The following post was contributed by one of our Revit Technical Specialists, Chris Aquino. (The telltale sign: I have never and will never use the word, "Hark" ). Much appreciated, Chris :-). Looks like we have a great candidate for guest author.
Recently we have been seeing more of these cases, and I thought it would be a good time to document the process.
You get this amazing .dwg from a consultant using AutoCAD MEP and you want to import it into your own awesome Revit MEP file. But hark! You get the error below, and 3D objects don’t get imported.
When you go into AutoCAD MEP and change PROXYGRAPHICS to 1, then reimport the drawing, it has been flattened into a 2D block. Getting closer, but it’s not the sweet, sweet 3D you want. Because Revit does not have an Object Enabler, we have found this workaround for importing 3D geometry from AutoCAD MEP into Revit MEP.
The process below should let you import the 3D geometry into Revit AND avoid the whole “my 3D .dwg information isn’t being cut in section” issue:
- In AutoCAD MEP go to a 3D view
- Zoom Extents.
- Type Convertto3DSolids at the command line.
- Export to AutoCAD.
- Open a Generic Model Revit family.
- Import the .dwg.
- Load the family into your Revit project.
The family should now be a 3D block in Revit that is a cuttable object in plans and sections.
One thing to keep in mind is that while the Projection Lines can be globally controlled by the Object Style, or overridden in the Visibility Graphics for Imported Categories in the View, the Cut Pattern is governed by the Generic Model category.
Click here to watch a video of the process.
Another option to enhance the usablility during this workaround is to avoid the "external" family in favor of importing into an in-place family. This allows the user to "link" the .dwg content which can speed up the process when new MEP files become available.
Posted by: Jeff Shaver | April 25, 2011 at 07:40 AM