Converting Blocks to Extrusions and Surfaces in Rhino for Revit Element Categories

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Hello, I couldn’t find an answer to this anywhere else. I am a Revit user. I am using Rhino with Speckle to bring a third-party model into Revit. The model was originally made in ArchiCAD but was given to us in Revit format. In Revit, everything in the model is a Direct Shape. When it is imported into Rhino, everything in the model is a Block. Is there a way to convert Blocks into Extrusions and Surfaces, so that I can assign them to the right Revit Element categories for conversion? Is there something else I’m missing to make this possible? The only other option I see is drawing over the entire model from scratch in Revit using the imported Direct Shapes there as a guide which would take a long time.
Thank you, SZ

EDIT: Obviously not a usual Rhino user, but I figured out how to explode the blocks and then assign categories. However it’s going to get messy, any tips on workflow here? Also, I’m still getting a SEND FAIL message after doing this.

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Hey @stephenlog ,

The only way to convert blocks into surfaces and polysurfaces is by exploding them, which you discovered on your own. To be honest, I’m not sure of any easy way to clean them up.

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Hi @stephenlog , we currently are only sending DirectShape geometry as meshes from Revit, and so when receiving them in Rhino you are getting Blocks containing meshes.

Although it’s super difficult to reverse-engineer a nurbs from a mesh, if you’re looking to map relatively simple geometries you could try:

  1. use the “merge coplanar faces” mesh import setting when receiving in rhino, which attempts to join all coplanar faces on your meshes
    image
  2. explode your blocks
  3. select your meshes and run the “MeshToNurb” command in rhino, which will attempt to construct one nurbs surface for every face in your mesh

Let me know if this works!