Clone selected in drawings

Tekla Structures
2019
Tekla Structures

Clone selected in drawings

When editing GA drawings, you often need to add annotations, dimensioning and styles for building objects as a repetitive task. The new Clone selected feature clones existing annotation objects, drawing object representations and styles from selected source objects to selected target objects in GA drawings. With this feature, you can reduce manual repetition considerably.

The Clone selected command allows you to clone previously created annotation objects and drawing object representations among the assemblies or cast units with the same type and similar shape.

You can clone annotation objects and drawing object representations inside one drawing view or among different drawing views.

Clone selected recognizes the following types of drawing content:

  • Associative and independent annotation objects: dimensions, marks, texts, symbols, text files, and DWG/DXF files

  • Sketch objects, such as circles, rectangles, and polygons

  • Object representations and styles: line colors, line types, hatches

The commands related to Clone selected are located on the Drawing tab in the drawing mode. These commands are only active when you have a GA drawing open.

  • Before you clone, you may want to define how and what to clone. To do this, select Cloning settings :

    • Merge : Overrides all annotation objects and building object properties in the cloning target by cloning matching content from the cloning source. This is the default mode.

    • Keep all : Keeps the existing annotation objects and building object properties in the cloning target and only clones the missing ones from the cloning source.

    • Discard all : Discards all annotation objects and building object properties in the cloning target and clones all selected content from the cloning source.

    • Clone building object properties and styles : Clones building object properties such as line colors and types, hatching styles and other representation properties in the building object properties dialog box for parts, reinforcement, bolts and welds. This option is selected by default.

    • Place marks and associative notes according to protection settings : Automatically runs the Arrange drawing objects near current location command for all associative annotation objects except for level marks, weld marks, dimensions and independent annotation objects. This option positions the annotation objects in the target so that they do not overlap other objects. Objects located in a free location are not moved, and overlapping objects are moved as close to the current location as possible.

  • Before you clone, first modify the source object so that it contains the desired dimensions and annotations, and adjust the source object properties.
  • To clone, click Clone selected on the Drawing tab. Next, select the source objects by clicking the objects or using area selection. Press the middle mouse button to complete the selection. Next, select the target objects by clicking the objects or using area selection. Press Esc to stop the cloning.

    • You can also select the objects using Drawing content manager and selection filters. You can deselect objects by holding down Ctrl and clicking the selected object.

    • You can also clone from the source that you selected last. To do this, click Clone from last selected source on the Drawing tab.

    • When cloning dimensions, remember to set the dimension associativity rules before cloning to avoid the situation where it is unclear which object a dimension point is associated to. For more information, see Display dimension associativity.

Below on the left a detailed footing and on the right a similar footing that will be the target of cloning:

Below, the detailed footing on the left has been used as source for the target on the right. The details have been cloned to the target.

Limitations

  • Some drawing objects cannot be used as source objects, such as grid lines, section view symbols, drawing view names, neighbor parts and neighbor reinforcement. These objects types will not be highlighted during/after area or single selection. Messages on the status bar indicate if an object cannot be selected.

  • Clone selected cannot be used with pour units.

  • To achieve accurate cloning results, all dimensions should be associated either to grid line intersection points or to intersections of building objects and grid lines.

    Dimension point associated to intersection of two perpendicular grid lines:

    Dimension point associated to intersection of part side and grid line:

    Note that all dimension points that are located in an arbitrary position along the grid lines in the source selection will be cloned to wrong coordinates in the target.

  • Clone selected cannot be used for cloning radial or curved dimensions.

  • Cloning of annotations to mirrored objects created with the Mirror command in the model does not produce accurate results.

  • Cloning modes do not affect cloning of independent annotation objects or sketch objects. Listed object types will be copied to target as many times as Clone selected is applied to the target objects.

  • Dimensions will not be cloned if the viewing directions of the source and target drawing views do not match. In this case, a message is shown on the status bar.

For more information about cloning selected annotations and object representations and styles, see Clone selected in drawings.

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