Topography is often used as the foundational element within a Revit site or landscape, though it has very specific limitations (no thickness, no control over triangulation/contour lines, no patterns in plan). As such, our approach to topography is that it is most useful as a general base host and visual ground plane, but less useful for specific grading needed in documentation. Thus, the Topography tools focus on creation, both from external sources and within Revit, and relatively simple modification.
The slab tools are designed to meet a wide variety of hardscape (or softscape) grading needs. They can be used in various combinations to streamline the process of shape-editing slabs.
Drape Slabs is designed to work with an already graded Toposurface, and will drape multiple slabs onto that surface, using several different point and offset options. It can also drape slabs onto other slabs.
Many of the other slab tools are designed to do more grading directly within Revit. Some of the more powerful grading tools are:
The definition of a ‘slab’ has changed somewhat, since we first launched FOREground in August 2021. Initially, slabs were either a Floor or a Roof. However, with some changes in the API, we have made some changes to what we support as a slab. See the table below for a full breakdown.
Slab Categories in FOREground, by Revit Year
| Version | Slab Categories |
|---|---|
| Revit 2020 | Floor, Roof |
| Revit 2021 | Floor, Roof |
| Revit 2022 | Floor |
| Revit 2023 | Floor |
| Revit 2024 | Floor, Toposolid |
| Revit 2025 | Floor, Toposolid |
This toolset was specifically designed to assist with the annoying problem of warped floor patterns. Autodesk has added limited improvement of this issue in 2023.1 (for more details, check out this post in the Revit Ideas Forum), but this does not solve the problem.
This toolset essentially automates a method that we have used for years to do this: creating duplicate flat floors to show a correct pattern. It has automatic updating options (Update and Update All), so that once flat floors are initiated, the process to update them requires only a few clicks. There are also a few Settings, so that users can automatically put flat floors on their own Workset. This toolset relies on specifics in the Revit API that were introduced 22, so it is only available in Revit 22 and later.
And while we will be the first to admit that it is not a perfect solution, we prefer it over the alternatives because it does offer the benefits of a true model element (unlike filled regions, which are detail elements) and simplicity of being updateable directly in the Revit model (unlike CAD).
This toolset was previously called “Flat Floor Patterns” but with the release of Revit 24 and Toposolids, it has been expanded to support that element and is now called “Flat Areas”.