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PM304-1
This course covers the essential knowledge required to use NavisWorks effectively.
Covering all major aspects of the product, this session will provide those new to
NavisWorks with an insight into some of the key features that will benefit your
business. More experienced users will learn how to create Search Sets which can be
used in the core Roamer, plus modules Presenter, Clash Detective and TimeLiner;
create punch/snag lists from your review sessions; how to use environment lights
and backgrounds; create custom clash tests; and techniques for quick creation of 4D
simulations.
NavisWorks is the hub of any multi-disciplinary AEC project, enabling you to unite 3D CAD data from
disparate and competing sources into a single model environment, then link external data sources to
create a complete Building Information Model. NavisWorks enables you and your clients to freely
navigate anywhere in the BIM project in real time. Powerful interference detection and management
allows you to identify and resolve issues whilst the project is still digital, saving time and money.
Materials, lighting, RPC content and backgrounds can quickly and easily be applied to create compelling
renderings that simulate reality to assist in selling your design intent. Combine all of this with construction
schedules for 4D planning to predict buildability, and very quickly you can see how much power this
software provides you.
In this session Im going to show you some essential techniques that will not only save us time here, but
you can also apply these techniques to any project you work on. The aim here is to be efficient and
flexible - thereby saving you time, (which we all know = money) and enabling you to respond quickly to
changes (which we all know are inevitable!).
So lets get started. The specifics covered in this session are:
Combine and manage project and session data using the NWF file format.
Create intelligent groups of objects for repeated use on multiple projects, using the Find Items
tool.
Override speeds and use shortcut keys to increase effectiveness of 3D model navigation.
Work with viewpoints and identify override techniques to aid communication of design intent.
Quickly produce animations using viewpoints as key frames.
Produce external rendered images quickly and easily using a few Presenter tips.
Create punch/snag lists using the Redline Tags tool.
Create custom clash tests for re-use on similar projects.
Quickly create a 4D construction simulation.
Combine and Manage Project and Session Data using NWF files (1)
NavisWorks has three main file extensions, NWD, NWF and NWC.
NWC files are cache files containing conversion data only (i.e. they contain the relevant data
necessary to convert the CAD file into the NavisWorks format). NWC files can be exported directly out of
supported CAD applications, including AutoCAD, Revit, MAX and Viz, MicroStation and ArchiCAD. By
default they are also created automatically whenever you read a CAD file into NavisWorks this will
actually speed up the process when next opening that CAD file (provided that it hasnt been modified), as
the cache file can be used. This is especially noticeable when you are opening a project containing tens
or even hundreds of CAD files.
This brings us onto NWF files, which are reference files and contain no geometry. They contain
pointers back to the original files that you open and append plus anything you do with the model in
NavisWorks. It is recommended to save a master NWF file for your project once youve appended all of
your CAD files. Subsequent opening of the NWF will then reopen each file actually its a little more
intelligent than this, it will check to see if there is a corresponding NWC file and checks whether the CAD
file has been modified since last converted. If it has, the CAD file will be re-read and re-cached. If it
hasnt, the cache file will be used, speeding up the loading process.
Finally we have the NWD file format. This is a complete data set, containing all of the geometry
and anything you do with the model in NavisWorks. It is highly compressed and can be secured with
password protection. The NWD file is the recommended format for sharing the entire project with all
stakeholders, enabling individual disciplines to see how their design fits within the overall project they
can be reviewed in the free viewer, Freedom, or if you need to add markup and carry out full analysis of
the project then the full product may be used.
So lets take a look at these file formats in practice:
Were going to start with three NWC files exported from Revit Architecture, Revit Structure and Revit
MEP. These could however be any combination of supported file formats/applications. For an up to date
list of supported formats and applications, look at our website:
http://www.navisworks.com/support/formats *
* This information may in future be found on www.autodesk.com
Exercise One
1. Open
2. Append
the file, MEP.nwc.
3. Append the file, Architecture.nwc.
4. Now we have the complete project
appended into a single scene, we can
save this as an NWF. Go to File > Save
2. Select
one of the sections glass
in the view. In the Properties control bar
on the right, under the Item tab you will
see the Item name is Glazed. Lets use
In the scene, all of the items satisfying this search condition will be selected and highlighted in blue. The
Properties control bar will show you the number of items currently selected, i.e. the number of items
having the word Glazed in their name.
10. Look around the building to check that
all glass has been selected with this
search condition.
You will notice that the glass in some of the
windows has not been selected. Therefore
they have not met our search condition.
Were going to need to build a more
complex find condition to include these
windows.
11. Select
Once we have defined a search and found the items we wish to group together, we can then save the
selected items as a Selection Set (a static group of items), or a Search Set (a dynamic group of items).
Search sets are much more powerful and WILL save you time, especially if your project files are
continuing to be updated and revised.
22. With your search defined and the
resulting items selected, open the
Selection Sets
control bar.
Whenever you select this search set, the search will be performed on the current model and select all
items that meet the conditions, including any additional window glass that has subsequently been
added to the project, hence why we refer to search sets as dynamic.
NOTE: A further benefit of using search sets is that they can be exported and used on other projects. If
you have a number of generic searches then, having defined them once, they can be saved and re-used
time and time again.
25. Go to File > Import > Search Sets XML.
26. Browse to the Training Examples
directory and choose, Conference
Center - Search Sets.xml, then click
Open.
The basics of walking are simple, walk forwards, backwards and turn left to right.
Hold down the Shift key whilst doing this and youll double your speed, allowing you to cover
greater distances quicker.
Using the mouse wheel, scroll backwards and forwards to tilt your head up and down
(respectively) allowing you to see above and below you.
Use the mouse wheel as a button and you can pan the camera in the direction you move the
mouse.
To increase the realism of your navigation experience, there are a number of tools that can be employed,
for example Collision Detection and Gravity. These will stop you from walking through objects in the
scene and pull you down to the ground. One application of these is to enable walking up and down stairs.
Orbit is a camera centric mode, which means that you are controlling the camera when you move the
mouse. This mode has the world up locked, which means you always remain upright, no matter which
angle you are viewing from. The camera will orbit around a focal point which is either set automatically, or
you can set it manually.
Use the Focus button to select an item of interest and the camera will center on that item,
allowing you to orbit around it.
Use the mouse wheel to zoom in to and out from the focal point.
Use the mouse wheel as a button and again you can pan the camera in the direction you move
the mouse.
The Zoom Box mode can also be useful for zooming into a specific area of the model, especially if youve
used the View All command previously. Finally, the Turntable mode can be used if you wish to take a 360
degree view of the model, or part of the model, from a set viewing angle.
previous
By understanding how these options work means that you can fully utilize viewpoints to communicate
your design intent.
A good tip for creating animations is to first create a storyboard. Record each section of the storyboard
using the most appropriate method (interactive recording or key frames) and then join them together by
dragging one onto another. To avoid any transition between sections, try inserting a cut. If you do want
sections to join together, try using the last frame of one section as the first frame of the next section.
Believe it or not, thats it! These are some of the basic steps required to produce great rendered
images from your models. You would usually click on the Render button to render the current scene,
however as were on a tight timeframe, theres a pre-rendered image in the Training Examples
directory.
You might be able to notice that theres much more depth to the shadowing as the light is being cast
and bounced from every direction, much like the real world. Also the background and objects in the
scene are all reflected in any reflective materials, like the glass windows, again further adding to the
realism.
To take your renderings further, you may wish to consider adding in a few RPC people and trees to
add some life to the scene. Again, heres the same scene rendered with RPCs.
tools and
We can then create a folder with todays date and drag all of our review session tags into it, keeping a
record of what weve found and discussed. We can then save this to go back to it later or distribute it
to other team members.
We can also export the viewpoints as a HTML report (File > Export > Viewpoints Report HTML). This
can be distributed to an even wider audience as they require no additional software, yet they can see
a screenshot of the tagged item and any comments associated with it.
I mentioned earlier that you could include instructions to team members. If you include an individuals,
or a functions name in the comments, then those individuals/functions will be able to search for the
tags associated to them, creating their own specific snag/punch list.
Combine and Manage Project and Session Data using NWF files (2)
At each of the previous sections you may have noticed that weve saved up a series of NWF files, each
based on the same original dataset but the actions performed have been quite different. This is to
demonstrate that once you have created your single model, it could be distributed to a varied audience,
all of which may have differing objectives and reasons for using the model.
NavisWorks is a collaborative solution and although people may be using the single model in different
ways, we can unite their resultant files back into a single project file.
Exercise Seven
without duplicating the model geometry.
1. Open
Conference Center.nwf.
2. Earlier we used the Append option to
append in additional model files. Here
we want to use the Merge option to
merge all of the session data together
Click Merge
and select all of the
other NWF files weve created.
3. We can now re-save this as Conference
Center.nwf, our master project file.
Now were not actually interested in the results in this instance, just remember that we found 5
clashes in this model.
9. Go to File > Export > Clash Test XML.
10. Browse to the directory, C:\Documents
and Settings\<user name>\Application
Data\NavisWorks 5\custom_clash_tests,
and save the file naming it, Supply Air v
Steel Framing.
11. Youll now need to restart NavisWorks
for the change to take effect (dont save
the changes).
What we have done here is to add all of the details required to perform this test into this now built-in
option. We can perform this clash test on any project, without even needing the search sets, as these
too are built into the clash test. We can also share the XML file we exported to other Clash Detective
users so that they too can benefit from the work put into creating the test.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Summary
Weve reached the end of our whistle stop tour of NavisWorks. You now know how to: