Revit 2015 - Toposurface Point File Issue

By Justin Doughty 

When working with Toposurfaces in Revit you may be provided with a point file from a survey to incorporate into your project. Revit users unfamiliar with how survey point files are created, or experienced users of survey data unsure of the Revit workflow, can encounter some issues with this.

Sometimes when you insert a CSV point file in Revit you may get incorrect results, or a surface that is unrealistic/unexpected:

The cause of this behaviour is how the .csv point file has been constructed. Most survey point file users are aware that this is usually in the PENZ format shown below:

P-Point number

E-Easting

N-Northing

Z-Elevation (Z-axis)

The way to resolve this issue is to re-order the columns of the .csv file into Easting, Northing, Elevation (ENZ). This is the order Revit is expecting and the reason behind the strange results.

This now brings in your point file as expected:

This is actually explained if you hover over the command: