How do you import a Civil 3D corridor into Revit or Navisworks?
I was asked this question a couple of months ago while importing a Civil 3D surface into Revit for a user group presentation on Revit Civil 3D collaboration. A very valid question, considering that I was just importing a surface and that too as polyline contours.
There is no way to import a corridor into Revit… well not until the Corridor Solids for Civil 3D technology preview from Autodesk Labs came out. You can learn more about it from Autodesk Labs website.
Corridor Solids will allow you to convert a Civil 3D corridor subassembly into an AutoCAD 3D solid (actually an AutoCAD “body” object) so you can easily import it into Revit or Navisworks for presentation purposes and enhanced model collaboration.
To provide you with a quick example, I have a very basic road corridor in Civil 3D with a lane, curb and gutter, sidewalk and retaining wall per the figure below:
Access Corridor Solids from the Toolbox and choose to import the solids in the same drawing or a new drawing.
Once you add all Baseline Regions you will see all the regions with their subassemblies in the dialog box.
The key here is to assign the right colors and layer names under the layer name template column so you see them in Revit and Navisworks.
And finally save the corridors solids in the same file or external file.
Now it’s easy to bring this Corridor Solids file into Revit via Linking CAD.
or Navisworks via Appending the corridor solids drawing file.
Caveat:
- Corridor Solids will not export link subassemblies as solids. In those situations, you will see holes where there are links in your corridor and you will not be able to convert daylight or link subassemblies.
- I have not been able to assign materials or cut a section through corridor solids in Revit. However, I was able to assign materials to the various layers in pavement structure in Navisworks.
- Also, Labs software is a beta testing ground for Autodesk so sometimes things might not work as expected and there maybe bugs. In those situations it is best to communicate those things with Autodesk.
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Gaurav Bagga
Senior Application Specialist Infrastructure
Gaurav is a Senior Application Specialist for Infrastructure Solutions at Ideate based out of San Francisco. He has over 18 years of experience in construction and related software industry. With this extensive design technology background he helps engineering and surveying companies, federal and state government agencies, and ENR 500 firms critically analyze and improve their construction drawing production process. He implements Civil infrastructure design technology led by InfraWorks and Civil 3D and has helped Ideate grow Civil Infrastructure Services. Being an industry recognized speaker he has presented cutting edge design technology at several industry conferences such as Autodesk University. Find Gaurav on Twitter.