Importing Google Earth Topography to AutoCAD and then to Revit

Step by step on how to turn a Google Earth terrain into Revit Topography.
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Was recently trying to import a Google Earth Terrain into a Revit Project to show an overall view of it. Since I did the research on how to do it, I will share it here.

I will basically list the 20 steps (15 for AutoCAD users) with a brief explanation if necessary, I think that's enough to follow the precess. You might not need to do some of the first steps, but the guide is intended for everyone who doesn't even know about Autodesk Labs. So here it comes:

1. Be sure you have A compatible version of AutoCAD (2007 or newer in 32bit 2011 or 2012 in 64bit). Be sure you have A compatible version of Google Earth (5.x or 6.x) if you don't download it here
2. Register on Autodesk Labs
3. Sign In to your Account at Autodesk Labs
4. Download the Google Earth Extension for AutoCAD based Products here
5. Save PublishDWGtoGE.zip to your computer.
6. Unzip the PublishDWGtoGE.zip file.
7. Browse the PublishDWGtoGE folder that comes from the .ZIP file and find your AutoCAD version installer (first the year and then the 32 or 64 bit option)
8. Run the installer (extension .msi)
9. Open AutoCAD and Google Earth and check that in AutoCAD any of this commands works:IMPORTGEIMAGE, IMPORTGEMESH, GETIME, PUBLISHKML
10. If they work, follow to step 15, if they don't do the follwoing steps
11. Check the AutoCAD folder to see if the file named AeccDWGToGE.arx is there (it should), if it doesn't repeat the installation in case something went wrong, otherwise keep reading
12. Run the ARX command in AutoCAD and enter L for Load when it prompts for an option in the command line bar.
13. Browse to your AutoCAD folder and load the AeccDWGToGE.arx file
14. Center your Google Earth view to the terrain portion you want to import
15. Now run IMPORTGEMESH in AutoCAD (you must have Google Earth running)and the terrain will be imported to AutoCAD from Google Earth. If you are an AutoCAD user you are done, if Revit user keep reading
16. Save the AutoCAD file (you can close Google Earth and AutoCAD after this)
17. Open Revit
18. Go to Insert Tab on the Ribbon and select Link CAD (or Ipmort CAD doesn't seem to matter here) and browse to find the Topography file you saved from AutoCAD.
19. Now and finally go to Massing and Site Tab on the Ribbon and select Topo Surface
20. Click on "Create from Import" and click on the imported topography from AutoCAD

Might seem complicated but it is actually not.



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Revit Bugs: Things that Revit Stairs don't do right #01

Every day I try to use Revit for Construction I see more and more how it has been completely thought mostly for design. Is that really BIM?
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I still consider myself pretty new using Revit (less than 2 years experience and only 4 and a half projects), so when I am writing a post complaining about some of the things that do not work properly I try to check twice that they really don't work. If what I say is wrong, and you know the way to do it, please share here.

As far as I have managed to play with stairs, they are one of the family types lacking the most needed functionality. Since I am using revit for trying to get estimates, in my case the main functions that do not work properly are the following.

Area calculations for Stairs and their materials: to be able to get estimates of the costs of monolitic stairs (the most common one made of a concrete structure plus a paving materia for risers and threads) we need to be able to calculate the area of concrete that the stair has, and the area of paving materials.

Using the area of the concrete slab of the stair and landings as a unit might be a local thing, but this is how we do it here, so obtaining cubic meters of concrete slab is not what we need. I haven't found a way to obtain that, so stairs are one of the things I need to measure manually still when obtaining quatities from a Revit Model. I know I could paint the lower part of the stair with a different material, but I would rather have Revit handle Information better than that if it can. And my question at this point is Can it? If it can, please do let me know.

Second point on the list. Stairs have pavement material for threads and landings and another (or the same) material for risers. Although I can calculate riser and thread material surface by using the Width, Minimum Thread Depth and Actual Riser Height values to make some calculations, this is not good enough for landings would not be counted properly. I tried to obtain the materials from a Material Take Off Schedule, and relized Revit counts that wrong. Let me show you how wrong. Imagine a Stair that has 20 steps 0.28m deep and 1 meter wide. The easy calculations Depth x Width x Number of Threads gives us the Paving Area of the Threads. 19 x 0.28m x 1m = 5.32m2. Now lets see how Revit does calculatin this right? See the image below.


Surprise, Revit is giving me for that stair a Thread Material Area of 10.69m2, slightly more than double what it should give. What happens with Risers? The same my friend. 20 risers x 0.175 m (riser height) x 1 m (width) = 3.5 m2. As you see on the image the are that Revit counts ii twice that plus a bit more.

After playing with it a bit I realized Revit is giving the Area as the addition of the 6 faces of each thread or riser, so it is counting the area it should twice, plus adding the 4 side faces of risers and threads. Just wrong and useless.

Another thing stairs are lacking is the capacity to behave like floors (when monolitic, that is what they are). This is needed so they can enclose rooms and walls can get attached to them, right now as far as I know this can't be done, so it needs improvements.

Anyone thinks I am asking impossibles or knows of a way of doing all this that I am missing?



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#Revit Plugin to Model Elevators

Easy and free plugin to model elevators in Revit
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Elevators are one of the things that by default don't come in the Revit Libraries. No problem. The guys at DigiPara have released a free plugin called ElevatorArchitect that allows you to model them quite easily.

To see the plugin working or to download it, go to the Plugin Website.

via What Revit Wants.
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Free Online Render Farm for #Revit and #AutoCAD: Project Neon

Autodesk has a new (not sure how new) servie to render your projects online using a free render farm.
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If you have trouble rendering your Revit or AutoCAD projects because it takes too much time, you might want to try Autodesk's Project Neon. Project Neon is a Cloud Rendering service from Autodesk that allows you to render your projects using a bunch of computers placed somewhere instead of your local machine.

It works seamlessly with Revit (tested) and AutoCAD (I haven't tried with this one, but I would ask you what the hell are you doing working on 3D ACAD.. :-P). Here you can check the help info available.


I tried this from Revit and works OK, not the same quality as rendering directly in Revit, but roughly 20 times faster. Above there is an image of a project rendered using Project Neon, and then below this lines the same Project rendered with the Revit Render engine.


You can see that there are differences specially with that sort of "green fence". Reading the project neon help, I found this which I assume is the reason why the fence has no transparency.

Only image-based textures are supported at this time. Procedural textures, (Checker, Gradient, Marble, Noise, Speckle, Tiles, Waves, and Wood) are not supported.

A very interesting service specially for those with slow machines, and It's free!
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