and you see that it's the correct scale.
02:53
I'll uncheck Correct lines that are slightly off access.
02:57
And I'll uncheck Orient to View.
02:60
I want it to be placed just as it is in AutoCAD.
03:06
For positioning, instead of Origin to Origin, I can choose Center to Center.
03:11
Either of these work, but I know that center to center is going to place it smack dab in the middle of my model.
03:17
It knows that that's the lowest level with datum applied to it at zero feet.
03:23
Click Open.
03:27
Okay, I was afraid of this. Geometry in the file XSITE - Next 5, has extents greater than 20 miles.
03:34
This is bad. This is going to cause issues in your models.
03:38
We're going to bring it in now because we want the coordinates.
03:40
But in the next video, we're going to W block that out and make it much smaller.
03:44
That way it's going to get rid of this issue.
03:47
If you ever get this, you need to back out and you need to fix that site model so you do not get this dialog.
03:55
Click OK.
03:60
They keep warning us. We know. Let's close out of here.
04:05
Now we see we have our AutoCAD inserted.
04:09
Nothing special. If we click on the project base point, these are all zeros.
04:14
What we need to do now is acquire the coordinates from our AutoCAD file that we've linked.
04:20
On the Manage tab, on the Project Location panel, click the Coordinates dropdown.
04:28
Let's select Acquire Coordinates.
04:31
Hover over your AutoCAD until you get a tooltip indicating that you're going to select it.
04:36
Once you see the tooltip, pick it. Doesn't seem like it's done anything, but it has.
04:41
If we click now on our project base point, it's changed our northern and easting.
04:46
Our elevation is still at zero. I'd like to fix that now. I happen to know that our elevation needs to be at 5388.
04:54
I'm in New York, this is Colorado. This seems really high to me, but that's what it is.
04:58
Click into elevation, type 5388, hit enter. Now what I'd like to do is I want to physically move this.
05:08
Down to where I think I want my first building to go. Now, the project base point is specific to just this model.
05:16
When we create an architectural model, we can move that project base point anywhere we want, and it won't affect this model.
05:23
Keep that in mind. This is just for the building you're working in. I'm just moving it for convenience right now.
05:31
So, select it, click move, click a base point,
05:39
and I'm going to move it way down here to this corner.
05:46
I'm going to zoom out. This little red circle here is going to be my survey point.
05:52
Now, once we move our survey point, everything we locate in our site is going to be based on that survey point.
05:59
So we have a survey point and then we have a building point.
06:05
Select your survey point in this case I want to unclip it.
06:09
Notice that you can't edit any of these items so click unclip.
06:15
For elevation, I'd like to use 5388.
06:20
Hit enter. On the modify panel, click move.
06:26
Click the point.
06:30
Let's find that survey point.
06:32
I want to snap to the center of this.
06:34
So if I type S for snap and C for center, hover over my circle, notice that it's going to pop it in the center.
06:44
I can now change the clip state of my point.
06:49
Now, on the Manage tab, on the Project Location panel, click the Location icon.
06:59
Make sure Define Location is Get Location from Survey Point.
07:04
It's on Colorado State Plain, because it's our lat long.
07:08
Our weather? Denver.
07:11
Perfect. Click OK.
07:14
One more thing I'd like to do is, on the coordinates drop down, let's click specify coordinates at point.
07:21
I'm going to zoom in on our survey point.
07:26
Pick it. Now it's official. This is the shared coordinates point for our project.
07:33
Click OK.
07:36
Now, I just want to save my model. So click Save.
07:42
I'm going to scroll out to my site's civil directory.
07:45
My standard is to call it, all caps, SITE_CIVIL.
07:53
For my options, maximum backups, I'm just going to select one.
08:01
Click OK. Click Save.
08:04
Now it's going to want us to save our XSITE - Next 5.
08:08
It just puts a position in this drawing, but it doesn't matter anyway. Because we did a Save As. We were smart about it.
08:16
So no matter what we do, it's not going to affect the drawing that we got from the civil engineer. So we'll just click Save.
08:24
And rest assured you're not hurting a thing. There we go!
Try it: Set Up a Geo-Located Revit Model
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