More Toposurface Video Tutorials

Here are a bunch of Toposurface Video Tutorials From: AutodeskBuilding  that were uploaded to Youtube on the 17 December 2010, In typical Autodesk format they have said these are for Autodesk Revit Architecture, but they equally apply to Revit Structure. Enjoy if your still learning about Toposurfaces  

Autodesk Revit Architecture: Creating a Toposurface  [ 2:06 ]

Demonstrates how to create a toposurface in Revit Architecture by importing contour data from a DWG file

Autodesk Revit Architecture: Site Settings [ 2:00 ]

Demonstrates how to access the Site Settings dialog in Revit Architecture in order to label and control the display of contours and the sectional qualities of the toposurface.

Autodesk Revit Architecture: Creating a Toposurface by Defining Points [ 1:59 ]

Demonstrates how to create a toposurface in Revit Architecture by placing multiple points and illustrates that contours are generated based on triangulation.

Autodesk Revit Architecture: Adding Site Components [ 2:04 ]

Demonstrates how to load site component families in Revit Architecture, such as a parking space and a planting object from the library, and how to change the component type while placing the object

Autodesk Revit Architecture: Creating a Building Pad [ 1:46 ]

Demonstrates how to use a DWG underlay file and sketching tools to add a building pad to the site in Revit Architecture, and shows how the toposurface adjusts to the pad

Autodesk Revit Architecture: Creating Topographic Subregions [ 1.37 ]

Demonstrates how to use sketching tools to create a subregion in Revit Architecture and how to assign alternate materials to the subregion

Guidance Note ~ Toposurfaces (Introduction)

Here are some Guidance Notes that I put together on Toposufraces for our companies Revit Users when we first got revit, I hope they help anyone who is just exploring Toposurfaces.

Click on the image or Here to download

Enjoy

PS Thank you "Anonymous" for the posing about Google and documents......

Learning Curve ~ Topo Surface III

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Since my last posting about Topo Surfaces and looking at water and flooding, we seem to be having more lengthy discussions with the Environmental Agency these days with regards to flooding in conjunction with global warming and climate change.

The Environmental Agency provide us with maps showing the 1 in 200 year Tidal Events + 2070 Climate Change Prediction Depth Grid Maps centred on our site.

One assumes that they obtain levels from the OS Maps and or aerial photographs to build such models. Using Revit we are able to model the Existing and Proposed sites and show them more accurately the flood pattern for different levels of water.

We can also provide them with volumes of water held on the site.

The client can see to what extent his building is at risk from flooding.

Existing Site Layout 6.20m Flood Level.

Existing Site Layout 6.30m Flood Level.

Existing Site Layout 6.40m Flood Level.

Existing Site Layout 6.50m Flood Level.
Proposed Site Layout 6.5m Flood Level

Credit goes to Rikki Hartigan who created these models from AutoCAD 2D Drawings.
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Learning Curve ~ Topo Surface II

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I was asked the question about Revit being able to do cut and fill calculations by one of the Partners at work. He wanted to model a car park, then establish how much it will flood and the maximum depth with a certain volume of water.

So not actually cut and fill more like fill and flood!

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I made a small scale trial/example to see if I could get the information out of Revit. I picked a square pyramid shape because I could easily verify the answer by hand calculation.

Revit reports the values by making a comparison between a surface of one phase and, from a later phase, another surface whose boundary lies within the earlier surface.

The example above shows a square pyramid with a 5000x5000 base x 3000 high

The water level topo is set at 1500 high

Base Area /3 x height should be (2.5 x 2.5)/3 X 1.5 = 3.125m3 but Revit gives me 3.155m3

I've tried re drawing and even turning the pyramid up the other way it still gives me 3.155m3

Is it me or is Revit just not very accurate with cut and fill?

It could be a rounding error. or
Conversion from imperial to metric, or
The algorithm used to calculate the volume or
Just a Bug in Revit!

The % of the error is small, but it is a small model, but as the model gets bigger is the % error the same or worse? Who knows?

I have reported this to Autodesk and will let you know what answer I get.

For true cut and fill by time an allowance has been made for bulking etc we are talking peanuts, but it's the principle, if your going to give figures to 3 decimal places they should be correct.

Here is the car park in question, the maximum depth of water and extent of flooding has now been established. For those that notice I'm not quite at 200m3 I was told by the Partner wanting the information that I did not have to get it to the nearest mm, the nearest 10mm would do for his purposes.

As you may have seen on my first Topo posting, there is not a default view called "site" in the metric template supplied with RST2010 called Structural Analysis_DefaultGBRENU.rte

Autodesk please take note, Structural users also need a "site" view included in the metric template not just the Architectural users.

The frequency of the contours is set by

Then set the intervals of value

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Learning Curve ~ Topo Surface

I have a site that has a storm relief sewer cutting across it at approximately 45 degrees.

The north east corner of the site is approximately 1.8m above the north-west and south east corners.

The water authority have granted building over on condition that we create a reduced loading zone over the sewer which we will provide using cordek cellcore. This seemed an ideal opportunity to jump into topo surfaces.

I linked an AutoCAD 2D drawing of the survey with the idea of tracing the spot levels and got stuck at the first hurdle. The following message popped up when I tried to place the first point

Open a 3D or site plan view? ~ “how is a site plan view different from a level view and how do I create one?”

I searched the help and could not find anything about how to create a site view and I looked in Visibility Graphics and could not find a tick box for Toposurface?I knew I must be missing something simple and it’s me but I could not see the wood for the trees

A tutorial On Revit Zone at called Topography: Creating a Basic Toposurface (Part 1 of 3)
Seems to suggest that " Your new Project File should contain default View called Site:-"

There is not a default view called "site" in the metric template supplied with RST2010 called Structural Analysis_DefaultGBRENU.rte ??????

I posted this question and a request for help on the AUGI forum, and again peer to peer support came up trumps, a user called Derek informed me.....

“Yes, you are correct. They are assuming you are in Revit Architecture. RAC templates all include a default view called site. The only different parameters for a "Site" plan view include things scale, Crop view, default view template settings...that's about it. Simple "Duplicate" your lowest level and name it site, then adjust the view settings....”

I answered Derek that I thought it was crazy why not include the "site" view in the Revit Structures Template as well as the Architecture Template!

I later found a posting on David Lights Revit web site called Site Plans in Revit Structure which explains how to create a Site Plan View

I don’t understand why a "site" view is not included in the Engineering templates but it’s sure one that may make it to our final template.

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