Geomarker Civil 3D

In an earlier blog http://civil2revit.blogspot.com/2011/09/coordinates-again.html I already mention the geomarker and how the revit extension seem to use the geomarker to exchange date between Civil 3D and Revit. 


I do not think that that is a good point to use. Specially when you look at the following:


I have recorded a screencap from Civil 3D. I only have a surface in and I'll do the following:

1. turn on the geomarker
2. edit the geomarker
3. put the geomarker to another position
4. save the dwg

screencap

What you will see in the movie is that when you invoke the save command the geomarker jumps back to center of the site. I don't think that the center of a site is a handy point for exchange since if the site changes size the center point and so the exchange point changes...


A bit of googling on geomarker on got me this: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=11729142&linkID=9240697

It would be really great if the geomarker would behave the same as the project basepoint does in Revit. Funny knowing Revit's problems with large coordinates I never thought I would suggest another system to use some of Revit's techniques.

If anyone else can shed some light on the geomarker and how to keep it fixed I would be very gratefull!



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True North it is

So once in a while you run into something that is completely obvious when you look back at it.


I have written before about the true north and project north issues with Revit. (It gives problems with linked files) I have asked myself before why bother with project north at all. Probably because of working in Autocad before. I tried to to the same in Revit. In Autocad you want lines to be horizontal or vertical, if possible.


But with all the nice tools in Revit it's not really necessary. Section are easy to draw, parallel to grid lines and elevations orient themselves perpendicular to walls. The only thing that's left are the floor plans. Some projects will probably look stupid if you don't rotate them. Some things might become difficult to read.


If you work solely in Revit and you have no need to link in other files than do use project north it's easy to setup. If you do need to link in site plans or something similar see if you can get away with it not setting up project north.



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exchanging surface between civil 3D and Revit

Today we ran into another oddity in the whole coordinates story...


I like to set the project base point manually. I do this in civil. I choose a point with nice numbers and put a little x there. To get surfaces from civil 3D into Revit I like to use the Integration with Civil 3D extension. In order to exchange surfaces between Civil 3D and Revit I create an extra surface that has it's center spot exactly upon the project base point. This is a dummy surface for which I am sure that it will not move or change shape! (see previous post why I do that)


Today I had to check something and I didn't bother to setup my project basepoint on a nice round number. And guess what, it turns out that Revit didn't put the project base point where it is in Civil 3D but it moved it to a nice round number...


In civil 3D the ID of center of the surface is: (meters)
X = 235013.1029     Y = 580515.5750     Z = 0.0000

Revit creates a project base point at n/s 580515500.0  and e/w 235013500.0 (Millimeters)

You can also see that the project base point is off center. 


I redid the whole thing but then I used nice numbers in civil and then Revit did use the same coordinates....
So instead of these  X = 235013.1029     Y = 580515.5750     Z = 0.0000
I create the point at X = 235000.0000     Y = 580500.0000     Z = 0.0000


Recommendation: Create your own project base point in Civil 3D and put it on a round nice number! Create a dummy surface that has it center on your created project base point. Get only that surface into revit first and CHECK the project basepoint numbers!



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More coordinates again

In revit 2011 release I thought we finally had this shared coordinates thing fixed. 2012 proved me wrong. If you also want to use the bridgemodeler extensions you are really in for some puzzling. This video will not cover that. This video will cover setting up shared coordinates and the true north project north rotation. In you want to use the integration with civil3D extension don't use this method.


After a recent project I ran again into trouble with Revit and keeping a dwg on the right position. After quiet some testing I produced a system that seems to work.


I chose to do it manually so I am much more aware of what is happening. I am still experiencing that reloading a dwg gives weird results. Closing the revit file and reopening seems more stable for the position of the dwg.


I captured a video showing the steps that work for me. I hope it will help you out. Please let me know your experiences.

 (watch it on youtube and set it to 1080p)

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Coordinates again...

So once in a while you think you have something figured out until... to later find out that circumstances are ready to jump at you and make you rethink the problems challenges.


If you set the shared coordinates manually between civil3D en Revit like I do, you get trouble if you also want to use the civil integration extension. Basically it shifts your project base point. We found out that the geomarker in civil isn't much of a help either because once you changed it's position it happily wanders back as soon as you hit the save button. (I had to do this several times to actually believe what I was seeing) The way to keep this thing fixed is to throw away your coordinates settings in civil altogether. Somehow I wasn't really happy about that.


The geomarker location is used by Revit's 'civil 3D integration extension'. Since I can't beat the geomarker I thought let's try and fool it. And that has worked for me this afternoon.


First let's get my bearings in Revit. I linked a dwg file with two squares and I placed the dwg on the project base point. I used the point where both of the squares meet.

In civil I have set a point to be used as the project base point in Revit. I used some nice round numbers. Bear in mind that civil is in meters and Revit in millimeters

In another civil 3d file I have setup some surfaces that I want to get into Revit with the civil integration extension and they have to line up.
dtm_2 dtm_3 & dtm_4 the controle surface has to take care that the geomarker goes a stray. ( I want to geomarker clearly out of the way to make sure this bugger doesn't accidentally get it right for me)


First step of getting surfaces in with the civil integration extension

second: Only import the civil2revit surface!!!!!

third: the civil2revit surface has been placed in such a way that it's center point lies ontop of the project base point. As you can see on the picture the extension uses the project center of this surface.

there it is:

Start the civil integration extension again and select another surface (dtm_4 here) Take a good look at the screen there is a small difference for importing this surface with the previous. You can now choose to use the project center at the topography of the civil2revit. 

So bear in mind get a controle surface in first and then you can use the center of the topography created from this surface.


Next steps are for checking
Create a nwc file from Revit and append that file and the civil3d file into navisworks.


They should line up perfectly. Here the civil 3D file selected

Here the revit nwc file selected

Notice that Navisworks says this file is exported in feet. That's right the Revit engine runs on feet. for metric it recalculates everything. That's quiet an atrocity when you think about it.


But at least I get the surfaces in now.

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extra blog

Small post for my followers:


I also write blogs on this address: danielgijsbers.blogspot.com



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