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Monday, March 28, 2016

Revit Tutorial - Calculating Cut / Fills Using Building Pads

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Pablo, my colleague and friend from sunny San Diego, emailed me one day asking about cuts and fills in Revit. This was his email:

"Hey I got a question for you. I have placed a few building pads on our site and I am trying to find out if there is any easy way to get the excavation volume of the void left behind from the building pad? I have scoured the internet but all references to volumes of excavation refer more to the cut/fill tools in Revit (which I can do but am too lazy). I just thought that there might be some property related to the building pad that would tell me how much topography is being imprinted with the building pad..."

 Continue reading to view my response and discover how to calculate cuts and fills in Revit...


The most basic break down of the process is as follows:

1. Create existing surface and set its creation phase to Existing.
2. Set your View (3D or Site Plan View) to New Construction.
3. Go to “Massing and Site” tab and select “Graded Region”.
4. Select “Create a New Toposurface exactly like the existing one”
5. Select your existing topography.
6. Instead of modifying the points just click finish sketch.
7. Now, in your New Construction view, if you model you’re building pads it will only cut the new toposurface and leave the existing as is.
8. To distinguish each cut in the schedule you need to select the “wall” of the cut:

Click to enlarge...

9. Once selected, give it a value in the “Mark” category that makes sense.
10. Then, make a Topography schedule with the following fields:

Click to enlarge..

11. Notice, the highlighted cell is the “Cut” of my building pad… That is really the only piece of information you want. It tells you the volume of the topography you are removing at that exact "hole" you've created with your building pad!

Pretty neat, huh?  This is very basic but can be used in a much more advanced form to analyze grading, calculate cuts/fills, and so on...

Pablo, thanks for letting me share our "in-house" story with the world! ;)









Posted by at Monday, March 28, 2016

Comments (8)

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agradoville's avatar

agradoville · 471 weeks ago

Question. Could this process be used to figure out where to start brick courses so that they will be below final grade? I have a 2D set of drawings and have been asked if I could determine a dimension from final grade as to where the brick courses need to start in order to make sure the brick is below the final grade.
Could I model up the foundation walls and the terrain from the civil dwg and use this process to find that dimension? Or can you think of any easier way? Trying to set the starting brick course without having to guess and waster 3 or 4 courses of brick.
Thanks
2 replies · active 468 weeks ago
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TheRevitKid 72p · 471 weeks ago

Using a pad may help you but this method is for calculating the volume of topography added or removed... Not sure how it will help with height of your brick coursing.

That being said, simply modeling the stuff as you described will definitely help you find the dimensions you are looking for.
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Pierre's avatar

Pierre · 468 weeks ago

Use the pad and dimension to a reference plane, identify the depth of the wall to which you want the face bricks laid, dimension and lock it to the pad and the reference plane and then the wall base if required. Add a coordinating level is an alternate and a better solution to have it reported. It's all relative to the pad, then the levels. I have done this before for other reasons, including plinths, stub walls, cladding systems and foundations (not engineered, just indicative)
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Jan's avatar

Jan · 471 weeks ago

Have not tried it yet to be honest but this seems very clever.
Kudos.
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Cosmic Rocket's avatar

Cosmic Rocket · 349 weeks ago

All my values are showing up as 0
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seychellian 4p · 349 weeks ago

Ok I solved my own question. I was trying to calculate pad cut/fill on a split surface which Revit didn't like. When I merged the surface the cut/fill quantities appeared in the schedule. Thereafter I was able re-split the surface and it worked as intended. If anyone can shed any light on why it wouldn't calculate on a split surface it would be useful to know.
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seychellian 4p · 349 weeks ago

I have also noticed that the topography that is reproduced when creating the graded region has cut and fill values despite technically be a carbon copy of the original topography. Can anyone shed any light on that also?
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seychellian 4p · 349 weeks ago

Finally (sorry for the rapid fire posts and schizophrenic replies to myself btw) Is there a way of calculating the total cut/fill of multiple pads so we can try to balance the quantities? Advise appreciated.

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