Tag: decal

Using an Image Background for 3D Masterplanning in Revit

Luke Johnson

Most of you probably know that you can use a Decal in a 3D view set to Realistic for 3D masterplanning.  The annoying part is that you have to somehow scale the Decal properly.

You may also know that Vasari has a nice built-in method of grabbing Google Earth imagery and unlike Revit, Vasari is happy to show this image in 3D views.

Now, Philip Chan has combined these two methods to make a decent workflow for Revit:

  1. Grab the image in Vasari first
  2. Open that Vasari file in Revit
  3. Import the same image from Vasari into Revit as a Decal and place it on a flat workplane
  4. Use the “borders” of the Vasari image to properly scale the Revit decal
Its a bit fiddly, but until Revit supports images in 3D views, it will have to do.  Or, you could convert the image to a DWG and use that (I’m mostly kidding).

In Philip’s words:
use a trick to get it scale properly. I actually used the Vasari file that I made earlier, I drew some model lines at the boundary of the image, copy the model lines to the clipboard, and then paste them into my site file. Now that I had the actual size of the boundary, I could use the same image export from Vasari and placed it as a decal.

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