New way to manage drawing content and other mark and note improvements

Tekla Structures
2018
Tekla Structures

New way to manage drawing content and other mark and note improvements

There are lots of significant improvements in marks, especially related to mark placement and drawing content handling. There is a new drawing tool Drawing content manager available for quickly checking the included model objects and related marks, and for adding marks. You can now also add associative notes and model weld marks to several model objects or welds at one go, and easily select all part marks and weld marks. There are new options for hiding weld marks, and improvements in text alignment.

Drawing content manager - efficiently manage drawing content

Tekla Structures 2018 introduces Drawing content manager - a new interactive tool for checking and editing marks, notes and model objects in the current drawing.

Use Drawing content manager to quickly and easily:

  • Select relevant content for checking and editing purposes, and target actions on single or multiple model objects or marks simultaneously

  • Add, modify or remove model object marks, including associative notes

  • Add weld marks to model welds in drawings, which has not been possible in earlier Tekla Structures versions

  • Highlight either objects or marks

  • Check how many marks model objects have in one view or in the entire drawing

  • Add other content to model objects depending on the object type, such as rebar dimension lines

  • Change how model objects are shown in drawings and modify mark properties

  • Hide/show model objects in drawings

With this new tool you can avoid duplicate, missing, or false information, and efficiently check if all necessary content exists, without having to manually go through all drawing objects separately.

  • To open Drawing content manager , first open a drawing and clickDrawing content manager in the side pane. Then click Show to populate the Drawing content manager list. If you do not want to list all model objects, narrow your selection by selecting certain drawing views, model areas or multiple objects, and then click Show.

  • Drawing content manager lists the model objects and the related mark content, and gives the total number of marks. The available data depends on the object type. Associative notes are also considered and counted as marks.

  • The following model object types are available in Drawing content manager if they exist in the drawing, and have been set visible in drawing View properties :

    • Assemblies

    • Parts

    • Welds

    • Bolts

    • Reinforcement

    • Pour objects

    • Neighbor parts

  • To list hidden model objects in Drawing content manager , clickShow hidden items. This shows in the list the model objects that are shown with hidden lines in the model.

  • To select and highlight the selected parts or marks in all drawing views where they are visible, clickShow in all views.

  • To refresh Drawing content manager mark information, clickUpdate.

  • To select and highlight either model objects or marks in the drawing, select the objects in Drawing content manager and change the selection from object to mark using the switch. When the model object selection is active, the switch is black , and when the mark selection is active, the switch is yellow.

    Marks selected:

    Parts selected:

  • To search for and list specific model objects, use the search box.

  • To collapse or expand model object categories, use the arrow buttons.

  • To sort mark properties in alphabetical order, click a column header.

  • To add marks, first select the objects needing marks from the Drawing content manager list so that the model object selection is active. Then right-click in the model and select one of the following:

    Add associative note

    Add part mark

    Add weld mark

    Add Mark > Reinforcement Mark

    Add Mark > Dimension Mark

    Add Mark > Tagged Dimension mark

    Tekla Structures creates the marks or notes for the selected objects. To update the mark information, clickUpdate.

    Note that the Drawing content manager does not support counting of dimension and tagged dimension marks.

    Note that if you select several model objects at the same time, and some of the selected objects already have marks, the content of the existing marks does not change.

  • To delete marks, select one or several objects in Drawing content manager , use the switch to select only marks, and then press Delete on the keyboard. Update the mark information by clickingUpdate.

  • To hide model objects, select the model objects from the Drawing content manager list, right-click in the drawing and select Hide/Show > Hide from drawing view or Hide from drawing.

  • To change how model objects are shown in drawings, select the objects from the Drawing content manager list, right-click in the model and select Properties....

  • To modify the properties of the marks, select the objects from the list, activate mark selection, hold down Shift and double-click a mark.

  • If you wish to list some of the marks, such as weld marks, but not show the marks in the drawing, use the first color option in the weld mark properties dialog box to show the marks invisible. To do this, first select the weld objects in the Drawing content manager list, activate mark selection , right-click in the model, select Properties... , and change the weld mark text and line color.

For more information about Drawing content manager , see dra_drawing_content_manager.html#dra_drawing_content_manager.

Improved mark placement

  • Marks are now automatically placed according to the new mark placing algorithm if the new model-specific advanced option XS_MARK_INTELLIGENT_PLACING is set to TRUE , which is also the default value. The new placement tries to avoid crossing leader lines, and also places marks otherwise more clearly. XS_MARK_INTELLIGENT_PLACING is available in the category Marking: General in the Advanced Options dialog box. The new algorithm applies to all marks and associative notes, except weld marks.

    Earlier:

    In Tekla Structures 2018:

  • Even though you set XS_MARK_INTELLIGENT_PLACING to FALSE , you can still arrange the marks and associative notes with the following two commands on the ribbon:

    • Arrange marks : Arrange the selected marks and associative notes so that you avoid crossing leader lines. The result also depends on the defined protection settings and search margins.

    • Align marks : Align the selected marks and associative notes that are close to each other by stacking the marks and placing them evenly.

    • The two new commands are also available in Quick Launch.

    • Note that these commands do not work for weld marks.

  • The commands Near current location and Ignore current locations now work for fixed marks as well. The repositioned objects will keep their fixed state. Earlier, these commands only worked for free marks.

  • The command Ignore current locations now also moves rebar mark base points to their original location.

  • The mark quarter placement has also been improved. If you select all four corner points in the Part Mark Placing dialog box, the improved automatic placement will be used, and Tekla Structures attempts to find the closest quarter with empty space.

  • Note that if you use high Search margin and Minimum distance values in the Part Mark Placing dialog box, the mark placement does not work efficiently.

  • If you set the new advanced option XS_MARK_PLACING_ANGLE_CLOSE_TO_45_DEGREES to TRUE (default), marks with leader lines are placed in a 45-degree angle if allowed by the protection settings.

    This model-specific advanced option is located in the Marking: General category in the Advanced Options dialog box.

  • If you set the new advanced option XS_MARK_INTELLIGENT_POST_FREEPLACE_NEARBY to TRUE (default), Tekla Structures first places the marks avoiding crossing leader lines and after that runs the place nearby command, which ensures that the mark locations follow the protection settings. If you set this advanced option to FALSE , the crossing mark check is performed, but the place nearby command is not run, and some of the protection settings may not be followed.

    This model-specific advanced option is located in the Marking: General category in the Advanced Options dialog box.

For more information about mark placement and protection settings, see Define object protection and placement settings in drawings.

Improved way to select part marks

With the new Select part marks command on the drawing pop-up menu you can select the part marks of the parts you have selected, and modify all these marks at one go, for example, or delete them by pressing Delete on the keyboard. Select part marks selects the part marks from the current drawing view or from all drawing views according to your selection. This method is easier than searching the whole drawing for the wanted part marks and then after that modifying them, especially with large models.

This command replaces the old Delete part marks command.

New way to select model weld marks in drawings

With the new Select weld marks command on the drawing pop-up menu you can select the weld marks of the model welds you have selected, and modify all these marks at one go, for example, or delete them by pressing Delete on the keyboard. Select weld marks selects the weld marks from the current drawing view or from all drawing views according to your selection.

Note that this command does not select weld marks that you have manually added in the drawing using the ribbon command Weld mark , it only selects marks for welds that have been created in the model.

Add model weld marks in drawings

Now you can add model weld marks manually in open drawings if your model contains model welds. To add the weld marks, you need to set the welds visible in the view properties.

  • First select the model welds to which you want to add weld marks using the Select drawing welds selection switch and area selection, or Drawing content manager list, for example.

  • When you have selected the welds, right-click and select Add Weld Mark.

    Note that when you add a weld mark using the pop-up menu, it is now visible even if its weld size is below the minimum weld size limit defined in drawing view settings.

    In addition to the weld size limit setting, the advanced option XS_OMITTED_WELD_TYPE may also hide the weld marks.

Add associative notes to several model objects at one go

Now you can add associative notes to several model objects at one go in open drawings. Previously, this was only possible in GA drawings, now this works for all drawing types.

  • First select the model objects to which you want to add associative notes using the Select parts in drawings selection switch and area selection, or Drawing content manager list, for example.

  • When you have selected the model objects, right-click and select Add associative note.

Selection switch to select associative notes

You can now use the Select drawing marks switch to select associative notes as well. The Select drawing texts switch no longer selects notes, only texts.

Show/hide weld marks in hidden parts

In drawing view weld properties there is a new setting Welds in hidden parts with the following options for showing and hiding weld marks for hidden parts (shown with hidden lines) in drawings:

  • None : If the part is hidden, the weld mark is not drawn.
  • Site : If the part is hidden, weld marks for site welds are drawn.
  • Workshop : If the part is hidden, weld marks for workshop welds are drawn.
  • Both : Weld marks are always drawn for hidden parts.

Align text in marks, notes and texts

The Alignment setting already existed for texts, and now it is also available for marks and associative notes. The new option Leader line aligns the text to the leader line end automatically.

The Alignment setting is available for the following mark types: bolt marks, connection marks, part marks, neighbor part marks, pour object marks, reinforcement marks, neighbor reinforcement marks, merged reinforcement marks, and surface treatment marks.

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