Shared Coordinates Process: Import and Position the Survey File

Steps:

STEP 1: Under site plan, click Insert<Link CAD and select the survey file

STEP 2: Leave Current View Only unchecked and note Revit always reset to Auto – Center to Center for Positioning each time. Since the survey file will be moved and adjusted after, initial positioning of the survey file will not matter.

Click open.

STEP 3: Confirm the survey file shown is scaled properly by Revit’s auto detection of units. If necessary, adjust in the type property of the survey file in Revit. 

STEP 4: Under Visibility/Graphic Overrides (or for shortcut, type “vg”), check the boxes for project based point and survey point under Site. Note Project Based Point and Survey Point only appears in floor (site) plan view in Revit.  

STEP 5: Within Revit site plan view, move the survey file to properly align with the linked building models on the site plan by matching the locations of an element (gridlines, corner of building, for example) present in both the civil survey file and the Revit site file. It is absolutely crucial to position the survey file correctly the first time as the process to fix and undo the position once coordinates are acquired in Revit is cumbersome.  Pin the file so its location cannot be moved. 

STEP 6:  In elevation or section views, move the linked building models to the true elevations per civil survey file. Create new levels as necessary. 

STEP 7: Save the Revit file to have a file to go back to if survey file needed repositioning after coordinates have been acquired in the next step. 

Don’t

Move the linked models to match where civil survey has been placed. Moving the civil survey file to match to the location of the linked models will be easier than moving the linked models to match where the civil survey file is.