Make (shared) coordinates available in schedules for piles

[rasmus.oberg]

Currently it's not possible to schedule the coordinates of elements natively. It can be done through dynamo or third party applications, but these all rely on transferring the information to text parameters (and attempting to keep it up to date). I raised this on the Revit AMA on the 24th of May and was asked to elaborate here, I'm a bit late but the point is timeless. 

When we design a structure that needs piles (which, given our locations clay rich soils is basically anything more substantial than a single family home) always consists of a pile schedule, containing information about the type of pile, its number and its location in a world coordinate system (northing, easting, cut off level and assumed length - all refering to the center of the pile). This is printed to a PDF and exported to .XLS for use on site. It is the standard workflow in the industry, at least around here. It's a bit frustrating to have Revit sit on the location data. The API-based workarounds to the job, but they introduce unnecessary risks (various errors in the solutions, the need to manually run these updaters somehow even if some solutions offer automation of this on synch/print/save, confusion for new users).

I would love to see this not only for piles, but for all discrete elements with a clear origin. Other types of isolated foundations, structural columns, structural connections (liked screwed pins or weld plates that are cast-in), openings. All of these have a clear origin and can be usefully managed in schedules. I would love to move more information to schedules and away from the drawings, but am hesitant to do so when I can't access the information natively.

[dannyo'connell8283]

I totally agree with everything you have said.

I can't believe it is a difficult thing to do, you can put a spot coordinate on piles etc. it just needs a parameter to allow this information to be scheduled.

Danny

[robertawalker]

Providing co-ordinates to piles is a fundamental process in the structural drawings for most large (and small) projects. I notice that people have been asking about the ability to do this in Revit at least as far back as 2021 and much earlier I should imagine. I used the exitech add on for a long time till they stopped it. now I have to export a dwg to AutoCAD where I use a lisp routine I wrote myself to produce a table I can then extract to excel and and then create pdf to link into Revit.

I did try to write a dynamo routine to do this but it does rely on knowing where your co-ordinate system is relative to the Revit internal origin and co-ordinate system. This is where my maths and time constraints let me down but I would imagine it is a simple exercise for Autodesk.

Isn't it about time this fundamental requirement was fulfilled by Revit.

[wr.marshall]

I found a dynamo routine awhile back that allows you to do this. You need to create a  East/West and North shared parameter. It then reads the location of object and fills in these values for you. You can then swap a required ( See 2nd and 3rd pic showing how to change). Use this screen shots to create.

Credit to whoever created this script (Wasn't me)

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones please move this to architectural forums if @robertawalker agrees on the below solution.

[robertawalker]

I haven't got time to go through this at the moment but it looks like it is doing the right things. The only thing I would say is that I believe object locations are taken from the internal origin, so this will work ok as long as the survey point is set at the internal origin (which is not always the case). otherwise it needs a whole calculation for transforming the co-ordinate systems. I would be careful about using it and make sure you have a system to check against proper surveyed coordinates. It will also have the same problem that the exitech addin had in that you need to explicitly run the routine every time you change a pile position. It won't automatically update.

This looks like it is as good as it can get at the moment but if it was dealt with properly within Revit (rather than relying on users to create there own work rounds) I am sure it could be designed to auto update whenever a pile was moved.

[s.bustard]

This has probably been added in different guises over the years but Revit is still lacking the ability to automate XYZ coordinates of families placed in a project. I appreciate that the information can be obtained using a Dynamo graph, or by using the spot coordinate tool, but setting out of elements is a fundamental activity on site generally using GPS enabled equipment that requires a CSV export from Revit. Using Dynamo to obtain the coordinates requires the user to rerun the script when items move which introduces risk from user error. Please can this be an automatic operation with coordinates added to an in-built instance parameter.

Many thanks,

Simon.

[wr.marshall]

for ease of finding see these Dynamo posts on this subject

Problem Coordinates - Revit - Dynamo

Why Is Dynamo Duplicating Element When Should Only Modify Existing Element - Geometry - Dynamo

My script as pointed out is from the survey point!!!!

looks like there is a solution in the "problem coordinates" post about origination for the system origin.