How to Bring a Point Cloud into Revit with ReCap Pro

You have a point cloud of an existing building and a Revit project waiting for it. The scanning company did its job; now the file is yours, and the questions start: which format, where to put it, how to position it so it lands where the building is, why Revit has slowed to a crawl, and how to actually draw a wall against millions of points. This guide walks through the whole route, from the files you receive to the first wall snapped to the scan. It is written by Modena Technologies, which scans buildings and plant from Cape Town, models from point clouds every week, and teaches Revit to the practices that do it themselves.

The short version. Convert and tidy the scan in ReCap Pro, save it as an RCP project on a local drive, link it into Revit with the positioning option that matches how the scan was coordinated, then control what Revit has to draw with section boxes, view ranges and the Point Clouds tab of Visibility/Graphics. Set your levels from sections through the cloud before anything else, and model floor by floor with the planar snap. Most performance problems come from one of three things: the file is on a network drive, the whole cloud is visible in the view, or points were hidden instead of deleted.

The route at a glance

If you would rather watch than read, our 13-minute video covers linking a point cloud into Revit and the habits that make modelling against it faster. The steps below go through the same ground in more detail, with the troubleshooting you will want when it does not go to plan.

Step 1: Know what you received

Before opening anything, work out three things about the delivery, because each one changes a later step.

• The format. E57 is the open exchange format most scanning companies deliver. It can be structured (one scan per position, with the scanner's panoramic images) or unified (one merged cloud with no scan positions). RCP is Autodesk's project format, delivered as an RCP file plus a folder of RCS scan files; it has already been indexed and goes straight into Revit. LAS and LAZ are survey and civil formats that ReCap also reads. Revit itself links only RCP and RCS, so anything else goes through ReCap first.
• The coordinate system. Ask whether the cloud sits on a local origin near the building or on survey control with real-world coordinates. The answer decides the positioning option in Step 4, and getting it wrong is the most common reason a point cloud appears "missing" in Revit. A registration report should say; if it does not, open the cloud in ReCap and look at the coordinate readout. Values in the millions mean survey coordinates.
• What was cleaned. A cloud straight from registration still contains people, vehicles, scanner tripods and stray points through windows. Some providers clean before delivery; Modena does. If yours did not, the cleaning happens in Step 2.

Step 2: Prepare the cloud in ReCap Pro

ReCap Pro is included in the AEC Collection and is the tool that turns a delivered scan into something Revit can use well. If you received a clean RCP project from your scanning company, you can skip to Step 3, but it is still worth opening the project in ReCap once to check the coordinate system and see what regions it contains.

One practical note for FARO scans in particular: if the scans were delivered without colour, ReCap will not colourise them on import. Colourisation has to happen in FARO Scene before export. If your cloud is grey, ask the provider for a colourised export rather than trying to fix it in ReCap.

Step 3: Put the files where Revit wants them

This step is short and skipping it causes more trouble than any other.

• Local drive only. Revit always reads point cloud data from the local disk. A cloud linked from a network share, or directly from Autodesk Construction Cloud through Desktop Connector, will be slow whatever the workstation. Copy the RCP and its RCS folder to the local machine.
• One folder, same relative path for everyone. Revit stores point cloud links relative to a Root path for point clouds (Revit Options, File Locations). On a workshared model, every user should keep the cloud in the same relative folder under their own root path, for example a PointClouds folder in their user directory, so the link resolves on each machine without remapping.
• A workset per link. On a workshared project, put each point cloud link on its own workset. Closing the workset is the fastest way to take the cloud out of memory for a team member who is not modelling against it.

Step 4: Link and position the cloud

In Revit, Insert tab, Link panel, Point Cloud. Choose the RCP file (or individual RCS files) and then the positioning option. This is the decision that puts the cloud where the building is.

Positioning option	Use it when	Avoid it when
Auto - Origin to Origin	The cloud was registered on a local origin near the building. Revit places the cloud's 0,0,0 at the project's internal origin and rotates it to Project North.	The cloud carries survey coordinates: it will land kilometres from the model, and Revit's display degrades beyond about 32 km from the origin.
Auto - By Shared Coordinates	The cloud is on survey control and the Revit project has acquired the same shared coordinate system (from the site model or the surveyor's DWG). The cloud lands exactly where the building is, oriented to True North.	The project has no shared coordinates set up yet. Set them up first, or the result is the same as Origin to Origin.
Auto - Origin to Last Placed	You are linking a second or third cloud from the same project, after positioning the first one. Each new cloud lands consistently with the first.	The clouds were not registered together. They will not line up.
Auto - Center to Center	You do not know the cloud's origin and want to see it somewhere near the model to work out what you have.	Anything you intend to keep. The centre is calculated from the geometry at the time of linking, so re-linking or adding files puts them in a different place.

For most architectural work the choice is simple: if the scan was done for this building and this building only, use Origin to Origin. If it was tied to survey control, or the project involves more than one building, use shared coordinates and set them up properly before you link. Once the cloud is where it should be, pin it. A point cloud nudged by accident is a model built in the wrong place.

Step 5: Set up views that stay fast

Revit draws every visible point in the view, and that is the single biggest factor in how it performs. The aim is to show the fewest points that still let you model what is in front of you.

• Section boxes in 3D. Make a 3D view per floor with a section box tight to that floor. Never model against an un-boxed 3D view of a whole building.
• View range in plans. In plan views the cloud shows only between the view's bottom extent and the cut plane, so a plan with a sensible view range is already a slice through the cloud. Set the cut plane just above sill height to see wall lines and openings cleanly.
• The Point Clouds tab in Visibility/Graphics (VG). Switch individual scan positions and ReCap regions on and off per view. Change the colour mode: RGB for the real colours, Single Colour to make the cloud recede behind your model, Elevation to read floor and ceiling levels, Intensity when the scan has no colour, Normals to make planes stand out. Save these as view templates and apply them to every point cloud view.
• Strip the view of anything else expensive. Shadows, ambient occlusion and filter overrides all add rendering cost. Turn them off in point cloud views.
• Unload when you are not using it. Manage Links has a Point Clouds tab with Reload, Unload and Remove. Unload the cloud before a long modelling session on a different part of the building, and reload it when you need it.

Step 6: Levels, grids and the first walls

The order matters. Model datums before elements, and model from sections before plans.

1. Levels from sections. Cut a section through the cloud and look at the floor and ceiling bands. Place or move levels to snap to the floor points. Repeat in a second section at right angles to check the floors are level; in old buildings they often are not, and the model should record the real level, not the one on the old drawing.
2. Grids from the structure. In a plan with a tight view range, columns and load-bearing walls show as dense clusters. Place grids on them.
3. Walls with the planar snap. Revit detects planes in the cloud that are perpendicular to the current work plane and lets the wall tool snap to them. The detection only works in a small area around the cursor and only for planes at right angles to the view, so work in plan for walls and in section for floors and ceilings. Once a plane has been found, Revit keeps it as a reference until you zoom.
4. Tab for direct point snaps. Planar snaps take priority. When you need a specific point, a sill, a beam soffit, a pipe centreline, press Tab to cycle through to the direct point snap.
5. Measure, then model. You cannot place dimensions on a point cloud because it has no references to constrain. Use the Measure tool between points to get opening sizes and wall thicknesses, then model the element to those numbers.
6. Openings in elevation. Windows and doors are easiest to place in a section or elevation view of the facade, with the cloud in Single Colour and Ghost Surfaces on so the openings read clearly.

Model to the level of development the project needs and no further. The temptation with a point cloud is to model everything you can see; the discipline is to model what the next design stage needs. Our guide on point cloud, mesh or BIM model shows what LOD 100, 200 and 300 look like element by element.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Usual cause	Fix
Revit links the cloud but nothing appears	Survey coordinates placed with Origin to Origin; the cloud is far away	Zoom to fit to confirm, then re-link by shared coordinates after acquiring them, or get a locally re-based cloud
Panning and zooming are slow in every view	File on a network drive, or linked through Desktop Connector	Copy the RCP and RCS files to a local folder and remap the link in Manage Links
Slow only in some views	Too many points visible; shadows or filters on	Section box, tighter view range, hide unneeded scans or regions in VG, turn off shadows
Still slow after section boxing	Hidden-but-not-deleted points in ReCap keep the bounding box large; or hardware acceleration is off	Save As in ReCap and permanently delete; check Revit's graphics options; check RAM is not paging
Cloud is grey with no colour	Scans exported without colour (common with FARO scans not colourised in Scene)	Ask the provider for a colourised export; meanwhile use Intensity or Normals colour mode
Walls will not snap to the cloud	The plane is not perpendicular to the current work plane, or you are zoomed too far out	Switch to the right view type (plan for walls, section for floors), zoom in, press Tab for point snaps
Link breaks for other team members	Different relative paths under each user's point cloud root path	Agree one folder structure under the root path and have everyone copy the files there
Floors look wrong after modelling from the old plans	The old drawing was trusted over the scan	Set levels from sections through the cloud, not from the drawings

Hardware

Point cloud work is the one Revit task that pushes a workstation hard in every direction at once: graphics for drawing the points, memory for holding them, and fast storage for reading them. A machine that is comfortable for ordinary Revit modelling can be unusable with a 20 GB cloud. The principles, and what to look for, are in our ReCap workstation guide and Revit workstation guide, and we build and stress-test workstations for this work in Cape Town.

How Modena helps

We do this from both sides. We scan buildings and deliver cleaned, registered point clouds as E57 and RCP with a registration report, ready to link, for practices that model in-house. We model from point clouds ourselves, so if the project is too big for your team or the deadline too short, we deliver a classified Revit model in your template instead. We supply ReCap Pro and the AEC Collection, and our Revit training covers working with point clouds. Our modellers have also built their own tools for speeding up point cloud work in Revit, which is part of why we can quote fixed prices for it.

Ask about a scan or scan-to-model See Revit training dates

Frequently asked questions

Can Revit open an E57 file directly?

No. Revit links RCP and RCS files only. An E57, LAS or scanner-native file is converted to RCP and RCS by indexing it in ReCap. The free version of ReCap can index and convert; ReCap Pro, included in the AEC Collection, adds cleaning, registration, regions and unified export.

How big a point cloud can Revit handle?

There is no fixed limit. What matters is how many points are visible in the current view and whether the file is on a local drive. A multi-gigabyte cloud is workable when it is split by floor, section-boxed and read from local disk; a small cloud on a network share is not.

Why is my point cloud kilometres away from the model?

The cloud is on survey coordinates and was linked Origin to Origin. Either set up shared coordinates in the project and re-link by shared coordinates, or ask your scanning company for a copy re-based to a local origin.

Can I dimension to a point cloud?

Not directly. The cloud has no references for dimensions to constrain to. Use the Measure tool between points, then model the element to the measured size and dimension the model.

Do I need ReCap Pro or is the free ReCap enough?

Free ReCap will index a scan into RCP format and let you view it. It will not delete points or export a unified, decimated cloud. For anything beyond a one-off conversion, ReCap Pro is the right tool, and it is already included if you have the AEC Collection.

Should we model the whole building at full detail?

No. Model to the level of development the next design stage needs, and leave the point cloud linked for anything else. The cloud is the record; the model is a working tool. Our deliverables guide explains how to choose the level.

Next step

If you have a point cloud and want help getting it into Revit, or you would rather hand the modelling to us, contact us and tell us what you have and what the project needs. If your team would like to learn this properly, our Revit courses are run by the same people who do the modelling.

This guide is part of our reality capture series, with laser scanning versus measured surveys, what 3D laser scanning costs and point cloud, mesh or BIM model, alongside our scanning pages for architects, industrial plant, water and wastewater and construction progress.