driveways & retaining walls on a steep slope

[mpukas]

A lot of my work is on steep slopes, and I need to incorporate sloping driveways, parking areas, site retaining walls (boulder walls as well as inter-locking block walls), benches between the top of one wall and the bottom of the next, re-grading, and landscape plans into the design model.

It seems Revit lacks any real site tools to accomplish these tasks, and there are some work-arounds. I've been playing w/ floors for a sloping driveway, but it's tedious and the results are mediocre at best. Haven't yet played with ramps for driveways. I haven't yet figured out a good way to deal with site retaining walls, where the bottom is sloped to match the driveway, and the top is at a different slope to match the existing/re-graded terrain above.

Does anyone have experience w/ Siteworks and/or LANDCADD for Revit by Eagle Point Software? Posts from 2-3 years ago suggested that it difficult to use, but I’m wondering how it’s evolved.

Or, does any one have any suggestions for work-arounds to address issues with modeling driveways & retaining walls on a steep site?

Cheers! mpp

[cosstroe]

I was waiting for someone to give a valued answer to your question because I think also that Revit has limited instruments for working with terrains....

I need once to do underground works and because building pad is very restrictive (only to vertical cuttings)

I had to make my own terrain using mass elements-that works , at least ,for small  areas of terrain:

•  I made a series of named horizontal reference planes - or Levels (at a distance of 1 meter)... I called them with the height name
• then from Massing and Site > In Place Mass , I  created a mass element 
• from Work Plane > Set > Work Plane window > I choose the first maiden Reference Plane to make it current
• then I draw a spline following the contours of the isolines (it's better to have an imported dwg surveyer file imported in the background)...I can let it so or close in order to have a volum 3d
• I continue to make curves at every level
• Then I select in order curve 1 and 2 and apply Create Form >Solid...then 2 and 3 ..apply form >solid...til the last pair of them (if I select all and Create Form > Solid....there will be an extrapolation and the result will be smoother but less accurate)
• I know it is not quit elegant but , at least now, this mass elements allows me to do almost everyting using join and cut with voids....

the problem is that  I can;t make schedules reports.....

[mpukas]

That's an interesting and creative solution. Sounds similar to making a physical model from foam-core.

I purchased Siteworks for Revit and Lancadd for Revit from Eagle Point Software in hopes and desperation that it would provide me a better way to do grading, retaining walls, and driveways on steep slopes. Just trying to figure out how it works and implement it into my projects. So far it's a bit difficult. I'm still very new to Revit, but gaining an understanding of how it thinks. SW thinks differently from Revit, which makes it more difficult.

It has it's own built-in functions and they way it likes to do things, but still it cannot do some things they way I expect, and it's families are very confining. Such as having a a driveway assigned a slope - that will vary at different points - and length to determine the elevation of a garage slab. I have to work backwards by setting the garage slab, and then do some work arounds. Still trying to figure it out, so maybe there's a good solution.

The mroe I use Revit, the more I realize how lacking it is in site tools, and how difficult it to use the toposurface. It thinks in very basic terms of everything being "on-grade" and relatively flat slopes.  There should be very simple, fundamental features. Even it there was an ad-on for Revit from Autodesk, it would be better than SW. As it is, SW is still a more functional, yet VERY expensive option for what it is.

I'll keep this thread updated as I go along. mpp

[ccollins]

I agree with the comments here.

And EaglePoint app still wont create parking stalls correctly on a sloping toposurface/subregion.

The stalls either get "burried" into the slope, or "cantilever" out from their "origin".

Not paying big $ for that...............LOL

[tbh]

My company does primarily school buildings. For a long time we struggled trying to create accurate floors for auditoriums. The solution we came up with has worked pretty well for us and may work for some of your site work. Similar to mpukas, draw a reference plan in plan. Cut a section at the reference plan. Draw your profile and extrude it some distance wider than your wall or driveway. Go back to plan and use the void tool to slice off what you don't need

And you're correct. The site tools in revit, to be honest, suck. Autodesk really needs to devote some resources to adding some useful tools. I guess they'll address this right after they get that text editor taken care of