Revit Tip – Working with Navisworks files in Revit - Limitations!

By Dennis Collin

Revit can reference several different file formats in addition to Revit models. The software can link in not just traditional file formats like DXF, DWG, PDF and DGN etc, but also more modern model formats like IFC, Point Cloud Data and coordination model files including Navisworks NWD and NWC formats.

Click on the Insert tab and choose Coordination model and navigate to the desired file. On the subsequent dialogue choose ‘Add’ from Origin to Internal Origin or Shared Coordinate Option as required and click OK.

The coordination model should appear in the view. TIP: If spaces or other non-standard characters are within the file name, the linking procedure may not work, and the import process file will report an invalid format.

Once linked there is not much users can do with the file, apart from naming the instance.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing this post it is not possible to take measurements from the file, trace an outline or acquire coordinates from the link. These limitations do bring into question the whole purpose of linking in a file! As a crude workaround, reference planes can be placed visually and dimensions derived from them, providing the same level of accuracy as working with a raster file image. In comparison Revit can snap to vector-based PDF files, but users might expect superior functionality with a BIM model format. As a result the placement of the NWD file only seems to be for visualisation purposes only!

Another workaround is to link the NWD into AutoCAD full version, which does have object snapping capability. Produce a outline trace in AutoCAD and then link the drawing file into Revit, which does seem a little clunky. I am hopeful that this rather strange limitation will be addressed in a future version of Revit. I will discuss the AutoCAD NWD linking facility in another post soon.