Revit - Import CAD/Revit and other files to correct location

By Garry Stockton

New Revit users may get a little confused when importing other files into Revit. The following will help clarify the correct process.

There are a variety of ways to import or link a Revit or CAD Drawing to Revit Model. One purpose for this is to overlay different models on top of one another as reference. You must, however, import it to the correct location, otherwise models won’t overlay correctly. When importing a Revit or CAD file, it is best to use the ‘Link Revit/CAD’ or ‘Import CAD’ commands found under the Insert Category of the top ribbon. Try to avoid dragging and dropping, as this will prompt you to manually specify the location where the referenced file will sit.

Once you have clicked one of these commands, you will be asked to select a reference file. Before importing the file into the space, you will notice that there is a choice as to where to place this referenced file.

The selections do the following:

Auto-Center to Center

Based off the average centre point of everything in the referenced file, this point will be placed on the average centre point of the Revit model space. The centre point changes as models are changed, so it is not a reliable positioning to use for overlaying files.

Auto-Origin to Origin

The referenced file will place its own origin point at the origin point of the Revit file. This is useful in overlaying referenced files if all the models are located at the same location in relations to the origin point.

Auto-By Shared Coordinates

If you assign a coordinate to each model, the model will be placed exactly within its specified coordinates. This is useful if the project has been set up initially to utilise a shared coordinate system.

Manual

All manual selection involves you manually specifying a point to place the referenced file. Manual-Origin will ask you to manually place the referenced files origin point, while manual base point will ask you to manually place the referenced file based off a selected based point. Manual-Center will ask you to manually place the referenced file based off its centre point.

In the end, it is best to use either Origin to Origin or By Shared Coordinates to overlay referenced files for collaboration.