Learn the intricate process of exporting 2D information from Revit for usage in Navisworks by selecting specific elements such as room tags and grid lines. This article also walks through the steps to import the exported data back into a 3D model, ensuring the correct positioning in the model.
Key Insights
- Navisworks users can export 2D information such as room tags and grid lines from Revit, in addition to 3D information. The exported data can be further imported into 3D space, using units and transform tool for accurate placement in models.
- It is essential to manipulate the 2D view in Revit to show only required elements before exporting. The task involves selecting everything on the screen, applying filters to select specific elements like room tags and rooms, and isolating these elements for visibility.
- When exporting 2D views from Revit, the software uses the x and y origin but not the z origin, which means all the exported files are set to the origin of the project. Thus, users need to elevate these files to their respective levels manually, ensuring the correct placement in the 3D space.
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Welcome back to the Navisworks video series. In this video I'll be covering how to export 2D information to DWG for use in Navisworks. What we've done so far is we've exported 3D information like this building and all of its components, but what we don't have are some useful pieces of information like room tags, and if you're using DWG then we don't have these grid lines.
So what we'll be looking at is a way to export all information and then import it into 3D space and then use the units and transform tool to place it into the correct position in our models. We'll be using Revit to take care of this task, so if you don't have Revit open now go ahead and open it and we'll be using the bim361arc.rbt model in your lesson 2 folder. If you're in a 3D view and then you use the export tool like we've been doing then Revit will export three-dimensional information, but if you're in a 2D view and you export then Revit will export only 2D information, vectors, but much like 3D views whatever is visible is what will be exported.
We need to manipulate this view to show only the room tags. So I'd like you to take the cursor and drag it up to the top right hand side of your project and then press the left mouse button and make a crossing around everything on screen. Once everything's selected in blue you can hit the filter on the bottom right and then first check none and then scroll down to the room tags and rooms and check those both on then hit okay.
Now go to the temporary hide isolate button and go to isolate element. Now the only things visible on our view are the rooms and room tags. Now the reason we actually selected rooms is because without these rooms visible the room tags will be invisible as well.
Let's go to the Revit application button and export and export CAD format DWG. Select next and then we'll be placing these in our lesson 2 folder and let's call these files room tag level 1. I'm going to uncheck this and select okay. Now the next box that pops up is going to ask you if you want to leave the temporary hide isolate that we had turned on on and we sure do.
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Okay once that's exported you can go to your level 2 and accomplish the same task selecting everything on screen with a crossing using the filter to just select rooms and room tags temporary hide isolate to isolate element and then export to DWG. This is room tag level 2 and then leave the temporary hide isolate mode on. Do the same thing for levels 3, 4, and 5. Once you have all of your room tags exported we don't need to save this file but we can just go straight back to Navisworks and let's append all of the room tag files that we just created.
I'm going to select them all at once using the control button and we'll see in our selection tree that all of our DWG files are imported. Whenever you export 2D views Revit will use the x and y origin but not the z origin which means that all of these DWG files are set to the origin of the project. If we were to go to level one of our project and turn off the architectural you'll see that our room tags are all lumped together on the same plane.
This is the part where we have to elevate them to each of their respective levels. The question now is what is the elevation of each of these levels? You can find out the elevation of your levels by looking at a set of construction documents or you can simply go to one of the elevations of your Revit file. You'll see that level one is at zero so our level one room tags we won't have to elevate at all.
Level two is set to 13 feet 6 inches so we can elevate level two to that elevation and then we can refer back to these other elevations as we need them. So I'm going to take 13 foot 6, select my level two, right click and then go to units and transform. The origin x y and z we want to elevate to 13 feet 6 inches and hit ok.
Now if we go up to level two we'll see that all of my level two room tags are at the correct elevation. I'm going to peek back at Revit to see my level three elevations 25 foot 7. So back to Navisworks, level three, units and transform, 25 7. There they are. And then two more levels 37 8 and then level 5 49 foot 9. One of the things that happens constantly with co-planar objects, if you put your room tags on the same exact elevation as a nether object like a 3D object, you'll see it start to clip.
And if you're okay with that then that's fine with me. And what I tend to do is to fix this problem I'll just add another inch to my units and transform and see they're elevated slightly above the floor but they're always visible. We could do that same thing with level four, make it 37 9 instead.
Level three, make that 25 foot 8 instead. Two 13 foot 7 and one is simply one inch. A little bit better result than before.
I'm going to turn my architectural back on so I don't forget it later and then if I wander into a room I'll see that I will be able to view my room tag. Let's hit the home button and we can save this file. And that concludes exporting 2D objects from Revit.