Revit Shared Origin Survey Startup Base Location…

What? The title of this blog doesn’t make sense. Now that I have your attention, here we go.  You may know about Revit’s Project Base Point (PBP) and Survey Point (SP). Did you know there is another point called the Startup Location? Be default, the PBP and SP are located on top of the Startup Location. What is the Startup Location used for? It’s used for linking models ORIGIN-TO-ORIGIN. Revit does not use the PBP to link models origin-to-origin. How does this work with Shared Coordinates? It doesn’t. So, keeping Shared Coordinates out of this blog, I want to clarify something very very important. If you are an engineer and want to link the Architect’s project file origin-to-origin, you need to do this before you start the engineering model. This will ensure that the Revit models line up exactly. However, if a structural engineer lays out column grids without the architects model and then links files later, origin-to-origin will not work. If this happens, the only way to deal with linked files is to use Shared Coordinates. The engineer will only waste time trying to move the PBP and linking models using origin-to-origin.  And finally, never, I repeat never move the building. I’ve read blogs on how to move a building using infinite view ranges. This does not work; details items cannot be moved this way and you will only cause more problems. Again, use Shared Coordinates. I will save Shared Coordinates for another blog.