Improvements in drawings

Tekla Structures
2019i
Tekla Structures

Improvements in drawings

Tekla Structures 2019i contains several drawing enhancements in section views, view frames, reinforcement group marks, dimensioning and Document manager.

Improvements in drawing views

New settings for section views

In single part, assembly and cast unit drawings on the Attributes tab of the Section view properties, there is a new Size check box for the new Fit by parts setting and the existing settings Section depth and Distance for combining cuts. Now you can set Fit by parts for all section views in drawing properties before creating a drawing. Earlier, you had to open each drawing and manually readjust view depth for each section view in the opened drawing .

The Fit by parts setting works as an alternative to Section depth and Distance for combining cuts , and it shows the whole part in the sections. If you select this setting in Section view or End view properties in an existing drawing, it overrules the drawing level setting.

For more information, see Section view properties.

Drawing view frames now hidden

The drawing view frames are now hidden until you move the cursor over the view. If you select a view, the drawing view frame stays visible.

Drawing view frames are overlapping and shown:

Drawing view frames are overlapping and hidden, new functionality:

Improvements in reinforcement drawing properties

  • A new representation option outline (ignore holes) has been added for meshes on the Mesh content tab in Reinforcement drawing properties properties. This option ignores holes and draws over them.

    Additionally, the missing representation option single line with filled ends was added on the Mesh content tab for reinforcement meshes.

Below is an example of the new outline (ignore holes) option.

As a comparison, below is an example of the outline option.

Improvements in reinforcement group marks

The drawing reinforcement group marks functionality has been improved. The number of available leader line options for reinforcement group marks has been increased: now it is possible to create marks with perpendicular leader lines to reinforcement group plane, to all rebars in a group, and to the first and last rebar in a group. The new options are available in cast unit and general arrangement drawings.

The new options are Perpendicular leader lines and Leader line to first and last. Both new options allow you to create marks with perpendicular leader lines to rebar group plane: Perpendicular leader lines creates marks with leader lines to each rebar in a group and Leader line to first and last to first and last rebar in a group.

Perpendicular leader lines :

Leader line to first and last :

You can control the length of the perpendicular leader line with the new advanced option XS_MARK_LEADER_LINE_LENGTH_FOR_PERPENDICULAR ( File > Settings > Advanced options > Marking: General ). The default value is 0 mm.

Note that rebar mark leader lines created with the new options are always placed horizontally or vertically in a drawing, even in tapered rebar groups.

Earlier:

Now:

You can select to apply the new leader line options in the following locations:

  • Before you create a cast unit drawing, in the cast unit drawing properties for each view separately: Select the view in cast unit drawing properties, click View Properties , and click Reinforcement mark or Neighbor reinforcement mark from the options tree.

  • Before you create a GA drawing, in the drawing properties of the GA drawing: Click Reinforcement marks... or Neighbor reinforcement marks... in the GA drawing properties.
  • In the view properties of an existing drawing: Double-click the view frame, and click Reinforcement mark or Neighbor reinforcement mark in the options tree.
  • In reinforcement mark properties in an open drawing: Go to Drawing > Properties > Reinforcement mark .
  • In reinforcement mark properties for an individual reinforcement group mark: In an open drawing, double-click an individual reinforcement group mark. To select and modify the properties for several reinforcement group marks, use Drawing content manager or select the reinforcement group marks using appropriate selection filters.

Improvements in dimensioning

  • View-specific dimensioning : The dimensioning type Shape dimensions has new options for controlling which faces will be dimensioned. By selecting the Visible faces option, dimensions will be created only to faces that are visible in the drawing view. The other option All faces dimensions all faces, similarly as shape dimensioning was doing previously. All faces is the default value, and it will be used if the dimension settings file does not contain any value for the new setting.

  • It is now possible to associate dimensions to object center lines outside the object area.

  • Dimensioning plug-ins DLLs can now be found in sub-folders of <Tekla Structures binary folder>\plugins\Tekla\Drawings\Dimensioning\ and in environment in the sub-folders of \common\extensions\custom\dimensioning\. Previously all the DLLs were expected to be at the same level in those folders. This enables a better separation of each plug-in dependencies.

Improvements in dimension tags

Tags allow you to display the properties and other related information of the associated building objects in dimensions and dimension sets. This feature has now been improved in several ways to make it work more consistently and reliably.

Display any object type in dimension tag marks

In the Dimension Properties dialog box on the Tags tab, you can define the contents of the dimension tags of building object dimensions. The logic for displaying the contents has changed, and now all the building object categories are checked for content availability. The properties in the first found category that has content are read and displayed in the tag. If you do not want to display tag contents for some building objects, you can create an appropriate exclusion filter for this building object type. This means that you can now display properties related to any associated object regardless of its type and order in the hierarchy.

The reading order of building object content categories is the same as in earlier versions:

  1. Surface treatment

  2. Bolt

  3. Rebar

  4. Part / Pour object

Earlier, when a dimension was associated to several different building object types, the properties of one category only were read and displayed in the tags. The category from which the properties were read based on a hidden reading order. The main problem was that if several object types were selected for creating dimensions, only the properties of object type that was higher in the reading order hierarchy were displayed in the tag. For example, if all the other categories were empty, and the Part category had content, nothing was displayed in the tag, because the Surface treatment category had no content.

Dimension tag contents now updated correctly

  • Dimension tag contents are now updated correctly when you drag dimension points.

  • Dimension tag contents are now updated instantly when you add or remove dimension points. Previously, the contents were not updated when the dimension became associative to another building object.

Improvements in Document manager

For more information about Document manager , see Document manager.

New indicator for cells that cannot be edited

  • When the edit switchis active in Document manager , and you move the mouse cursor over a cell that cannot be edited, the cursor now changes to indicate that you cannot edit the cell:

New category association options

The Edit category and New category dialog boxes in Document manager now have a new setting Association type , which defines if a category is search based, manual, or both.

  • If the category is of type Search only or Manual and search , you need to define a Search string in the dialog box.

  • If you create a category by first selecting documents from the documents list, the association type is Manual only by default.

  • If you create a category from the category list, the association type is Search only by default.

  • You can change the association type later. If you change the type from Search only to Manual only , a message is displayed telling that the search string for that particular category will be cleared. If you change the type from Manual only to Search only or Manual and search , you need to define a Search string.

New button Show all documents

  • A new button Show all documents has been added to Document manager. This button resets the document list so that all documents are visible, and all searches and filtering are cleared. Excluded categories remain excluded. This new feature also provides a convenient way to restore the document list to a default state when recording macros.

Invert document visibility/Reset document visibility

Now when you activate theInvert document visibility switch, the name of the switch changes to Reset document visibility to indicate that clicking the button again will reset the visibility and not invert the visibility a second time.

Other Document manager improvements

  • Document manager search box now supports macro recording and playback.


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