Map Existing Trees with Survey Data

If you have to model an existing landscape in Revit, Dynamo can be an excellent tool to automate that process. Not only can you quickly create existing hardscape (that follows Topo), but you can also automatically place and size existing trees using survey data.

In fact, you can use this process to automatically place any element that exists in your AutoCAD survey as a block.

To start, you will need a csv or text file with your tree (or other survey) data. If you do not have this, you can create one by doing a Data Extraction from AutoCAD. Ideally, the survey data should have caliper and tree type attributes correctly assigned, but at the very least you will be able to get the XY coordinates of the tree.

The survey I used for this example did not have tree types, but it did have caliper values (in inches) and also differentiated between deciduous and evergreen trees. Here is the preview of the Data Extraction table, which I then exported to csv…

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