Each point was placed along a midpoint of an existing triangle, modifying the interpolation and creating more triangles. To do this, I added 2 points slightly higher than the contour line. In order for Revit to match the contour lines, you must tell it that the yellow triangle area is actually lower than the contour line. So the Revit contour takes the shortest route possible and does not go through those points. It sees the highlighted (yellow) triangle as the same height as the contour line (198). And by using the Spot Elevation tool, you can see why Revit’s contour “skips” those far right points. The trick to dealing with any Topo/ Contour irregularity is to look at the triangles.īy turning on the triangles, you can see Revit’s triangulation/ interpolation at work. In fact, adding more points along the line will make it more difficult. Now, it may be tempting to try and add more points along the contour line to “force” the Revit contour along the actual contour, but this does not work. In editing the Topo, you can see that the Revit contour jumps over the corner points to the right. I find sharp angles a little trickier to deal with, so let’s zoom in and take a look.įor clarity, I have made the actual contour line a thick, solid red, and the Revit Topo contour is dashed black. Sharp Angles (a crown of a road) and Vertical Drops (along curbs and retaining walls) There are 2 types of areas where I have noticed that this happens the most: So regardless of how many points you have along a contour line, there will almost always be areas where Revit interpolates these points inaccurately (not as intended). It takes all of these points and triangulates/ interpolates the grade between them.

This is because Revit does not see the contour line it only sees the points along the line. Immediately, you can see that the Topo does not follow the contour lines accurately.

To start off, I have created a Toposurface with the following contour lines (though I actually used Topo From Lines, to make this one). But understanding how Topo works and triangulates can make this task manageable and much less frustrating.

It is not impossible, though it can be time consuming. As I’ve mentioned before, Topo is difficult to modify and fine-tune accurately.

Retaining wall to infraworks