Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Revit Buildings Exported to AutoCAD Site Plans

Since Revit is lacking features in the site area, many companies still use AutoCAD for Civil/Site drawings. Many times the architects have started their building without importing the site plan. So when they import the site plan for the first time, they have to move it to match the building. They will eventually want to export the building outline to give to the civil guys to put in their AutoCAD site plan. So how do you get your building to export out of Revit so that it will match up exactly with the site plan?

1. First you need to draw a line in the site plan DWG file that starts at 0,0.

2. Then reload the DWG link into Revit.

3. You will now be able to see the line in Revit. (If you can't, make sure the layer that you created it on is currently turned on in Visibility/Graphics)

4. Next you want to select the menu item: Tools -> Shared Coordinates -> Specify Coordinates at a Point



5. With the new cursor: Choose the end point of the line in the CAD file that starts at 0,0.

6.A window will pop up with the current Revit coordinates. Replace the values of East/West and North/South with 0. This will shift the Revit coordinates to use this point as 0,0.



7. You can now export your building to DWG. You will want to go to the Options button and change the setting Coordinate System Basis to Shared.



8. Now you can xref the exported building into the site plan DWG with an insert point of 0,0.