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Solid Mesh Topography with Boolean Operations

Solid Mesh Topography with Boolean Operations

There are many cases where we need the topo mesh to finally be completely solid and still give us plan-area calculation values, this would be a general solve to most topography problems we're having. We could add and subtract volumes from one another and create tunnels, sub-terrain volumes, easier and more realistic sidewalks and roads, rocky mountainous areas that have more than one point in a specific X-Y coordinate with a different Z value, create caves and more. Specially with the help of Dynamo, the possibilities would be endless and achieve high-end industry professionalism.

55 Comments
lionel.kai
Advisor

One other problem with the Roof (or Floor*) WORKAROUND/HACK** Smiley Wink is that you can't use a point list like you can for Topos - you have to painstakingly place points manually (or create something using Dynamo).

 

@Anonymous / @Anonymous It's not so much going against "BIM", as making BIM harder - it's hard to use the "information" if it's hidden in non-standard places/categories. The "information" that says it's a "Roof" is wrong, etc. Also, workarounds are fine for one-offs, or rarely-encountered occurrences, but now that Revit supposedly has the backing of this "huge" software development company (Autodesk), it's time to start addressing some of these issues to make the workflow (and resultant product/model) more efficient and robust.


NOTES:
* I've used Floors because: (1) we generally use Floors for everything anyway (since Roofs can't do steel decking), and (2) railings couldn't be hosted to Roofs until 2017 (though it would only follow simple slopes, not shape edits, before that anyway)
** "a usually creatively improvised solution to a computer hardware or programming problem or limitation", i.e. "using the software to do more than it was originally intended"

m.steffannoe
Enthusiast

@lionel.kai

I agree with you, tha a workaround is bad.

 

If a workaround is needed, then it is not the apropriate tool for this task.

 

In our case we get these points from lists by a surveyor. this would be quiet easy. If Revit would handle large coordinates better... Recalculating official measurements is not good.

 

Our contacts at Autodesk intended us to use Civil3D for this task (Soil and excavations, Inventor for modleing Tasks, because Revit is unable to model the forms we need). New programs to learn, inconsistent model, Overkill for simple task anyway.

 

Revit should be able to model everything in one application. Not to use other products where data exchange produce other flaws and difficulties... But this seems not to be in behalf of Autodesk.

 

My look at Revit becomes more and more critical. 17 years old and not even rudimentarily good enough to produce plans for execution plans in that quality our customers demand for...

m.steffannoe
Enthusiast

@Anonymous

Revit is unable to do real boolean operations.

 

When you model a common family, create a body and do two or more bools on that body which overlap you will get an error.

 

In IFC export added bodies will be exported as two bodies, as I tested a few month ago. For mass control and calculations for prices this is bad.

 

Our supporters at autodesk said this is not possible to do. Even in the newest Version. You can workaround that with dynamo... Smiley Mad

Anonymous
Not applicable

Revit has very good feature of topography but we require more option in topography that can help to create more precise.

 

wall, floors and other structural elements are directly attach with topography.

 

Topography seems like single face in 3d views.

 

can we make topography that shows actual 3d view of topography

bjoern_teutriene
Collaborator

This improvement would be very important for German Revit users. In the Revit Wishlist 2017 in Germany it ranked #6 out of 52 wishes. You can find more information on https://www.rug-dach.de/

MichaelWSullivan
Advocate

Be able to cut voids through toposurfaces such that a tunnel structure would show surface all around but be void inside tunnel....or be able to create multiple toposurfaces with different "Elevation of poche base" and/or "Section cut material" settings

 

EDAjasonpfeifer
Explorer

Yes please.  To that list I add the following:

 

  • the ability to be able to schedule the regions of a topo surface (when split into different materials)
  • the ability to snap to the drawn geometry of a topo surface (you can't snap to existing when drawing different subregions)

 

lukas-tunka
Contributor

Hi guys,

there is a similar idea on this forum, see the link below and vote for it.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/solid-mesh-topography-with-boolean-operations/idi-p/67037...

lionel.kai
Advisor

Or just change "Elevation of poche base" to "thickness of poche" instead.

And/or layers in Topography (like with Floors, such as 2" Asphalt over 4" Basecourse, etc.) would be nice, too.

Anonymous
Not applicable

I ran into this issue on a recent project. If you create a building pad all of the toposurface is eliminate above that pad. But what do you do if the perimeter of a basement exceeds the perimeter area of the building above it? 

arek_keshishian
Advocate

Any news? It's been two major versi9ns since you said you were evaluating.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Bump for @arek_keshishian 😉

 

Any news Autodesk? It's been two major versions since you said you were evaluating.

 

:construction:Let's make this happen :rocket: and help out our construction community :building_construction:😁

Anonymous
Not applicable

I think either they have to completely revamp the topography tools in recut or have a much better integration with infraworks. But with infraworks have much more involvement with more detailed design tools. 

arek_keshishian
Advocate

Is there any updates on this? People have been voting for it nonstop.

Status changed to: Gathering Support

We are updating this thread to Gathering Support. We are continuing to evaluate where this request falls into our roadmap and will provide an update when we have made a decision. 

 

The Factory

Andy_Grout
Contributor

Any update on where this is on the Revit roadmap? The process of "evaluating where it falls on the roadmap" started on 01.14.2017 according to the comment history.

Otherwise what have others found to be a viable alternative? Model in another program and import? I wouldn't mind importing a topographic surfaces as an in-place element at this point, so long as it's more malleable than provided natively in Revit.

Status changed to: Accepted

Congrats! We think this is a great idea, so we've decided to add it to our roadmap. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

The Factory

ArmanMargaryan
Collaborator

Please add a command so that we can cut the Topography at a 45 degree angle (as shown). This will help us to get more accurate sections when doing SOE (Support of Excavation).

Image.png

P.S.  @Jamhmer_Oc  offered a solution to this problem, but it doesn't completely facilitate our job.

Thank you. 

 

Tags (1)
elzohry2007
Collaborator

greate idea
we hope to see it

@ArmanMargaryan  Thank you for submitting this Idea. There is a similar Idea that has been Accepted here:

Solid Mesh Topography with Boolean Operations - Autodesk Community 

Do you think this would help your specific inquiry? If it does, I would like to combine these Ideas.

 

Also, please see this item on the Revit Public Roadmap.

Real 3D Topography on Revit Public Roadmap | Trello

 

Thank you!

Kimberly

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