Review: Topo Align Plugin for Revit

Introduction

Revit users, rejoice! If you've ever struggled with aligning topography in your projects, the Topo Align plugin is here to save the day. This powerful tool contains 5 commands designed to assist in working with topo surfaces or topo solids in Revit 2024 and beyond. Whether you need to align elements, add points to a surface, or reset regions, Topo Align has you covered.

Exploring the Features

Let's delve into the features of the Topo Align plugin and see how it can enhance your workflow in Revit. The first command, Align to Element, allows you to pick elements such as walls, floors, roofs, or pads and align topo surfaces/solids to the top or bottom face with variable vertical offsets. This feature is incredibly useful for avoiding coincident surfaces and ensuring precise alignment in your projects. Additionally, you can align topo surfaces/solids to individual edges and even align topo surfaces to families, although with limited support.

The Align to Topo command is another valuable tool that enables you to pick a topo surface and a floor, adding points from the topo surface to the floor to shape and edit it. In Revit 2024+, the floor is converted to a region on the topo solid, streamlining the process of creating detailed topography in your designs.

Points from Lines is a handy feature for creating additional topo points by drawing model lines and arcs below the topo surface. These lines can then be projected onto the topo surface, providing precise control over the grading regions of your site without any unwanted surface manipulation beyond a specified point. If the lines form a closed loop, you are prompted to remove existing topo points within the plan shape, ensuring a clean and accurate result.

Points along contours offer a unique way to control the proposed contour of the topo by drawing model lines as contour lines on levels or reference planes. By selecting the topo surface and contour lines, topo points will be created along the model lines at specified distances, giving you the flexibility to design intricate topography with ease.

Points at Intersection is a powerful tool for automatically adding topo points to a surface when a selected face intersects the topo. By selecting the topo surface and the face, topo points are created where the surfaces intersect, simplifying the process of creating detailed and accurate topography in your Revit projects.

Finally, the Reset Region command is a useful feature for removing internal topo points from an edited topo surface and copying points inside a selected area from an existing topo surface. This command effectively undoes edits for part of a graded surface, helping you maintain consistency and precision in your topography designs.

Conclusion

The Topo Align plugin for Revit is a game-changer for architects, designers, and engineers who work with topography in their projects. With its intuitive features and powerful commands, Topo Align simplifies the process of aligning, editing, and shaping topo surfaces and solids, saving you time and effort in your Revit workflow. Whether you're creating detailed topography for a site plan or refining the contours of a landscape design, Topo Align is a must-have tool for any Revit user seeking to elevate their projects to the next level.