Importing CAD into Revit (properly!)
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- Опубликовано: 1 авг 2020
- Recently I saw a video on importing CAD and the user exploded the file in their model, then proceeded to move on - big nope from me! I don't want to be one to throw stones and walk away, so here's my methods for doing it safely and cleanly.
I hope you enjoy the session and learn something new! Feel free to comment any feedback/questions below, or follow my channel if you enjoyed this.
Software used;
Autodesk Revit 2020: www.autodesk.com/products/rev...
Adobe Premier CC: www.adobe.com/au/products/pre...
Hardware used;
Webcam: support.logitech.com/en_us/pr...
Laptop: www.msi.com/Workstation/WT75-...
Microphone: www.rode.com/microphones/nt-usb
#revit #cad #bim
Thank's for the tip! It's does keep the file clean. My video is aimed more at students and people that are working in smaller firms where there are no BIM managers, organised systems and workflows, and people that need a quick solution ASAP. A lot of companies are just turning to Revit, but only using it partially in the design process. Glad to see a video that covers this topic for people working in larger companies that completely integrate Revit.
Thanks BA! Glad to share different methods for different project/working scales, that's the fun part of the YT community - many ways to do many things. As you probably heard in the intro I appreciate that model audits aren't always of the highest importance in student/design focused models (and auditing isn't the most exciting thing to do too haha!).
@@AussieBIMGuru @
Balkan Architect thanks for sharing your knowledge
Balkan Architect! You deleted all my comments in your videos about these things. You are not a king! Dont forget this!
@@architect4079 I just checked my list of blocked users and you are not on it. I only delete comments/block users if they are promoting their products, websites or channels and ones that use inappropriate language. You comment can be hidden automatically by youtube if it is potentially spam (this can happen when you include a link or include words like "check out"...), unfortunately I get too many spam comments so I don't have the time to go trough all of them to find the ones that were hidden by mistake. I never delete legitimate criticism as it helps me to learn and improve my content.
@@balkanarchitect his objective is to just to get view's in youtube.... it's good professionals are correcting him
Brilliance! I was working with a firm here in Melbourne on a hospital project. I linked a cad file to the model. The BIM manager got on to me immediately as you would imagine. He created a drawing container that held all the CAD files. I am re-documenting a five story building I did in CAD a couple of years ago. The idea is to build a model from scratch and create everything custom from scratch. So in the past few days I have been researching linking CAD to a Revit model via a drawing container. I was going to dump the CAD files into a new project and link it to the model. However, the idea of creating a detail item family for each floor, and thoroughly cleaning the database is a terrific idea. I have given myself the weekend to figure it out lol. I'm a 61 year old draftsman and I need to master the program to stay competitive in the marketplace. The plan is to sit for the Certified Revit Professional certificate by the end of the year. Thank you.
You're welcome! Never too late to pick up new skills, and I commend you for defying typical status quo in keeping your skillset fresh. I've heard from many seasoned draftspeople from the CAD era and Revit is both a benefit and a challenge to the drafting process for sure, automated drawing updates on the one hand but a bit less control over the drawn output on the other.
Thanks mate. Back in late 80's I saw Autocad and knew that was the future. Bought my first licensed copy in 1988. That program allowed me to spend 25 years overseas documenting projects in 25+ countries. Once I saw Revit, and what it could do, I jumped on it. That was eight years ago. However, for several years I didn't have the opportunity in a practice to get my hands on it. Then, three years ago I got put on a job here in Melbourne that was all Revit, no ACAD allowed. Best thing that ever happened. Sink or swim. Sure at first it is a bit of a mountain to scale, but once you get used to the basic tools, vision graphics, basic family knowledge and working with linked files, you are on your way. In this tutorial you showed how to clean a file in a Revit family. A really useful tutorial would be how to create a drawing container full of ACAD drawings, loading it into a project, and then being able to link each linked ACAD floor plan to your floor plan view in the model. I have the last bit down pat, but creating the initial container of ACAD files is beyond me. I have not been able to find anything about it.
I watch a lot of the Blakan Architect as a fairly new Revit user and they are fantastic. I see this info as the perfect complement so that I am aware of the trade offs and get the "big picture". Fantastic info and great presentation. Thanks so much I will be subscribing and watching your material as well going forward.
Glad to help provide a part of your overall Revit education :)
Bless this is how it starts BIM youtuber call outs, we finna have BIM RUclips DRAMA... OMG the content entretainment vaule alone
Haha I like to see it more as a different perspective on BA's approach, different methods for different types of users and environments. No drama intended!
Great video once again!
From my experience what I have done in the past when importing CAD files is import into blank template, strip out all CAD hatches line types etc and replace with my Revit templates line styles hatches, then copy to clipboard and paste into current project.
Thanks Tim, yep that works also! I do find sometimes having them in the detail family can be safer as you have the ability track them down more easily, although having to control the styles in the family can be a bit of a drag vs in project.
Oh my gosh this is so useful. Some of the designers I have the chance to work with are awfully persistent about using their custom 2D entourage for drawings and this, this literally helped save the day (and many days to come HAHA). Thank you so much for sharing!
Glad it helped!
Usually for 2d entourage i would make them into detail item families so they can be easily loaded and reused across multiple projects.
@@AussieBIMGuru Ahh that's brilliant. Thank you!
Informative as always :)
Cheers Benzy!
Thanks for the content Gavin
You're welcome Christopher!
This is a different Revit video in a really good way. It is great to be scientific in what you do.
Thanks! I like to deliver my content in my own way :)
Extremely useful!
Thanks!
Can't stand a polluted model! Thanks for putting this out there Gavin!
You're welcome!
Very good video, Gavin. As always. May I just add a comment that it would have been useful to mention at the end of the video that the Imports in Families box need to be ticked so that the imported CAD in families do not disappear when the families are being used in the project. I still get this type of BIM support query, though in low count, when people come over foxed that said family is not showing.
Great point! That behavior is indeed important to note, I have many users get confused by where the object styles/layers are stored for nested family imports.
Usually I encourage users to clearly rename layers on family imports so they are easily managed and identified also.
Hello Gavin! Thank you for sharing. Could please you share a full project video for revit beginner? This will be great!!!
I plan on making a course eventually for this as it takes quite a while to make a series like this! Hopefully by the end of the year via my course page;
courses.bimguru.education/pages/coming_soon
Thank you sir, for the great video.
and that Kanye meme made my day.
You're welcome! I assume you mean the link/import meme? If so that's actually the 'drake format' meme - I use it all the time, one of my favourites!
@@AussieBIMGuru Sorry my bad, To be honest I have no idea who the guy is. I will look for Drake now, thanks for the tip :)
@@msavas2003 he's well known in the west, mainly for 'hotline bling' where the meme image is from. Not my musical taste, but he's a decent rapper.
Awesome video. I have promoting the use of CAD Container Methods for awhile now. Created a script for deleting line patterns prefixed with "Import"
Yeah there is a handy node from Modelical package that does this I think.
@@AussieBIMGuru, okay! I'll check it out! They took away my Ideate tools so I had to solve it another way. Thanks man! Keep up the great work!
@@AussieBIMGuru, okay! I'll check it out! They took away my Ideate tools so I had to solve it another way. Thanks man! Keep up the great work!
@@BIMGenie ah that's a bummer! Lots of features in Ideate Dynamo can fill, but never to the same level/polish I find.
I think I need to give this presentation to my company.
You're more than welcome to borrow the presentation files, or even just let them watch my video :)
@@AussieBIMGuru sure 😀
Hey a question there.... I appreciate the workflow you followed and the fact that it doesn't pollute the model. However, it wasn't really clear to me why would I ever need to import CAD instead of linking it. (And perform any edits, should they be needed, in the CAD environment directly)
The main reasons are;
1. Creating an embedded object without a link back to a DWG file. A common example is a 3D city context file
2. Introducing DWG elements into a family (then into the project)
There are some other minor use cases but these are the most common. 1 is common also for embedding CAD details in a Revit file. Bad practice, but it happens often, especially with engineers in my experience (typical details etc).
Thanks for all your videos.
Can anybody tell me a way to show up the DWG links from a linked RVT file? Because it seems that for the DWG links it's not possible to choose reference type.
The best way to do this is to establish linked views within the linked file, then call on those in the main model.
I pretty much always link whenever possible, also using relative filepaths. Imagine the horror of importing a DWG made with civil 3D that contains thousands of layers🥶. Those sort of files always require a lot of stripping and cleaning up and a lot of preparation before they are suitable, also because of the grid coordinates of survey drawings having huge extends, that go beyond the limit that Revit finds comfortable.
Oh the horror! Been there far too many times in my career.
Thank you for a great in depth video as always. I've been trying to link (overlay) a Utiity Survey dwg into our Revit project and I'd like to preserve the linestyle of the Survey lines so that I don't need to create my own legend for each utility line - the lines contain letters in between. Once the dwg is linked the linestyle changes, I'm assuming it's because I'm linking so the linestyles aren't imported into the project. Is there a way around this? Is the only proper way to link the dwg and create a matching legend for the lines as they appear once the dwg is linked? Many thanks in advance
Unfortunately Revit only supports dashes, spaces and dots in line patterns, and can't do symbols/text like AutoCAD. The only workaround I know is to build line based detail families with an arrayed symbol/text nested within.
thank you, just a quick one how can i import cad file such that it underlays my Revit Elements. i have imported cad file I am now unable to see some underground sleeves, if I zoom out the the drawing i can see them but if i zoom the the drawing and print some conduit get blocked by cad file and become invisible.
Unfortunately I've found there isn't a perfect way to overlay CAD to Revit, some things always sit over the top in its hierachy. The two options Revit gives us are to use current view only for the import then set it to an overlay, or raise it to a higher level in the plan if it is not for current view only.
Hello, thank for you for uploading this. I have a question, I have floor plan drawings in Autocad that I would like to import correctly and then use in revit to create revit drawings. Do I then trace over the imported dwg plan in revit to achieve this? Thank you
Usually on projects we would link the CAD files and model over them as a starting point. We usually would not import the DWG files.
@@AussieBIMGuru Sir,I'm going to do the whole architecture in imperial ,so while making the family at 15:05 your video, should i take family template as metric or imperial in my case
@@nagababucherukuri5069 typically you would be using imperial units in all cases if you are working with imperial files.
@@AussieBIMGuru Tq for your reply sir
I STILL HAVE THIS SCALING PROBLEM,EXAMPLE BRINGING IN THE SITE PLAN WHICH IS ENORMOUSLY OVERSIZED WHEN I PLACE IT ON THE SHEET,EVEN USING SCALING THE DRAWING TOOL?
HELP SOMEONE PLEASE
Hi Rossco, typically before i import or link a cad file i check the drawn units and also if they are correct (e.g. even if autocad says mm, has it been drawn that way). Make sure to use the settings when bringing it to revit (don't use auto detect).
Great video do you have any videos on importing tekla structures IFC into revit and IFC mapping
I don't tend to do a great deal of this - it's quite complex and dependent on how you have your parameters set up in Revit. I'd check out this channel here and some of their content - they seem to be heading in that direction;
ruclips.net/channel/UCdKkSlrkOUtj54WkpRUNDgw
@@AussieBIMGuru thanks for the reply ill give them a look
In India we prepare the Revit Model after the AutoCAD files are prepared and then import the CAD file for Model. This is real problem and there is lots of pollution in revit project.
Yes it's a problem here in Australia too, usually only a handful of users in an office know the best ways to handle CAD files, and all it takes is one person in a rush to ruin it for everyone!
@@AussieBIMGuru Yes I Agree! Will share this video with everyone whom I will meet in Professional World.
Hi, I'm just wondering if there is a way to Import a 2 storey house from Chief Architect as a 3D model? I'm looking to apply Lumion to the imported 3D model, to save me a lot of time. Is this even doable? I would really appreciate any help. Thanks : )
Been a while since I've had much to with the Chief', but I seem to recall the only export options Revit could receive were IFC or 3D DWG.
So the answer is sort of, but not really.
These both unfortunately come in as static elements. IFC will be separated into individual parts at least, but most of the intelligence from the source is usually lost in this process.
Hi Gavin,
thanks for sharing the tip. I have a problem while importing CAD files with this method. When I create the family and use it in the Revit file, it only shows the lines of the original file and loses the texts. Could you please tell me what I am doing wrong.
That's odd... is the text visible in the family still? I know that imported text can have issues if it's either on a frozen layer in the dwg or multi-line also.
@@AussieBIMGuru Yes seems odd. The text is still visible in the family. The layer in the cad file is not frozen.
Hrm I'm not quite sure in that case... make sure the family view scale matches project view scale too so the text scales to the same point.
@@AussieBIMGuru Great, thanks Gavin
Hi.i wanted to know how can I get a room size (eg.3.30 m x 5.20 m)in the room schedule.thanks.
I have a video on this here:
ruclips.net/video/LFIxJC6cwGs/видео.html
Is there any shortcut for changing revit detail level in model from coarse to medium to fine. One has to go model or in detail level in the property palette. Can this be done by a shortcut?
Not that I am aware of. Ideally you would set up view templates to set the detail level to suit the view type as a standard approach. I tend not to use detail level often these days as it takes so much work to make everything work with it consistently in a content library.
I’m just wondering what that noise is in the background? Cat? Bird? Child?
That would be my 2 cats off camera and their collars jingling i think!
Can we do analysis like cooing and heating load calculations on linked cad file
Not really. You need connected system elements modelled to undertake systems analysis in programs like revit.
Hi, Tank you extremelz much for your videos, I found them extremely helpfull. I ve got one question for you doh.. Is there a way to select this imported Cad ( from family environment ) in dynamo? I am trying to set a few override grafic proprietry, for example transparencz ect.. :/ No Idea How to.
I thank you very much in advance in any case ^^
Hi Schneider, the only way to override cad object styles is in the imported styles settings in the main project. Transparency isnt possible on a layer basis as far as I am aware unfortunately.
@@AussieBIMGuru Thank you very much for your help! :)
Thank you, i'm trying with no solution to imort cad into family but the only option is the "Ref. Level" and i need the imported CAD to other views like Front or Back... Etc.
Please I need your valuable reply.
Try rotating the CAD lines in AutoCAD about the YX axis and importing that instead maybe?
@@AussieBIMGuru thank you, i will try this.
How can you change the text that comes in with the contour?
In AutoCAD. That or try the contour label tool in Revit 2024.
Thanks for the video! You said you have a dynamo script that does cleanup. Can you share it?
If this is in regards to cleaning line patterns I used to use modelical for this task which comes with a node to get all line patterns. These days i filter a list of line patterns by if they begin with IMPORT and then delete any that make it through the filter. You'll find the line pattern and delete nodes in my Crumple package.
@@AussieBIMGuru got it! Thank you!
Did you have a dynamo script who realod a DWG plans to revit??
Unfortunately not, but give dynamo forums a search.
Just make a conteiner revit project that contains only autocad files and link it to the main model...
Yep this is a good approach for larger scale projects, I cover this in a few of my DWG setup videos separately. Linked views are a win too.
1 Disslike Balkan Architect 😂😂😂
I'd hope not! He actually gave some positive feedback in the comments here so I was impressed by his marurity and humility in this case. My goal is educating our industry, so I'm glad to help all users of BIM, even the superstars :)
Autodesk's interoperability between REVIT, AutoCAD and NAVISWORKS is a joke at this point. Autodesk just takes our money but never fixes those software's inability to work together. All three should work together seamlessly, but they don't. It's insane.
Mm for the most part I agree that these programs do not easily work well together. Very few programs work well together in AEC without hacks and workarounds unfortunately.
@@AussieBIMGuru The more complicated the project (REVIT coordination to AutoCAD 3D modeling over Point Clouds, to make shop CAM programming and Field Coordination (NAVISWORKS)) need A LOT of workarounds or, simply do not work at all. And the current set of know-it-alls at Autodesk are asleep at the wheel apparently. Support is atrocious now and hardly ever has a fix... they just lets cases hang unresolved.
Looks like I wasn't the only one triggered by that video lol
Haha yeah! It's OK for a beginner/uni approach but beyond that doesn't sit well with my standards. Balkan was fairly receptive to feedback in his comments so I think he understood the bigger picture - just isn't his target audience.
@@AussieBIMGuru I appreciate the work he puts into the video and what hes built for himself, but I wish his videos were more clear that this is not for production environment. I just started with his videos, and I wouldn't have had I know it was not best practices. Anyways, great video as usual. I thought you would also go over using cad in a link file and then linking that revit file into the project as a way to avoid clutter in the main project.
@@JavierOropeza08 yeah there are a few different types of youtubers for Revit out there. I like to think Balkan is for the students, RevitKid is for construction/graphics, I'm for the professional practice and Niko/Firas are for a bit of both.