Best workflow from ReCap point cloud to Revit topography?

[Anonymous]

How can I get accurate topography in Revit out of a ReCap point cloud, using any AutoDesk software inbetween? 

There are many things I've tried, but nothing has worked. Is there a proper way to make this happen?

I tried to create topography lines in Civil3D, but that kept crashing. I don't want to be too broad with the contour intervals, because we have a sloping loading drive, curved hills, and all sorts of things that are more complicated than 5' contour changes. 

I tried to get into 3DsMax and create a mesh surface from scratch, snapping vertices to the cloud, but that wasn't working. 

I went back into Revit to try to create model lines in a series of sections to do a swept mass, but drawing model lines in section via reference plane worked once, but didn't work again. 

Our firm 3D scans existing buildings, and we have a project where a client wants to do some site work. 

In past projects where the site wasn't going to change and we only needed topography for renderings, I've eyeballed it in 3D view, changing the elevation of individual vertices. It took too long and it was inaccurate. Is there any accurate and efficient way to use the point cloud to get detailed topography?

[barthbradley]

https://betterrevit.com/revit/generate-revit-topography-from-point-cloud-data/

[Anonymous]

This is the article that I was following while trying Civil3D. Like I said, it wasn't accurate enough and it kept crashing when I tried to do it. I adjusted the point density. 

[lim.wendy]

Hi @Anonymous ,

That's a great workflow posted by @barthbradley . 

Did it help or are you still experiencing crash?

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[Anonymous]

I had found and tried that workflow before posting to this forum. It was crashing. Our site has less than 5' of elevation change to model, so the contours needed to be tighter. 

[Yien_Chao]

did you try to reduce the density of points in Recap?

[Anonymous]

No, because I reduced the point density in Civil3D.