Re Acquire shared coordinates

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Currently trying to write some office notes for Shared coordinates as it's something that comes up time and time again both in-house and with other design team consultants.

Typically for our Arch model we publish the coordinates from our site model.  This way if the building needs to move we simply do it in the site model and update the location by republishing again.  This all works fine.

However, looking at it from another consultants view point, they would typically acquire shared coordinates from our Arch model.  At the first time of askign this works fine.  However if the buidling is moved and you try to reacquire the shared coordinates Revit says it's already acquired those coordinates and doesn't change anything.  

Back in 2012 Steve Stafford wrote in his blog about resetting by using a different,empty file and then reacquire again.  Comments afterwards seem to inidicate that this was no longer required, but running tests here today I'm not seeing that.

So my question, is there an easy way to reset the Shared Coordinates in a file?

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Okay, I've tried just about everything I can think of so I figure I must be missing something..

Steve Staffords solution doesn't seem to work as it appears Revit now lets you acquire shared coordinates from more than one file.  This in turn would seem to make the message 'The shared coordinate system of the project you selected is already synchronized with the current project' somewhat misleading unless there is a a way to switch between the shared coordinates of one linked file to another - but if there is it's alluding me.

Now if I move my buidling and reissue this to the design team if the other consultants have this linked (and previously acquired the coordinates) I would be expecting this to update their shared coordinates when they reload it but this doesn't happen.  Of course if they again try to re-acquire they get the same message as above, now even more misleading, indeed wholly inaccurate.

Now obviously Revit isn't stupid so it must be me so can someone please explain how this is supposed to work?

(as I said my original post publishing coordinates works absolutely fine... )

Cheers

K.

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

Revit makes changes to files when you use shared coordinates (so it does recognize a previous relationship).  Using the process in the following post:
http://revitoped.blogspot.com/2012/04/reset-shared-coordinates.html
would still work for this condition.
As another approach, the consultant should be able to re-insert the latest versions of your linked models by shared coordinates (it should use the latest coordinates on insertion from the updated models).

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Hi Alaaeldin,

I tried this with a number of test files and didn't get any useful results, however I will try it again just to make sure and maybe screencast it just in case I'm missing something.

Cheers

K.

[Lance.Coffey]

A Screencast video would help to better understand the particular steps you are going through.

It would also be good if we had the files used (e.g. if you were to reproduce the behavior with one of the Revit sample projects, or upload some small <5MBs sample models to the thread) so that we could test going through the same steps.

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Hi Lance,  

Attached are some test files - Site Model, Arch Model and Structural Model.

The screencast shows the procedure we are currently following which is basically thus;

1) Open Site Model (which has been set to world coordinates).

2) Link Arch model to Site model and publish coordinates then save location.

3) Open Arch model and check coordinates are correct.

> Arch model published and downloaded by engineer

4) Engineer opens structural model and links in Arch model.

5) Engineer uses 'Aquire Coordinates' to set their model - coordinates update correctly.

>Back in Arch office location of building moves to second location (due to site conditions perhaps).

6) Move is moved in the site model - Revit presents option to save location.  This updates the location of the Arch model.  

7) Open Arch model to double check location has updated correctly (I then checked the site model again just to make absolutely sure!)

> Arch model published again and redownloaded by SE

8) SE opens structural model, arch model comes in at new correct position.

9) Moving the arch model promts to save new location (same as with the site model) - we don't want to do this.

10) trying to acquire coordinates from Arch model states this is already done.

SE sits back and scratches head... then phones us to fix it.  🙂

So the Publishing is working fine - it's the acquiring bit that I'm struggling to understand the correct workflow for.  Hopefully this all makes a bit more sense and you can provide some clarification.

Cheers

K.

[Lance.Coffey · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the update. I have been able to reproduce the steps you are going through with the sample files.

I have found that it looks like you can acquire coordinates from multiple models into the open Revit model (this would link the coordinates to a particular Site within the open model).

However, if you disconnect the shared link before acquiring the new link, the workaround from Steve's blog appears to allow you to update the position of the Arch model. Here is a video:

Do these steps work for you?

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Thanks Lance, that works.  The mistake I was making was not removing the shared coordinates of my Arch model first but that makes sense.

I'll write some notes up here for our fellow consultants to follow and they can chose how they would prefer to do it, either via the site model and publish or via the Arch model and Acquire.

I think this is something that could be improved within Revit albeit not a major one.

cheers

K.

[Anonymous]

Another suggestion.

Instead of removing the original shared coordinates, or trying to reacquire them.

1. Set up a separate location in the Manage>Location>Site.
2. Switch to the new location, 'Acquire' coordinates.
3. Delete old 'Site'

This has been an issue since at least version 9.

Once a Site has been 'Shared' with a particular file, it gets stuck!

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Thanks - that's definitely worth a look.