topic Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax in 3ds Max Forum

Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 13:32:37 GMT

Hi,

A couple of years ago when I was looking into it it was said that Revit and 3dsmax don't have compatible coordinate systems so there were usually issues regarding loss of transformation when linking Revit files into max.

I haven't used this a lot for the last few years but now I see a real use for it again, so I'll just gently ask what the current status is.

I need to link Revit files into max and I need to know exactly the coords of the imported project (Project basepoint) but also the *rotation pivot* and rotation value for the project if it has rotation applied in Revit.

What is the recommended / working approach with 3dsmax 2017 and Revit (2017)?

Thanx for your time.

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

rendermaster — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 15:39:08 GMT

in my case, 3ds max respects revit coordinate system....but for the orientation, 3ds Max takes the project North

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 07:26:25 GMT

Thanx, ok, so my issue here is to figure out if rotation relative to project base point or the scenes bounding volume midpoint.

Meaning, in order to get it right, I need to rotate the max scene with a value "countering" the value relative to true north in Revit, but do I

a) rotate the entire imported scene around origo (0,0,0,)

b) rotate the imported scene around its bounding volume center

Thanx again

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

Alfred.DeFlaminis — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 17:46:06 GMT

Hello @Anonymous,

I would suggest rotating it around the bounding center and then centering that over 0,0,0. The further away from the origin a scene goes, the less precision it has for lighting.

Best Regards,

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

Alfred.DeFlaminis — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 00:06:28 GMT

Hello @Anonymous,

I just wanted to follow up here, any progress on this issue?

Best Regards,

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 09:39:05 GMT

Hi,

Actually, the thing that seemed to work best in my case was to group everything in max, set the group's pivot to 0,0,0 and then apply the rotation worked best. (Or Set each object pivot to 0,0,0 then apply Rotation and Translation)

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

Alfred.DeFlaminis — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 16:21:30 GMT

That's a good idea @Anonymous, thanks for the update. Are you all set now? If there is anything else I can do I'm happy to. If you find that your last post was the best solution for this issue, please Accept as Solution on your post so that the next person can benefit from your findings. Thanks!

Best Regards,

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

morehead — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 16:20:04 GMT

We had major design change which necessitated project north revision in revit. Had hoped to reimport revit model to 3DS keeping the cameras and lighting setups in the 3ds model so as to do accurate / photo realisting renders. The project north is now rotated to ease drafting and location is difficult to reset in 3ds. True north or geo location was not movedIs there any easy way to retain original cameras to get matching before and after shots?

Re: Keeping / transforming Revit Coords to 3dsmax

aaron.bortz — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 19:28:01 GMT

I know this is an old post but it's the only one I can find on topic of my issue.

Can anyone share how they actually got 3ds Max to use Revit's coordinate system?

I'm using FARO's SCENE for registering scan data. I'm able to align the coordinate system of the point cloud and Revit model so they line up in Revit or Navisworks no problem. But to get the Revit model into SCENE to view both model and point cloud together in VR, you have to import the model into 3ds Max and export it from there as WRL so it can be imported into SCENE.

However, 3ds Max changes the coordinate system and I'm left trying to manually align the model to the point cloud.

Does anyone know how to keep Revit's coordinate system or at least change the 3ds Max coordinates to match that of Revit's?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!