Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.

Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA

___________________________________________________________________________________

How to relocate linked Revit models in projects using

shared coordinates in BIM 360*
Sometimes during schematic design or even during design development, designers decide to
relocate a building in relation to the site. This happens occasionally in large projects with
multiple buildings on a large site, such as a university campus or a theme park. The
movement can be a slight rotation, or a displacement to another portion of the site, or a
vertical shift, or a combination of all the above.

If the whole project is in BIM 360* and if consultants have their models already aligned to the
architectural model by shared coordinates, it is not clear for all the design teams how to do
this re-alignment in a quick and easy way.

This document explains how to do this re-alignment, quickly and easy.

Example:

The image below shows a simplified site plan and section view of a sample building. The
building is now located at that portion of the site where the elevation is 370’, and the facades
are aligned to the north-south-east-west directions. There are four cloud models from
consultants already aligned to the architectural model by shared coordinates: structural, MEP,
foodservice, and interior design.

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

Then the design team decides to move the building

The building needs to be relocated. What are the steps to do this in a Revit-BIM360 project?
This is the sequence of events:

1. The civil drawing needs to be updated

The area development team, or the civil engineer’s office, needs to produce an updated civil
drawing that shows the new footprint of the building. Notice the new footprint (simplified) at
that portion of the site at elevation 390. The building is now rotated 15 degrees to the left.

2. The architectural site plan needs to be updated

The architectural office needs to update their site plan views and coordinates. In the Revit
world, this means that they need to update the relationship between the model of the building
and the model of the site. Suppose that we have model “123-A”.rvt representing the
architectural model of a project called “123”. And suppose that we have model “123-Site
Plan.rvt” which contains the civil drawing and the topography. These two models are already
related by shared coordinates.

Let’s pause the sequence of events for a moment, and let’s talk about an auxiliary file that will
be useful for both the architectural office and the consultants, to do this re-alignment.

Reset Coordinates.rvt

Using the default architectural template, (only the architect’s office needs to do this) create a
new Revit project. At the floor plan view of Level 1, use Visibility Graphics to turn on the
internal origin (Under Model Categories > Site) Or if you are using Revit 2018, turn on the
project base point. Then draw a circle using model lines. Use a 6’ feet radius (or similar) and

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

draw a line from the center of the circle to the North quadrant. In an elevation view, delete the
default Level 2 that comes with the template. Then initiate this model in your BIM 360 hub, in
a “Support” folder. Nothing else is required and this needs to be done only once in the lifetime
of a BIM 360 project.

In Revit’s recent versions (using 2020 as an In Revit 2018.3

example)

Continuation of step 2) the architectural site plan needs to be updated

 Open “123-Site Plan.rvt” and go to the Site Plan view. Since the linked civil drawing
was updated, now your site plan view will show both the new footprint and the old
location of the architectural model, something like this, below. If applicable, turn off
the topography and set the view to wire frame until you can see the new footprint of
the civil drawing properly. Synchronize and close this model.

 Open the model “123-A.rvt” (your architectural model). Go to the floor plan level 1
(easier than the site plan for this purpose) and do Insert > Link Revit > (from the BIM

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

360 hub) select your Reset Coordinates file and select “Auto-Internal Origin to
Internal Origin” (or “Origin to Origin” in Revit 2018) as positioning method.

 At the Level 1 view you should see the circle from the “Reset Coordinates.rvt” file at
the origin of your architectural model.

 Now you need to select that new link, either by selecting the circle, or by selecting it t
from the Project Browser (Links > Reset Coordinates” > Select All Instances > In
Entire Project.

 After the link is selected, look at its properties, and click on Not Shared:

 (Workset does not matter; position does not really matter; this link will be removed
anyway).

 After you click on “Not Shared”, then click on “Reconcile” to acquire coordinates from
“Reset Coordinates.rvt”

 Now the coordinates of your architectural model’s project base point are back to 0,0,
North is 0, elevation 0. And the relation between “123.rvt” and “123-Site Plan.rvt” has
been broken. In other words, let’s say that those two models were married, but now
they are divorced. But we need to marry them again, at a different place.

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

Now go to the Site Plan view. In this view the visibility of “123-Site Plan.rvt” is set to “by linked
view” > Site Plan, so that you can see the updated civil drawing. In this view, do this: select
the link of the site. Move it and rotate it until the footprint from the site plan link matches
correspondent elements from the building. Since the link is no longer associated with the
architectural model, you should be able to move it and/or rotated it without restrictions.

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

Now the building is aligned to the site in the horizontal plane. Now you need to align it in the
vertical direction. Remember, the design decision was to move the building from grade
elevation 370 to 390 and rotate it 15 degrees.

 Go to an elevation or section view and move the site plan link 20 feet down.

Now the building is at the new location. Now you need to re-establish the relation between
“123-A.rvt” and “123-Site Plan.rvt”. Following our analogy, you need to re-marry these two
models.

 Select the site plan link. From its properties, click on “Not Shared”, and then on
“Reconcile” to acquire coordinates from the site.

 At this point, the auxiliary file, “Reset Coordinates.rvt” is no longer needed. Remove
that link.
 Your site plan view changed. If you had any annotations that were showing elevations
related to the survey point, or spot elevations related to the survey point, those were
updated.
 If you had symbols indicating the orientation of project North in relation to True North,
that symbol needs to be updated.
 Other views should not be changed, because in relation to the architectural model
itself, all sections, callouts and elevations are still at the same place, showing the
same things, except for the relationship to the site.
 Synchronize.

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

 When you return to “123-Site Plan”, the architectural model will be at the new
location.
 Now it’s the time to notify consultants about the change of location, so that they
update their locations. They will do a very similar process as described above, with
the only difference that the marriage they need to break and re-establish is between
the architectural model and their own model.

3. Consultants need to update their models as per the new location of the
architectural model

 As soon as the consultants reload the architectural link (in this example, this is a
structural consultant reloading the architectural link), they will see something like this
in their floor plan view (reactions vary, some are not suitable for publication here).

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

And the elevation or 3d views? They look something like this: (remember, the building
moved up 20 feet).

What should this consultant (and all other consultants) do? The same process explained
before.

Steps for the consultant:

 From a floor plan view,: Insert > Revit link > (from the cloud) “Reset Coordinates.rvt”
> Origin to Origin or “Auto-internal origin to internal origin”
 Select the new link. If you have trouble seeing it, select it from the Project Browser
 From the properties of “Reset Coordinates.rvt” click on “Not Shared”. Then click on
“Reconcile” to acquire coordinates from “Reset Coordinates”. This breaks the
previous relationship between “123-S” (the structural model, for example), and
“123-A”, the architectural model.
 Now, from a floor plan view, select the architectural link, and move it and/or rotate
it until correspondent elements align, such as one grid in one direction and another
grid in a perpendicular direction. Now the models are aligned in the horizontal
plane.
 Go to an elevation and do Align correspondent elements in the vertical direction >
for example, select one of your levels > select the correspondent level from the
architectural model.
 Now select the architectural link “123-A.rvt”. From its properties, click on “Not
Shared” and then on “Reconcile” to acquire coordinates from it.
 Now the models are aligned and related again.
 Remove the auxiliary “Reset Coordinates.rvt” link.

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Alfredo Medina, freelance BIM-Revit service provider at the Autodesk Services Marketplace.
Email: alfmedina@hotmail.com / phone: 321 315 4766 / Orlando, FL, USA
___________________________________________________________________________________

 Now everything goes back to normal. The architectural link and the consultants’
model elements are aligned again.
 Consultant, synchronize.

 After all consultants do this, the next time the consultants’ models are reloaded at
the architect’s office, all models will be aligned again with their shared coordinates
relationship re-established.
 Coordination models (in Navisworks or other applications) will be back to normal, as
well.
 Hopefully the building will stay at the same place.

Note:

* BIM 360 refers to the cloud service called now “BIM Collaborate Pro”. I used the term “BIM 360”
because it is for me a shorter and more familiar way to refer to it.

Date of this article: 09/25/2021