IFC Import--Level line is automatically created

[David_Robison]

I have an application that creates an IFC file to be imported into Revit. When it is imported, a level line at 0m is included in each elevation. I can turn this off in each elevation manually. Is there a way to have it not display automatically? I'm not sure if all IFC files inclue this level line, or if it is something specific to the file I am importing.

[jeremytammik · Accepted solution]

Dear Drobison,

Here is the discussion we had on this with the development team:

[Q] Is there any automated way to remove or disable the level added in elevation view by the IFC import?

[A] Revit needs at least one building story. This file doesn’t seem to have any levels in it, so it is creating a default one. This seems to be standard behaviour.

[Q] Does that mean there is no way to automatically disable the default level display? Should I file a wish for it?

[A] I don’t think it would make much sense to make a wish for this. There has to be a level in a Revit file, and default view templates show levels. I might not fully understand his issue, but I am not sure exactly what the wish list item would be.

[Q] The reason it that several levels already exist in the current project, especially there is a “Level 1”. When IFC is imported, it creates another “Level 1” with 0 m elevation, which is redundant.

[A] OK, I think I see the issue here.

In general, we expect IFC files to have at least one building story in them. If they don’t, we’ll create one.

If they do, we will reuse the Level 1 already existing in the template to avoid exactly the case below. In this case, though, because we are creating a level – not reading one from the IFC file – we don’t do the matching that we’d normally do.

The workaround is simple: add a Level 1 to the IFC file.

I’ll file a request to deal with the case where there are no levels in the IFC file.

Dear Drobison, can you please verify and confirm that this works?

Thank you!

Best regards,

Jeremy

[David_Robison]

Jeremy--thanks for the reply. That works as a solution for me. I'll figure out how to get a level included in the IFC file. It sounds like that should allow my IFC file to play better with Revit.

[jeremytammik]

Dear David,

Thank you for confirming!

Yes, it certainly does.

I passed on the good news to the development team.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[jeremytammik]

I published a summary of this discussion here:

http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2016/02/ifc-import-levels-and-mep-element-shapes.html#2

[David_Robison]

Follow up question...how do you actually go about making this work? I had a moment to give this a try and did not have any luck.

Attached is an IFC file I created from Revit. When I link it back into Revit, the level line shows up in the elevations.

[jeremytammik]

Dear David,

Thank you for your update and sorry I missed it!

For all others interested: David raised a new thread to continue this discussion:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-api/creating-an-ifc-with-a-level-1-included/m-p/6291934

Thank you for that, David!

Let's continue this there, then.

Cheers,

Jeremy