Importing an Image

Any referenced datasets can be downloaded from "Module downloads" in the module overview.

Insert an Image into Revit - Exercise

This isn’t much different than inserting a PDF, only images are usually not to scale, there is no origin, and most times they are rotated slightly based on how the drawings were scanned in.

  1. Open your Revit project, if not already open. 
  2. Go to your Level 1 CAD Background view. 
  3. In the Insert tab>Link panel, select Link Image, as shown below.

  4. In the Link Image dialog box, browse to your project files Original Data folder and select A-101 GROUND FLOOR.jpg. Click Open. (Notice that you have no choice in terms of scale and placement.)
  5. Place the image into the model to the left of the CAD overlay. It doesn’t really matter where.
  6. In the Modify | Raster Images tab, do the following (as shown below):
    1. In the Options Bar, ensure that it is set to Background, so the image lies underneath the Revit objects.
    2. In the Arrange panel, select Send to Back so the image lies under the CAD file.

  7. In the Modify panel, select Move. In the Options Bar, uncheck Constrain, then move the image to the A/1 grid intersection, as shown below.



  8. With the image still selected, click Rotate in the Modify panel.
  9. In the Options Bar, for Center of rotation, click Place.
  10. Pick a point on the A/1 grid intersection, as shown below.

  11. Rotate the image so it is aligned with the grids, by first picking point #1 (the grid intersection of the scanned image), then picking point #2 (the grid intersection of the CAD file), as shown below.

  12. To scale the image, select it and in the contextual tab>Modify panel, click Scale. In the Options Bar, ensure Graphical is selected.
  13. Pick points as follows to bring the scale back into range (as shown below):
    1. Pick the A/1 grid intersection as the basepoint.
    2. Pick a point on the image gridline 4.
    3. Pick a point on the CAD gridline 4.

  14. Since you don’t need the image underlay for future tasks, you can delete it and save the file.