site grading with toposolid

[mpukas]

Site grading in 2024 with Toposolid is worse than it was as a toposurface, if that's possible. Having to use points to create and modify contour lines for site grading is absurd. 

Toposolid is soooo slow 'cuz Revit is constantly triangulating between points. It draws contour lines between points at corners, curves and swales even more aggressively than it did before. The graphics when adding points is terrible, as the triangulation, or folding lines are shown, and Revit snaps to these lines - which don't mean anything. You can't see the contour lines that will be created with points until you exit out of the modify sub elements command. Definitely NOT a step forward when it comes to site grading. It's painful, so so painful. 

[DANZATTO4686]

You're not kidding.  Add a point, wait 3 minutes.  Change point elevation because it put it 3' below what you initially input, wait 3 minutes.  Cut a void because they got rid of pads for some dumb reason, wait 5 minutes.  Edit void depth, wait 5 minutes.  Granted, my site is 35 acres which is probably adding to the problem.  But, what am I supposed to do?  Cut it into 1 acre chunks?  No thank you.  

I'd much rather have my old topo's back.  Now I have to make a decision to not upgrade the model and work in 2023.  

[ahawes22]

Have there been any updates to fix this over the last few months, or is it still an issue?

[loboarch]

I can't say about the performance related problems reported in the thread (3 minutes to add a point, or 5 minutes to cut a void) but those sound like an issue that might be isolated to that file? I personally have not experienced those kinds of performance issues.

As for Revit snapping to folding lines while placing points, you can turn off snaps. Manage> Snaps > Top check box to turn off. While editing a toposolid to stop that behavior and it makes working with toposolids much easier. You can see it in this video at about the 19m30s mark is where it begins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBajAGiKvI

[DANZATTO4686]

I'm guessing it's because it's a 35 acre toposolid that slopes about 20' front to back, with several ponds on it.  Just too much for the toposolid to handle.  

I've done a few since then that were relatively simple and small, and it's way faster.  Unfortunately, my sites aren't usually simple and small.  

Another issue I noticed is when plotting landscape plans in color, all the triangulation lines are visible in the PDF (though not visible in the revit file).  That's annoying and makes the final print look really bad.  

[mhiserZFHXS]

I've also noticed that having large subdivisions can have a significant impact on performance. I was using one subdivision for all striping in a large parking lot, and it was getting very slow. I broke it up into multiple subdivisions and performance significantly improved.

[JJEONG_CKA]

I couldn't agree more. I am writing this as I am waiting for this stupidly slow processing to be over. What really needs to happen is, we should be able to adjust all the elevation points without it processing it and once we are done adjusting all points, we should be able to click the finish button, then it calculating. I need to adjust so many points, like hundreds, and I can not afford to waste time like this. 

Subdividing would be great only if you could merge them back later like how we were able to in previous versions. Now you can divide the toposolid and join them, but they are still separate elements and can not turn them into a one toposolid.

[tuomas_perttula]

It seems like Revit regenerates every toposolid in the model with each point move, not just the one you are currently editing. I need to have the existing surface (which has a lot of scanned points to be even slightly accurate; another issue with the new toposolids is that they have less accuracy when creating from imports than old topos) to show changes in landscaping, and I can't change even the simplest of surfaces on top of that without it taking ages to regenerate after every little edit. 

Being able to join toposolids is a great and much needed change from the old toposurfaces, but it's still an unusable mess.

[pedruccioli]

After some time scrolling through this forum and (maybe all) toposolid-related posts, here's where I stand:

It's not good, to say the least. I don't see what are the intended uses, other than colorful mass-making and kinda-modelling. The only real advantage I can see is for underground modelling (only when you have earth above the ceiling) or green rooftops (but hey, we could already do this with floors).

Speaking of floors, it's surprisingly similar, almost like they copied the floor code and added 2 or 3 parameters (that don't work properly, by the way). Even the user-enemy interface that makes you exit sub-elements edit mode if you click the wrong place or press the wrong button.

From where I stand, it seems like they only did it for subdivisions. It looks pretty, a little bump that copies the points underneath it (just like Dynamo already did), but don't even go downwards, only up, and also it's impossible to do a proper sweep.

My decision is to stay in 2023 for toposurfaces (first time I "stay behind" since college). I like doing topography in Revit, it's a way to keep things in the same environment, and we have a pretty solid workflow that just doesn't work with toposolids. We all know Autodesk won't do anything about it (they didn't even corrected right-click related basic issues) so we just go with the flow for now.

The more I'm aware of Revit's development, the more I'm sure it won't evolve. Sad, but I'm a consumer. If (or when) a better option comes along (Hi, Graphisoft), I'll just migrate.

[markfRECZU]

Agreed. They are more than useless. I can't show the results to clients or associates and can't spend the week it would take to resolve all the excessive triangulation between points. My only hope is to create a topo surface in 2022 and import it into 2024. But during conversion revit screws up the nice smooth contours and makes a mess, especially at the toes and crests of slopes. We also can't use the building model from 2024 to build the topo around since Revit won't let us save to an earlier version.

Autodesk needs to bring back toposurfaces! They may not have been perfect but at least they could accurately model a ground surface without a million data points.

[dfoth]

Split your toposolid to be just in the area you need to show in drawings and it will run faster when editing.

[markfRECZU]

I already have - it's a 15-acre site and we're using every bit of it. Even on a 2.5-acre site the sluggish editing, poor graphics and excessive triangulation yield inaccurate and unacceptable results. I can't show this crap to my clients, much less my professional consultants.
I'm about to start building my sites by stacking 1' layers of flat toposolids just to get an accurate and visually acceptable 3D site. Which begs the question: Why won't Autodesk provide an alternate like that if they won't bring topo surfaces back? It would be really easy to automate the generation from a surveyor's topography, you could cut pads or voids to make way for foundations, and even "excavate" for ponds and such.

[dfoth]

Its not the file. Its Revit.

[bh_chand]

You can turn off the "Folding Lines" in VG, so you cant see the triangular line clusters

[dfoth]

That's not the problem. Revit takes 30 seconds to regenerate the toposolid after the placement of every point. It's so slow when fixing points. Super annoying. I've done all the suggestions here and more. Toposolid point editing is just terrible.

[DANZATTO4686]

Yep, now set the view's visual style to "consistent colors" (so the plan has some color in it) and plot it.  Folding lines appear in white.  Very annoying.  

[markfRECZU]

Agree. Just about everything about toposolids is terrible.

[dfoth]

Have you tried toposolids in R25 yet? I only have one project in R25 so far, so I haven't tested it yet.  

[DANZATTO4686]

I've been on 2025 since it was released.  About to be on 26 next month once it comes out.  LOL  I don't wait.  I usually do new projects first, then update anything I'm still working on to the new version a little later.  I will say toposolid is behaving way better than it did at first release.  Each update seems to speed it up a little.  Still a lot of points on a 35 acre site though.  

[markfRECZU]

I haven't. It appears that the only thing autodesk has attempted to address is the horrendous graphics by "blurring" the folding edges in 3D renderings. It still yields bad graphics as well as incorrect contours, spot elevations, and slopes.