By James Phillip
I blogged about this topic in September 2018, but having completed this process on several occasions I feel that a more detailed blog on the process is required.
Site Collaboration is a Revit 2019.1 new feature that introduces unprecedented interoperability between Revit and Civil 3D. New workflows will help save time and improve accuracy when you are transferring site information and project location data between project teams. You can easily link topography from Civil 3D into Revit using Autodesk Desktop Connector and BIM 360 Docs, and you will also be able to interact with this topography in Revit with surface hosting, tagging and scheduling.
The first step is to open the surface file in Civil 3D because the accurate positioning on the surface is important I have labelled a coordinate, so it can be checked after the Revit import. See Figs 1 & 2.
To export the surface, we navigate to the Collaborate Tab and choose the Publish Surfaces option. Please note, this will upload the file to your BIM 360 Docs Project using the Desktop connector. If you do not have any of these installed then the process will not work. See Figs 3 & 4.
When you choose Publish the surface option, you select the BIM 360 in the list , then the Project and folder you wish to upload your file to. See Figs 5 & 6.
The process in Civil 3D is now complete and so we open Revit to enable us to import the surface. In the Revit file we switch to the Site Plan View and navigate to the Insert Tab and choose the Link Topography option. See Fig 7.
The process is linked to the BIM 360 Docs environment, so the dialogue box that open will show only those projects. See Fig 8.
Choose the surface to import and then select the Link button. The surface is then imported. It will be placed at the centre of the screen if the screen limits are too vast. See Fig 9.
To relocate the Surface to the correct world coordinates, select the surface, and in the Properties Palette, choose the Not Shared Button in the Shared Site Category and Reconcile from the next dialogue box. See Fig 10.
The final part of the process is to check that the surface has been placed to the correct world coordinates. To do this Zoom All to find the site survey point. Then unclip and move it to our known coordinate position and it should have the same coordinates we reported in the Civil 3D file. See Fig 11.