Recap to Revit - Is it possible to not truncate origin?

[Anonymous]

We received a truncated set of point clouds from the surveying team. They claim that it is not possible to not truncate the data. Is this correct?

We are an architecture firm, so this is outside the scope of our knowledge.

[anil_mistry]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for participating in our Community! You can have un-truncated point cloud data. I am not sure what is your workflow is and why surveyor decided to truncated point cloud data. More information would be really helpful to understated this question. 

Thank you and have a great day!

[Anonymous]

@anil_mistry Have a look at this thread:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/point-clouds-with-large-os-coordinates-and-r...

The georeference point is further than 20-30 miles. Some surveyor say it is problematic, Revit support seems on an off. Autodesk staff does not seem to understand the problem or know of a clear solution.

[anil_mistry]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for your reply. Article that Viveka provide  and she mention that the 'truncate' option is a workaround for large coordinate in Revit that is correct information. The article referenced the OP's issue: 

Revit 20 mile origin limit for imported and model geometry which discuss that geometry range maximum to 20 miles total distance.

I believe Revit development team is looking into this behavior. Viveka or I will give you an update once its available.

Thank you and have a great day!

[Anonymous]

Truncation is undesirable. We would like for Revit to support proper georeferencing like it does with CAD.

The article you linked is not relevant to CAD. If there is no geometry on the 0,0 point, the extents are calculated as the physical boundaries of the lines in the drawing.

Example: You draw a 1x1m square one million kilometers from the 0,0 point, but there is nothing else drawn: Revit will consider this drawing to be 1x1m no matter where the origin is.

You draw a 1x1m square one million kilometers from the 0,0 point and there is a line at the 0,0 point: Revit will consider this drawing to be 1x1m + 1 million kilometer. This is now a problem.

Point clouds should work the same, if we keep the origins empty, it should not matter where the origins are.

I look forward to an answer. Thanks!

[anil_mistry]

Hi @Anonymous,

Have you tried Updating Origin Location & Orientation in ReCap Pro before you are importing point cloud data into Revit? I noticed that you are trying to access help article in ReCap Forum that Ryan posted in this post but link is broken. I am working with content team to get that link fix and will let you know once its fix.

Also want to let you know that Revit development team is aware of large coordinate issue in Revit and they are currently investigating further. Viveka or I will give you an update once issue is resolve.

Thank you and have a great day!

[Anonymous]

Hi Anil,

I have not. Actually here is the situation.

We paid a lot of money to get a georeferenced model. The firm sent us a truncated model with some steps to manually align it. This is less than ideal for us and we would argue that is not what the contract specified.

They claim truncating the value is the only way or it will lead to innacuracies. The data online is very confusing, some people say truncate because Revit is broken some say Revit supports it.

I am trying to figure out if this is a real problem or not, but this seems like a very grey area. Apparently it worked in 2014 and the Revit stopped working with it and now I think it works again, but not 100% sure.

Also, look at the 'Update Origin Location & Orientation' it seems like an extremely inaccurate (therefore useless/dangerous) tool unfit for any kind of survey work. If you were able to move the cursor using numbers it could work.

I hope this clarifies the issue. Looking forward to your response 🙂

[anil_mistry]

Hi @Anonymous,

As I mention in my previous post saying that this behavior is in Revit side, and its been escalated to development team for further review. At this time we don't have any ETA but Viveka or I will give you an update when update is available. As work around review this forum post on how to shorten long coordinates.   

Thank you and have a great day!

[Anonymous]

Is there no way to do 'Updating Origin Location & Orientation' using coordinates instead of guessing the location with an arrow?

[Anonymous]

Hi @anil_mistry,

I've just installed and tried Recap Pro. The button to adjust the origin is disappointing. It only lets you click on a new origin, you cannot move it according to a certain coordinate.

I cannot imagine a situation where this would be desirable in a georeferenced project. It is extremely inaccurate and dangerous to move the origin of a point cloud like this. I'm actually flabbergasted that this is seen as an acceptable or 'PRO' tool. Recap Pro needs a more robust way to enter rotation and translation information that does not rely on an existing point, but a pure translation/rotation with units that the user can input.

[yan.fu]

You can use survey point in ReCap to georeference your project. 

Then you can try to use "Shared Coordinate" in Revit to insert the point cloud.  

See some discussion on this topic from:

https://laserscanningforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11431

[anil_mistry]

Hi @Anonymous,

Please try suggestions that was provided by @yan.fu and let me know if you have any other questions. 

Thank you and have a great day!

[anil_mistry]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for your reply. I was wondering if you and an opportunity to try suggestion that Yan Fu provided in the Forum? Let me know if that helps.

​Thank you and have a great day!

[Anonymous]

It is an interesting tool if I want to become a surveyor, but it does not answer my original question:

Is Revit capable of supporting a point cloud that is not truncated?

[Anonymous]

I do have a speculative workflow to redefine the origin point, but I have some doubt that it would work:

Recap Pro allows us to redefine a new origin, but it has to be by snapping to a point. If you create a point cloud model of the whole project and then insert a single point at the real origin, you can select that point to redefine the origins. It may be tricky to select a single point that is floating many kilometers away however. I did noticed some weird behavior in Recap when zooming out, like the points disappearing.

I don't think this would work very well, when zooming out just a little, all the points disappear. Going to hunt for a point kilometers away if the points disappear from just 100 meters sounds like a nightmare to me.

[anil_mistry]

Hi @Anonymous,

As I mention in my previous post saying that this behavior is in Revit side, and its been escalated to development team for further review. Viveka has mention to you same thing in Revit Forum board. At this time we don't have any ETA but Viveka or I will give you an update when update is available. You are seeing this behavior because your model has large coordinate. As work around review this forum post on how to shorten long coordinates. 

Thank you and have a great day!

[Stijn8N2DF]

6 years later, and we're on Revit 2024. This issue still persists. Shortening long coordinates can't be done for every survey controlled data that comes in, it's just ridiculous to request.

Imagine you're modelling from a pointcloud that's survey controlled, then import survey DWGs that you then have to move around every time, just to suit the shortened coordinates.

By now there should have been a solution rather than a workaround..