By John Flanagan
Use Project Base Point to set the True North
Every Revit project has a Project North and a True North. The Project North is a virtual orientation used to model your project so it is orthogonal to your screen. The True North is a real-world north used to properly locate the orientation of your building. To set a True North value, select the Project Base Point and enter the angle. You can also click Manage tabProject Location panelPosition drop-down (Rotate True North).
Note: The project base point and survey point are visible by default in the site plan view. To turn on the base point and survey point in other plan views open visibility graphics (type VG or VV). In the visibility graphics dialogue scroll down to Site in the model categories tab. Expand the site category and check the box for base point.
In the view properties of each view, you can specify the orientation you want to use. In almost all cases, Project North will be used.
The above image (right) shows that the site model has been rotated to True North, as indicated by the North Arrow annotation symbol.
Tip: To avoid confusion, define True North only after you begin modelling with Project North aligned to the top of the drawing area and after you receive reliable survey coordinates.