# Location of RevitLinkInstances **URL:** \ **Category:** Revit\ **Created:** [June 23, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690 "2017-06-23T20:23:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nick\_Boyts](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/nick_boyts/32/76313_2.png) [@Nick\_Boyts](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Nick_Boyts)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/1 "2017-06-23T20:23:32Z")
I’m looking into a proof-of-concept for dealing with large amounts of attached links. We have large multi-family housing projects that contain multiple instances of different Unit links within the main Architectural model. What I’d like to do is have Dynamo find all instances of the attached Units in the Arch model and created new instances (local to my file) of the Unit models in their same locations. Hopefully that makes sense. Basically I want Dynamo to populate my model based on the attached links in the main Arch model. The problem I’m having is that I cant seem to get a location for the linked models. Here is what I have so far. I can get both the Revit instances and the Dynamo instances. I can get the Location Class from the links but that seems to only me to rotate or move my element, not query any kind of insertion point. ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/dynamobim/original/3X/7/d/7ddf5df0c93996570713f99cc96630cdd1592ff0.png) I also seem to only be able to create new instances of local links (not attached) in my model. My current workaround would be to place one instance of each model before copying them, but it would be nice to have a solution for this too. Thanks for any help or suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![Kulkul](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/kulkul/32/49801_2.png) [@Kulkul](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Kulkul)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/2 "2017-06-25T19:22:19Z")
> [@Nick\_Boyts](#): > > The problem I’m having is that I cant seem to get a location for the linked models. Hi @Nick_Boyts ? ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/dynamobim/original/3X/c/9/c9ddb43d011bb4b19ae57f5b74e545718aa852a0.png) ---
**Author:** ![Nick\_Boyts](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/nick_boyts/32/76313_2.png) [@Nick\_Boyts](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Nick_Boyts)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 4:45pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/3 "2017-06-26T16:45:18Z")
If I’m not mistaken that returns the internal coordinates right? I’m trying to find the location of each instance with respect to my internal coordinate system. In my test project, each unit model has multiple instances throughout the overall building space. I need to find the location of each of those instances. ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/dynamobim/original/3X/9/3/93593de806e178bfdcec5cb70ed048999fab30e0.png) ---
**Author:** ![jacob.small](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/jacob.small/32/161030_2.png) [@jacob.small](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/jacob.small)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/4 "2017-06-26T16:49:21Z")
Try this: Place a datacontiner in a defaulted off workset at the origin, and copy its element ID to an excel file after a sync. Use the select elements in linked model workflow to get the location of that element within your overall project. Should pull the coordinates based on the overall file. ---
**Author:** ![Nick\_Boyts](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/nick_boyts/32/76313_2.png) [@Nick\_Boyts](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Nick_Boyts)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/5 "2017-06-26T17:05:04Z")
Are you suggesting I place the datacontainer in the linked models? I thought of trying something like that but the problem is that the unit models are all from another consultant. I’d have to do this every time we get an update and it ends up being a bit of a manual process. ---
**Author:** ![jacob.small](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/jacob.small/32/161030_2.png) [@jacob.small](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/jacob.small)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/6 "2017-06-26T17:27:06Z")
I am. And I am fairly certain (90%) that you could automate placing them too. Assuming they are all in a single directory? Adding the reference workset and placing the elements on that may be more difficult. Better yet: ask them to place the datacontainer for you and keep it there going forward. You would need to confirm it on exchanges. ---
**Author:** ![Nick\_Boyts](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/nick_boyts/32/76313_2.png) [@Nick\_Boyts](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Nick_Boyts)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:34pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/7 "2017-06-26T17:34:14Z")
That’s definitely a possibility. I haven’t played around with modifying multiple/background files yet but I’ve been meaning to. This might be a good reason to try it out. If this was one of our bigger clients I probably would see if they’d be willing to help out on their end. Unfortunately, we don’t do a whole lot of work with them and they’re fairly new to Revit so… I guess I’ll stick to trying to fix it myself. It just seems like it shouldn’t be this hard to get the location of a placed link instance. ---
**Author:** ![Kulkul](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/kulkul/32/49801_2.png) [@Kulkul](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Kulkul)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/8 "2017-06-26T20:45:11Z")
> [@Nick\_Boyts](#): > > I’m trying to find the location of each instance with respect to my internal coordinate system. In that case try using Geometry.Transform node. Get the location from linked models and then transform it. See below example graph. If that doesn’t help you drop here dummy rvt files so that we can look your issue closely. Good Luck! ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/dynamobim/original/3X/8/6/86def7f9709ec599fdee69a6c64765937f4dd0e5.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Nick\_Boyts](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/nick_boyts/32/76313_2.png) [@Nick\_Boyts](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Nick_Boyts)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/9 "2017-06-27T14:50:11Z")
I’m not sure I understand how that would work on a per instance basis, @Kulkul. I’ve added my test files to a dropbox folder here: [https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jb1e9crc791c7xj/AABJmQf6HMukZmpqmx5cHEv3a?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jb1e9crc791c7xj/AABJmQf6HMukZmpqmx5cHEv3a?dl=0) Thank you for your help. ---
**Author:** ![Nick\_Boyts](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/nick_boyts/32/76313_2.png) [@Nick\_Boyts](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Nick_Boyts)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/10 "2017-06-27T16:19:19Z")
After talking it through (again) I realized I could probably just copy the links into place rather than try to create new links/instances in my model. I’ll go ahead and blame this one on my manager giving me the idea to place new instances, but, as always, **simpler usually is better**. Thank you to everyone that pitched in. ---
**Author:** ![gdduffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/45deac/32.png) [@gdduffy](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/gdduffy)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 8:41am UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/11 "2018-07-06T08:41:54Z")
Hi KulKul, I am trying to do exactly what you propose here - obtaining the survey coordinates for instances of links in my project. I can get project coords so Im trying your geometry transform idea. So you transform the local coords to survey coords. Its the family.instance of the links Im stuck with, Ive tried to get a family instance from the link but keep getting errors no matter what I send to it. Can you show more of this graph so I can extract these xy locations. ---
**Author:** ![Kulkul](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/kulkul/32/49801_2.png) [@Kulkul](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Kulkul)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 9:28am UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/12 "2018-07-06T09:28:36Z")
Hi @gdduffy Please start a new thread as this topic is already solved. Don’t forget to show complete graph with errors expanded. ---
**Author:** ![Abdelrahman.alkilany](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Abdelrahman.alkilany](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Abdelrahman.alkilany)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 11:23am UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/13 "2018-12-10T11:23:52Z")
Hi@Nick , Can I copy the link , rotate ,mirror the links to multiple places by dynamo , I am facing the same situation you described and I am trying to place multiple links to multiple places ---
**Author:** ![Nick\_Boyts](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forum.dynamobim.com/nick_boyts/32/76313_2.png) [@Nick\_Boyts](https://forum.dynamobim.com/u/Nick_Boyts)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/location-of-revitlinkinstances/12690/14 "2018-12-10T15:22:46Z")
Please start a new topic for a new question. And show the work you’ve done.