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!



Disclaimer information
http://danielgijsbers.blogspot.com/2012/08/disclaimer.html