Rebuilding forms in Vasari or Revit 2012

This issue came up yesterday, a reasonable straight request…”I have built this surface in “PRODUCT”…….. (insert Rhino or AutoCAD). Can I rebuild it in Vasari or Revit as a water tight closed object, so I can do that I do that create floors by mass thingy?”

So here goes; this is what I was able to achieve. It should be noted that this may not work for all surfaces, but it certainly worked for this form. I started by creating a new mass family in Vasari / Revit. Next I imported the Rhino surface.

I then choose divide surface & picked the imported Rhino surface, you may need to tab select until you get to the surface, but you will be able to subdivide the surface.

I then altered the UV grid parameters to something sensible, in this case 4 x 10.

The UV grid would act as a template to trace. Then, under Surface Representation I enabled Nodes.

Using model lines > spline through points, I was able snap to the nodes to generate a profile following the surface.

I repeated this a couple of times to build a series of closed profiles.

Next I deleted the imported surface. I half expected everything to disappear, but fortunately I the model lines remained! I then converted these lines to reference lines & closed the gap at the base with another reference line.

Then selected all the model lines & chose create form to build the form.

As I suggested, it should work for simple forms & is a relatively quick way to rebuild in Revit or Vasari….but don’t assume it will work for all.