LEARNING REVIT

MY JOURNEY TO LEARNING REVIT

VENG LEONG

SETTING UP TRUE
NORTH IN PROJECT
A walkthrough on how to properly set up True North for
a new Project
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. SCENARIO: SINGLE BUILDING ON A SITE PLAN

2. SCENARIO: MULTIPLE BUILDING ON A SITE PLAN

3. VERIFY SHARED COORDINATES

4. CLOSING

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SCENARIO: SINGLE BUILDING ON A SITE
LINK THE SITE PLAN

In order to determine True North, we need to place the building properly on a Site. With the Architecture model opened, go to
Site Plan view and link the Site Plan into our model.

Insert Tab > Link CAD (always LINK, do not import!) or Link Revit.

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CENTER TO CENTER
Whether the site plan is a Revit or AutoCAD file, always position the link file Center to Center. This is to prevent the site plan from
locating too far from the Project Base Point (PBP). Revit gives an error message if the geometry imported is greater than 20 miles
from the PBP.

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ORIENTATE THE SITE PLAN
With the Site Plan in your view, move and rotate your site plan as needed to the correct location (relative to your building).

ACQUIRE COORDINATES FROM THE SITE PLAN

Once you are happy with the Site Plan location, go to the Manage tab > Coordinates > Acquire Coordinates
> click on the Site Plan. After this is done, the building model will rotate automatically with True North pointing straight up in
Views that is set to True North.

Note: There will not be any prompt message or dialogue box on screen in this whole process, but Revit did acquire the coordinates.

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SCENARIO: MULTIPLE BUILDING ON A SITE

Instead of linking the site plan in the building model, this time we are doing the reverse. When we are only dealing with one

building, we can simply link the site plan to the model to acquire coordinates. But when we have
multiple buildings on a site, it makes more sense to bring all the building models into the site plan model
and publish coordinates.

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LINK ALL BUILDING MODELS TO REVIT SITE MODEL
Open up the site model, go to Insert Tab > Link Revit. Select the building model.
We do not use Link CAD this time because I assume all the buildings are done in Revit. Don’t forget the whole point of doing this
is to set up True North for the building model!

ORIENTATE BUILDING MODELS

With the building model in your view, move and rotate your building as needed to the correct location.

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PUBLISH COORDINATES TO THE BUILDING MODELS

Once the building model is correctly placed on the site plan, go to the Manage tab > Coordinates > Publish
Coordinates > select a Building Model.

Note: There will not be any prompt message or dialogue box on screen in this whole process, but Revit did publish the coordinates.

REPEAT THE ABOVE STEPS TO LINK THE REST OF THE BUILDINGS

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CONSULTANT COORDINATION
After you finished Publish Coordinates, you can send the Architecture model to the consultants for coordination. Your consultants
should link the Architecture model to their model and Acquire Coordinates.

Do I need to perform any steps in the Revit Architecture model after I finished Publish

FAQ
Coordinates?

No. When you publish coordinates, Revit writes the new coordinates into the Architecture model
file. You are good to go once you hit the publish coordinates button. However, make sure no
one is working on the building model before you start publishing coordinates.

TIPS
With the shared coordinates defined in the site model, this will save you a lot of work if you need to link the site plan in the
architecture model. Simply open up the Revit architecture model and link the site plan in, but make sure you choose Auto - By
Shared Coordinates in the positioning pull down menu instead of “Auto - Center to Center” this time. The building model

will automatically orientate to True North instantly.

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VERIFY SHARED COORDINATES

In order to make sure Revit acquires the coordinates correctly, I perform these steps for cross checking.

LABEL A KNOWN POINT IN CAD SITE PLAN

Draw an X at a known point in the CAD file, for example, at (0,0,0)

LINK CAD SITE PLAN

Import Cad file into the Revit model and manually position it properly.

DRAW REFERENCE PLANE AT THE KNOW POINT

Draw a Reference Plane at this "known point" (I will call it point X from now). We have to perform this step because the Spot
Coordinates tool cannot identify AutoCAD coordinates.

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IDENTIFY THE KNOWN POINT
Put a Spot Coordinates on point X and Project Base Point (PBP). You should see some random number at point X and (N 0,E 0) at
the PBP.

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ACQUIRE COORDINATES
Once you acquire coordinates from the CAD file, the
spot coordinate at this point X in Revit should read the
same as the point X in AutoCAD.

THIS CONFIRMS SHARED

COORDINATES IN REVIT IS
CORRECT.

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CLOSING...

Your Revit model is now setup to use the same coordinates as the Site Plan. One thing to keep in mind is Revit reads the

Y coordinate in AutoCAD as True North. Nothing will change to Views that were set to Project
North. Only Views that were set to True North orientates according to coordinates acquired from the CAD site plan.

WARNING: Once the shared coordinates is defined, Revit will not allow you to redefine it. So make sure you are certain the
location of the model and site plan is correct before you share ciordinates.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC...

Please read my other blog posts to learn more about this topic:

Project North vs True North

Setting up True North for a Project

Setting up True North for a Project - Best Practice

Prompt to Save Positions after Moving AutoCAD Site Plan

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About Veng Leong

I work at HGA, an architecture firm, and have more than
10 years of experience in using AutoCAD to create
Construction Documents for various projects including
commercial buildings, hotels, parking structures,
universities, and health care facilities. I now work with
Revit on a daily basis and document my learnings in
my blog at http://revit.rayvinly.com. I can be reached at
vengleong@rayvinly.com.

You can freely distribute this tutorial to whomever you

think can benefit from.