Shared Coordinates and Project Base Point Values - 2 ways to fix

by Garry Stockton

Experienced Revit users know Shared Coordinates can drive you mad. Issues may arise when trying to make small adjustments to very large numbers, and that comes up in other places in Revit too. In some cases, using “Specify Coordinates at a Point” has almost no effect and you need to resort to workarounds like the following.

In Revit, we tend to follow certain steps in a certain way to solve these issues. It may seem long and frustrating, but if you want to fix coordinates on an existing model, perhaps one of these methods will work for you.

Option 1 – Transfer Project Standards, Project Info; this transfers the ‘location’ data of a Shared Site.

On a real project, you will probably have a control model you can use in the workflow below. The control model needs to have some lines showing at the desired Project Base Point position, probably in a Linked View, as well as a SITE fixed named site that has the ‘correct’ shared coordinates.

1. Open one of your models to fix, next go to a Plan view.
2. Link in the COORDINATES file Origin-To-Origin. Set Linked view – COORDINATES.
3. Turn on Site – Project Base Point, select it and ‘unclip’.
4. Transfer Project Standards (from the link) – Project Info, Choose ‘New Only’.
5. Go to the Location – Site dialog box, Set the SITE fixed to ‘Make Current’.
6. Delete your old SITE, and rename SITE fixed to SITE (we have now replaced the shared site coordinate info with that from the control model). Now, to get a moved PBP in the right spot for the project…
7. Back in Floor Plan view, slightly drag the unclipped ‘Project Base Point’ away from the two green lines (the ‘Project Base Point’ position in the control file), then move it back to exactly that point.
8. The ‘Project Base Point’ should now be fixed.