Get Civil 3D Pipe Networks Into Revit as Families

Coordination between civil engineers, structural engineers, and architects is much easier with the Speckle Civil 3D connector!

You can extract network pipes and their connecting structures with comprehensive data properties and recreate entire networks in Revit with just a few clicks!

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need to register with Speckle and install the required connectors. It takes less than 3 minutes! For a comprehensive overview of this connector, check our docs !

Suppose you are unfamiliar with publishing and loading models with Speckle Civil 3D or Revit. In that case, we strongly recommend following our Getting Started tutorials before returning to this one!

Speckle treats pipe network elements as geometry objects with additional properties attached - we refer to these as BIM elements. You can load these elements in any Speckle connector software as native elements if that software supports them, or as a mesh if not.

We'll look at publishing pipes and connecting structures from Civil3D, exploring their properties on the web, and receiving them as pipes and direct shapes in Revit.

Step 1: Publish your Civil 3D pipe network with Speckle

Open up your Civil 3D file with pipe network elements, or download our sample file. Select your network elements and publish them for a project!

Step 2: Explore Your Network Properties On The Web

When you publish a Civil 3D pipe to Speckle, a Speckle pipe is created with the following basic properties:

• the base curve
• the diameter and length
• a display mesh representing the volume of the pipe

Additional properties specific to Civil 3D are also added if they exist:

• name, description, and network name
• start and end structures and stations
• cross-sectional shape
• flow direction and flow rate

Click the "Open in Browser" button on the top right of your stream in the Civil 3D Speckle connector, and check out these properties in your web browser! Or take a peek at the example pipe network here:

Do more with properties

You can load your pipe network with our Grasshopper and Dynamo connectors and retrieve element properties directly if you'd like to use them for your fancy computational or generative scripts!

Step 3: Loading Your Pipe Network in Revit

Open up a new Revit file and load your pipe network with the Speckle Revit connector. Watch as your pipes come in as Revit pipes and structures come in as generic models.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful!

Speckle is still an Open Source project and we really love feedback, so if you have any questions, comments, critiques, or praises please let us know on our community forum.

Quick Q&A

1. Can I publish my Revit pipes to Civil 3D?

Currently, our Civil 3D connector does not support receiving pipes or other BIM elements, but this feature can be added if you ask nicely on our forum!

2. Why can't I publish my pressure pipes?

At the time of writing, the Civil 3D API doesn't support pressure network element access, and unfortunately, our connectors are limited by their corresponding software APIs. Updates can come in the future as APIs become available!