Shared Coordinates with Surveyor drawings.

[rspierenburg]

Just curious how other people deal with this.  Revit allows you to setup shared coordinates with linked models.  However all of the Surveyor drawings we receive have the property set to real world coordinates (being from Halifax most using MTM coordinate system).  So whenever I try to link the CAD survey drawing into Revit it tells me that its located too far away from the origin so it will use Center.  However when I try to read the Survey drawing in revit all the lines jump around.

The only way around this that I've found is to take all the linework from the survey drawings, and cut and paste into a new drawing closer to the origin (this however breaks any coordinate system that was existing), then link this new drawing into Revit and manually set the coordinate of a point in revit based on information from the original survey drawing.

Is there a third, perhaps better way of going about this?

Thanks,

Robert

[cbcarch]

Take a look here:

http://paulaubin.com/_downloads/2015_RTC/Aubin_Revit_Coordinates_2016.pdf

[barthbradley]

Are you saying that the Survey mapping area is humongous, or are you saying that the zero origin is located far away from the actual mapping (in the CAD file itself)? 

[barthbradley]

...unless I'm totally missing your point: just move the survey link into position, relative to your host project coordinate system (and Internal Origin), and acquire it's coordinates.  I can't, for the life of me, imagine a situation where I would need to do what you're doing -- especially being that it's a link.  That's the whole point of having shared coordinates.  

[rspierenburg]

Yes, the zero origin on the CAD Survey plan is located at the origin of the coordinate system they are using.  As an example, on one survey plan the coordinates for a property marker is N 16228870.8321' E 83898009.2107' which places the origin over 10 million feet away from the property marker.

[rspierenburg]

The problem is, by simply linking the CAD survey drawing in as is creates havoc with the link in revit because it so far away from the origin.  In Revit all the lines from the linked file jump around when zooming in and out and pin pointing any aspect of it is impossible.

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

Have you linked the CAD Survey into your project and moved it as I suggested above? In other words, positioned the designated site pad shown on the CAD Survey directly under your project's building (which I assume is on or near the Project Base Point's Startup Location), and then acquired it's coordinates? If so, and you are still having the issues your describing, then unpin the Survey Point (which should have moved when you acquired coordinated), and moved the SP closer to the Project Base Point.  Again, I am assuming that the Project Base Point is located close to its Startup Location (a.k.a. the Internal Origin of your project) -- which it should be.  To verify this, unclip the PBP and right-click and select Return to Startup Location.  

[rspierenburg]

So the issue I was having was that the Survey Point and Project Base point were both relatively far away from Revit Internal Origin.  I've since moved it and when I link the survey drawing center to center and position as you mentioned I am able to get shared coordinates from it.  Thank you for all your help.

Robert