SketchUp to Revit: Walls and other elements not editable

Help
, , ,
1

Goal:
Take 3D models of buildings in SketchUp and link + export them to Revit through Speckle connectors to create structural and architectural drawings for those buildings. The linked Revit building should be identical to a building redrawn in Revit by hand (Ie. all the components and elements are native Revit elements and can be edited, annotated, and worked with to create a structural and architectural drawings).

**Problem: **
Currently any models linked/exported through Speckle into Revit do not act like native Revit elements and are not fully editable, annotatable, or workable (they lack a system family and type or just don’t have a family or type at all). For example, walls cannot have their type changed, do not act as room boundaries, cannot have their lengths or orientation or rotation changed, etc.

**What I have tried: **

  • Using both legacy (V2) and new gen (V3) connectors
  • SketchUp → Speckle → Revit
  • SketchUp → Speckle → Blender → Speckle → Revit
  • Using older versions of revit, blender, and sketchup
  • changing the mapping (sending/exporting) and receiving (importing) settings for all of the above (Ex. exporting to Speckle as Direct Shapes and New Revit Family)
  • modifying the elements and components in SketchUp before sending to Speckle and Revit
  • Searching this forum and online for solutions. @Priyanshi_Tiwari seemed to have a similar issue about a year ago but received no replies on their post. @Priyanshi_Tiwari if you have found a solution, workaround, or have any information / insights to this problem, please let me know in the replies.

Furthermore, to attempt to understand the problem I have found that:

  • With V3 connectors (at the time of writing): any elements sent to Speckle cannot be received as an editable, native Revit elements. This includes uploaded a native Revit wall to Speckle, and then loading that into the same Revit project. This is not the case with V2 connectors only for the case of Revit → Speckle → Revit.
  • Sending Revit walls to Blender results in information, such as families, types, etc., to be saved under “Custom Properties”. However, uploading this object (the one loaded from Revit Speckle) to Speckle from Blender then loading it into Revit (remember, this is supposed to be the same as the original wall in Revit) results in an uneditable shape. I conclude that any information stored in Blender’s “Custom Properties” cannot be read into Revit.
  • Refer to screenshot for examples of loaded walls in Revit. Keep in mind these are all reuploads of the same original wall I drew in Revit and is just an exercise to try to understand things. I annotated the screen shot in MS Paint.
    image
    image1919Ă—993 152 KB

To recreate this just make a cube or rectangular prism in SketchUp and load into Revit through Speckle. You will notice that it is not as editable as a wall drawn in Revit, the goal is for the imported wall to be the same as a native one.

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this and trying to help.

2

Hi @Ethan_at_Sysconverge ,

Unfortunately that’s by design, specifically in the case of SketchuUp, elements are always received in Revit as DirectShapes.

This is because SketchUp uses mesh objects, and it would be extremely hard (if not impossible) for us to reconcile these with the parametric familes Revit uses.

In v2 connectors we did allow for CAD > BIM conversions, but only from Rhino to Revit using specific conventions (eg a line with specific attributes will become a wall) but this has also proved to be quite error prone and unreliable.

With v3 connectos our approach is not to solve interoperability (we believe it’s a lost cause), but instead, to allow you to iterate faster and coordinate your desings with others quickly by using reference geometry when needed.

Hope it helps clarify!

2 Likes
3

Hello Teocomi,

Thank you for your quick response. Since it is not possible to go directly from SketchUp to Revit through Speckle, is it possible to achieve my goal by using Blender as an intermediate step? Something like SketchUp → Speckle → Blender , modify the elements in Blender → Speckle → Revit? In essence, does Blender pick up where SketchUp is lacking so that Revit can interpret models as walls for example?

Thanks for your help and efforts.

4

No, with the move to v3/next-gen the Revit connector is only capable of receiving elements as DirectShapes - we keep evaluating extending the receive functionality to support native ones and will definitely announce it if we move in such direction.

1 Like
5

Thanks for letting me know. I’ll keep an eye out for any announcements about that. Thanks for your time and support!

6

Just one last question:

If our goal is just to be able to link models (Ex. a building) from SketchUp to Revit in a way that allows an engineer to make structural and architectural drawings for that model (as described above), what suggestions do you have?

Thanks again

7

2 Likes