A brief on Revit Coordinate System
One of the most common problems that many Revit users face in a Revit project is the coordinate system.Setting a project in the Revit coordinate system is one of the difficult job as it demands high tolerance.Once the project setup is completed within the coordinate system, we extract 2d drawings which is then sent to the site for construction.Hence, Revit users need to be very attentive during the project setup, because even a minormistake can create a major blunder. This can result in wrong construction, say for example: projected building may be constructed in wrong place or outside the allotted site plan.
I have been a part of this industry for many years. I have seen and heard about several incidents where building was constructed on a plot away from actual site. It stirred a controversy and a legal litigation followed. This happened due to wrong set up of Revit Co-ordinates.Result:the building was constructed few metersaway from the from the actual site. While the project is set up in the Revit coordinate system, only theoretical knowledge is not sufficient, designers need to apply their engineering brains as well as they should have a clear vision about the site and coordinates.
The coordinate system in Revit is little different from the coordinate system in AutoCAD. For delivering a project successfully, It is mandatory for designers to understand about the entire Revit coordinate system and how Revit deals with other software’s.
Utilizing Revit coordinate system is little bit challenging that utilizing AutoCAD coordinate system.In Revit coordinate system, users can access the area up to 20km around the coordinate base point.All the data in Revit coordinate system needs to be within the 20 km range, users can get serious errors.
Revit has two types of coordinate system –
Project Base Point:This is one type of the base point of Revit and it is used to locate all the datainternally that the designer creates.This base point is basically the reference point or the center of the 20 km range and designers or modelers need to create the building 3D model as near to the base point as they can. One of the disadvantages of this coordinate system is it does not assist users in getting the position information relative to the OS national grid system. For this, users need to use ‘survey base point’coordinate system.
Survey Base Point:This coordinate system is the secondary coordinate system of Revit.In this coordinate system, the accessible range from the base point or center can be more than the limit of 20km. Users can rotate the coordinate system and set its position appropriately for setting the location of the projected building properly. Survey base point allows users to obtain accurate ordinates relative to the OS national grid system.
So, before executing any building project, it is required to do the coordination system setup accurately. So, before starting of the project related works, it is necessary to make a good plan other with it will be difficult to deliver the project successfully.
