I am neither a frequent Revit user nor an expert with Civil 3D Pressure pipes. I work for a company that designs large, often complex irrigation systems. As with everything architecture, engineering or design related, more and more of our clients are asking for a BIM deliverable. As there is currently only irrigation design software that produces a 2d cad deliverable, I have been on a search for a way to generate what our clients are beginning to expect.
While we can perform all of our hydraulics in WaterCAD, we still need 3D geometry to show pipe networks. I hit on the idea to utilize C3D pressure pipe networks to model Irrigation mainlines and laterals. Then I discovered Dyanmo for Revit and found that through Civil Connections I may be able to import C3D Pressure Pipe geometry and parameters into Revit as native Revit geometry.
I am looking only for direction to information. Not looking for someone to do the work (though, if anyone has a script they are willing to share…). What I really need is just a starting place to begin to understand.
Hi mzjensen, I initially used dynamo in C3D to export a .json and import into Revit. Didn’t get this far, though. The point of the exercise is to involve our irrigation system (piping) in shared modeling to identify clash detection and (eventually) to run reports on the irrigation parts and function (psi, gpm, etc.). Thanks for your reply. Totally open to achieving our goals a different way, so feel free to suggest.
So are you needing to move the data into Revit because others are working in Revit?
Basically what I’m suggesting is that perhaps moving all the data to Revit could be skipped. Initially it sounded like you wanted to do this just to get access to Dynamo, so I wanted to make sure you were aware that Dynamo is also available in Civil 3D. Sounds like you’re good on that front. So before talking about moving to Revit, is there anything in the Civil 3D environment that you are not able to accomplish with Dynamo (hence the need to transfer to Revit)?
Exactly right mzjensen. Our clients are asking for bim models of our irrigation systems (and landscapes but that’s an entirely different topic). So, I need to create bim models of our irrigation systems. If there was a good way to do this directly in Revit I would. In my limited experience, Revit simply doesn’t function the way I’d need it to design directly in a Revit model. So, looking for the best workaround.
Pipes in Revit are defined by a type and a location curve. If you have the location curve via serialized data (json from Civil 3D, start and end point, whatever) and the pipe type (diameter, wall thickness, etc.) you can generate the pipes.
Note that you may be better off generating in Dynamo/Revit up front and abandoning the proceeding software; if you can do the calcs you need by hand (as engineering professionals one might assume so) you can likely even build the formulas into a Dynamo routine and eventually let generative design optimize the layout.
Thank you, jacob.small. Moving the entire production into Revit is our goal. I have a lot of learning to do to be able to move in that direction. Can you (or anyone else) suggest any sources (online or otherwise)?
The Dynamo Primer is a good place to start. Skip nothing. Do every exercise even if it seems irrelevant. They aren’t designed to teach you an outcome but the concepts require to produce your own outcomes.
Sol Amour and I have also hosted quite a few office hours over the last few years which have been posted to this YouTube playlist, showing new stuff and building simple and complex routines, again focusing on concepts not outcomes.
Lots of other topics on the forum asking for similar, looking over those is likely a good call so you get more opinions from other users.
