Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Importing 3d DWG’s into Revit

I had an interesting situation recently where an experienced Revit user questioned whether you could bring a 3d DWG into Revit????!!!! This was somewhat of a surprise to me, because I just assumed that most users will know that this is possible. However, I suppose the real question is what value does this bring and in what context would you want to use the 3d DWG. In reality the 3d DWG is only contextual background data, but if you are clever you can bring a 3d DWG into a mass family. Then, if you load your mass family into your project you can use Revit’s building maker functionality to skin the 3d DWG with Revit’s system families ie. walls, roofs and curtain walls. You will quickly be able to create something which is usable. A point to note is ideally if you are importing into a mass family, the 3d DWG must be made up of AutoCAD solids. The first link shows you how to link a 3d DWG in a project, the second link shows you how to import a 3d DWG into a mass family.

7 comments :

coreed said...

you should be able to create a mass and import the 3D drawing directly into the mass. Finsh the mass and then use the face by tools without creating it as a family first. that's how we do it with SketchUp models.

willy said...

Hey David,

What if it's a 2D detail? I assume that has no real place in Revit. Am I right?

Thanks,
Bill

KentW said...

G'day Bill,

2D Details can be brought into Drafting Views and Legends. It is typically best to link them and you should always open a dwg in AutoCAD first using the recover command, then purge it prior to binging into Revit (I would also reset the scale list and purge regapps).

Since Drafting views can be referenced to view tags such as Callouts and Sections this can be quite powerful for using already created standard AutoCAD details in Revit.

Using a Legend is good for key plans and the like as a Legend View can be placed on multiple sheets unlike other views.

Regards,

Kent

Cristina said...

Hi David,your post is most interessant but I have a problem when I import a file DWG 3D in revit,the program tell me to trasform the objects into polygon meshes...how can I solve?

Unknown said...

Hey,

Currently I have a very large dwg model in 3d autocad and i'm looking to bring the model into revit. I would really appreciate if you could kinda give me a step by step of how to go about doing that? Especially if the file is a large model possibly exceeding the amount of space revit allows for a dwg to be imported?

Thanks! :)
-Kara

Conejazo said...

Awesome !! Thank you very much for the info. !!

Anonymous said...

The only problem with the videos, is that Revit 2011 doesn't have most of those options. You can create a new conceptual model family, but I can't find an option to important a dwg file into the family. Only into the .rvt file like you can a floorplan, which doesn't really help when trying to use the 3d dwg file as a component. Any suggestions on how to get around this?