Importing DWG into a Revit and rotating or placing it in a vertical plane

[Nathan Moore]

I am trying to model a German Meat Slicer and American Packaging line from the 2D ACAD Drawings they have supplied me to assure proper coordination between the numerous building services and elements effected by this equipment. They have given me plans and elevations. I can easily import the plan into the file. However, i am having great difficulty getting the elevation to either past into a vertical work plane or find a way to bring it into a plan view and rotate it into a vertical position so that i can recreate a relatively accurate model of the equipment. Any suggestions?

[melarch]

Nathan,

Why are you trying to bring a 2D plan and elevation for this meat slicing equipment? If you are trying to model this meat slicer you may want to create a family using the family editor. 2D geometry is not going to represent its image properly in Revit model views and it is apparent that what you need to show is a 3D model of this meat slicer.

You of course could try to build it as an in-place family, but the same effort you would spend trying to create this model would be better served using the family editor to create this equipment.

Read the tutorials on using the family editor to create family content. Also visit Autodesk family library, AUGI and Revit City to look for a family that looks like a meat slicer, maybe if one can be found you can use and modify that family to the model you need to develop.

Mel Persin, Architect & Consultant/Trainer

[Anonymous]

Or at the very least create an 'interfeance model' of the slicer, that just approximates it's required outside clearances, and bring the DWG's you've got into the Family and set the visibility controls so that they are what shows in plan & elevation, yet you still have this 3D form you can use to check clearances and such... it might be faster... Jeffrey McGrew melarch wrote: > Nathan, > > Why are you trying to bring a 2D plan and elevation for this meat slicing equipment? If you are trying to model this meat slicer you may want to create a family using the family editor. 2D geometry is not going to represent its image properly in Revit model views and it is apparent that what you need to show is a 3D model of this meat slicer. > > You of course could try to build it as an in-place family, but the same effort you would spend trying to create this model would be better served using the family editor to create this equipment. > > Read the tutorials on using the family editor to create family content. Also visit Autodesk family library, AUGI and Revit City to look for a family that looks like a meat slicer, maybe if one can be found you can use and modify that family to the model you need to develop. > > Mel Persin, Architect & Consultant/Trainer

[Steve_Stafford]

Save each dwg view of your equipment as separate dwg files. Start a new Revit family with the specialty equipment template. Import all the dwg view files into a plan view. Then position the plan view and rotate each of the others into the correct orientation by selecting one and changing to the appropriate elevation view and then using the rotate command in that view.

You'll end up with a 2D family that offers each view of your equipment in all the relevant views in your project except a 3d view. Do what Jeffery suggests and create a block or blocks to approximate it's 3d shape so you can get the mass in a view if you want.

Each import has a visibility property to control which views it should appear in. Be sure to set these. You should also consider creating a new subcategory of specialty equimpent to define the product distinctly and assign each that sub-category. This way you could turn off this equipment individually in a project if you needed to. Or at least use a broader sub-category like Kitchen Equipment so it will be part of a "smaller" group of objects than the overall Specialty Equipment category.

Finally, don't mirror these, a bug with mirroring this type of family will create unpleasant issues with them. Better to explode the dwgs and create native Revit lines from them if you really need to be able to mirror. But keep in mind the manufacturer probably doesn't offer mirrored versions, right?

HTH


Message was edited by: Steve_Stafford

[djndes]

The key to inserting a dwg file onto a vertical plane is to rotate to vertical in CAD first then link in as normal. I needed to put in a basement piled retention wall elevation into the file to align the designed capping beam. What I did was link inserted the elevation onto the plan view in revit to line up the grids. I then rotated the elevation in autocad using x axis and reloaded the link and voila. It helped that I was in the 3D view to see the change.