From the course: BIM: Sustainable Design and Green Buildings
Adding location and levels in FormIt - Revit Tutorial
From the course: BIM: Sustainable Design and Green Buildings
Adding location and levels in FormIt
- [Instructor] Throughout this course, we'll model and analyze the residence in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Choosing because of the site's unique geographical features. In this video, we'll use Autodesk Formit to set up the building's location, and the levels. So start by launching Formit for Windows. And we launch Formits, clear the location icon on the standard trigger. Then search for one 120 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, Colorado, in the Bing map search bar. Set image crawl by zooming in and out, and panning the satellite image as shown here. (instructor dragging mouse) Then click import satellite image and terrain at the top right of the set location window. And a preview of the satellite image will appear in the sense of the window, and in the case where the Formits origin will appear relative to the imagery. And click finish importing button to bring the image into Formits. The satellite image will import to your real world scale with true not facing up, along the positive Y axis. If the north arrow is not visible, type DN on your keyboard to toggle it off and on. Now to adjust the satellite images transparency, double click on it, then go to the properties pallets, and move the transparency slider, so we can see the grids underneath the imported image. Now I want the building to be a toggle now with the adjoining road, so we must set the grid to match the road direction. To do that, activate the line tool, by typing L on your keyboard. Then draw a line that's parallel to the adjoining route, which you can see up here. Then click escape. Without any geometry selected, right click and choose set axis, or simply type S Z on your keyboard. Then position the big circle at the origin on the edge of the line, and align the X axis along the line. Then click anywhere outside to complete the command. Now from the layout expanded here, we can see that Formit automatically created to layers for the satellite image. Turn on the terrain layer, and you'll notice that the site has a steep topography. You can appreciate this by going to the 3D view. So as you can see, there's a very steep topography here. So now we need to prepare the train geometry, and cut out the building part. To do that, start by double clicking on the terrain, then select everything within the group. Then right click and select message to objects, or type M + O on your keyboard, and double click outside to exit the group. Next, switch to the top view, and make sure you are Orthographic mode from the floating navigation trigger. Then turn off the terrain layer from the layer span. Now we need to create the lot. So click decrease catch icon in the standard toolbar, and choose the rectangle tool or type R on your keyboard. Now we need to draw an 18,000 by 36,000 millimeter to represent the lot. It can also change your projects unit from the settings dropdown on the toolbar here. So I need to set this to metric millimeters. And with the rectangle to active, I need to draw an 18 millimeters by tetanus. 18,000 millimeters by 36,000 millimeters to represent a lot. And again double click on this to adjust it as you wish. And you can also take measurements to confirm the distance from the road, which is there. (instructor drags computer mouse) Now switch to a 3D view, and they will click on the slot that created, and move it up in the Z axis by 5,000 millimeters. (instructor typing) Next, select the surface of the lot and delete it, leaving only the outline. Double click on the outline to select it. Then right click and activate the offset edge command, or type E on your keyboard. Now type to five to create an inner shape within the building lot. (instructor typing) (instructor continues typing) Next, click the file menu above the standard toolbar, then click the import fly out, and then select locally, or simply type Control + I on your keyboard. Then navigate to the CAD files folder in exercise files, and import the ground floor plan into the project. You might want to change to the tall view at this point. And now with the imported file, the selected right click, and select rotate or type Q on your keyboard. Now move the rotation reference to the point. To this edge here. (instructor drags computer mouse) Now to zoom in closely. And then switch rotation axis to the exterior by dragging the blue grip. (instructor drags computer mouse) Which is this to the exterior of this wall. And then select this rotation here, and align it with the vertical, which is this. Then align the lower right grid, with the inner shape in the lot zone. With this imported cut first to selected. (instructor drags computer mouse) Make sure to align this edge. (instructor drags computer mouse) With this edge here. (instructor drags computer mouse) Now double click on this inner lot here and delete it. Switch to a 3D view, and move this imported floor plan by 2,000 millimeters. So now from the top view, make sure that the three layer is not active. Now we need to create this sketch around this imported floor plan. Before we do that, we want to make sure that the snap to grid is not active. So from the settings here, make sure that snap to grid is inactive, or type SG on your keyboard. So now we not need to begin to create a loop, or a line around this imported floor plan. So activate the line command by typing L on your keyboard. Then draw a line around this floor plan, making sure to come back to where you started from. (instructor drags computer mouse) As you draw you see some reference lines to guide your sketch. (instructor drags computer mouse) (instructor continues dragging computer mouse) So now switching to a 3D view, single click on the face of the plan outline, and it's 3D downwards and upwards. (instructor drags computer mouse) Then turn on the three layer from the layer span. So now need to use the cord geometry tool to cover the structure out of the terrain. So to do that type CG on your keyboard then select the terrain group first, followed by the building part that I just created. Then click finish from here to complete the code geometry command. Now select the structure you just created, and delete it, to review the building part. So now we need to go into this terrain by double clicking on the group, and select the surface of the pad, and align it to the CAD file that we imported, we should present. So single click on the surface, and drag it up to align with the CAD file. Like this. So after creating geometry Formit, you should apply levels to indicate where floor elevations are, and generate area calculations. To do that, we find the levels from this place, and then click the plus icon twice. Now we'll need to rename this to reflect the ground floor, first floor, and the roof level. So I'll call this zero one ground floor, zero two first floor, and zero three roof level. And then I change the height respectively to seven meters, 10.6 meters and 13.9 meters respectively. So that's it. We've configured the project's geographical location, and establish the levels. Make sure to save the project for use in the next video.
Practice while you learn with exercise files
Download the files the instructor uses to teach the course. Follow along and learn by watching, listening and practicing.