Reusing existing cad details in Revit is something I see done a lot by clients, and I fully understand the reasoning, but there are some best practices that I would like to share with you to keep your projects clean.
Rule #1: Never bring a cad file into your working project and explode it!
Turn a cad detail into a Revit Detail
In Cad: Clean up the cad file before you bring it into Revit by doing the following.
- I strongly recommend that you go into the cad file, wblock out just the detail that you want to a new drawing, make sure you pick an origin somewhere on the detail. Open the new drawing and get rid of any attributes then save again.
In Revit: Start a new project, create a new drafting view the same scale as the cad file and name it appropriately, then do one of the following:
- Import the cad file, you will likely have to zoom extents to see it in the view window. Copy the detail to the right (somethings tend to get deleted when we explode, this way I can see what was originally there and recreate it). Do a partial explode then change the linetypes,fill patterns, text and dimensions to Revit standards.
- Link in the cad file, zoom extents and trace over the lines, recreate the fill patterns, text and dimensions.
TIP: I would recommend that you create a template that you start with that has all of the above mentioned items already created in it...you can also use your project template, it just has more information in it than we need for recreating the drafting details.
OPTION 1: IMPORTING AND EXPLODING
If you opted for option 1 above to insert the file and explode it, please keep in mind the following:
- When you explode the detail you will likely get some errors that require you to delete some information...that's the reason I copy the detail off to the side for reference so I can see what gets lost.
- Some things will be faster to trace over than convert...so do whichever is more efficient.
- You can change the text to Revit standard text, but you will still need to redo the leaders.
- Dimensions will need to be redone completely.
- Lines can be selected by layer type and changed to the appropriate Revit line.
- Fill patterns can be changed to a standard Revit fill pattern.
Verify all information in the drafting view
- If you imported and exploded, select all elements and make sure that everything is valid Revit information and not imported cad info. If you see something like the images below you know that is cad information that needs to be replaced.
Saving the View to your Detail Library
Once you have everything either converted or drawn over you can save the view out into your detail library.
Note: If you went with Option 1 delete the copy of the block used for reference and in the remaining information there should not be any of the original cad info in the view. If you went with Option 2 you will need to remove the link from the detail prior to saving the file.
- On the project browser, right click on the drafting view you want to save to a file
- Select Save to New File (this will create a .rvt file with that details name)
- Save it to your companies Detail Library (do not save it in the out of the box libraries)
Bringing the Detail into your Project:
Now that we have a converted and clean detail you can bring it into your working project.
- In Revit go to the Insert tab, Insert Views from File
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- Browse to where you saved the detail
- It will show up under drafting views with the same name as the file
- It can then be modified as needed if necessary.
For a video on this information please visit us at portal.imaginit.com to the Video Library for Tips and Tricks for Architecture and Construction.
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