Trimble connect is one of the best CDEs I've used until now. If your team is using Tekla as their go to BIM authoring software then it makes absolute sense to have all your files and models on Trimble Connect. In this post I'll be covering about model write out and review that you could do with Trimble Connect.
When you set up your model for exporting to Trimble connect after every write out, it'll update the model on the cloud system to reflect the latest change from the write out. This is very useful as people who don't use Tekla can look at the model, have the latest update always and even assign to-dos, etc. The problem was that it had on a few basic data points listed on the system it won't take the AREA_PROJECTION_XY_NET automatically. The area it used to show on the model was something very basic, it was basically the area of all the surfaces an object has. Like if you have a wall with a lot of notches on it then this wall will have a very high area. This couldn't be used for estimation and billing purposes.
So the solution is that you can set up additional fields for Tekla to write out to Trimble Connect each time you do a model writeout from Tekla Structures. Here's what you need to do:
From the above path you need to update the highlighted file. You can update that file using Notepad, I prefer Notepad++ for this.
I wanted to have the Net Areas & gross areas to shown so I added those to the list as shown in the snap below:
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If you couldn't read from the snap here's the text you need to update:
{
"part": ["PART_POS", "ASSEMBLY_POS", "OUTPUT_MEMBER_REF", "NAME", "PROFILE", "MATERIAL", "MATERIAL_TYPE", "FINISH", "CLASS", "HEIGHT", "WIDTH", "LENGTH_NET", "LENGTH_GROSS", "AREA", "VOLUME", "WEIGHT", "WEIGHT_NET", "WEIGHT_GROSS", "AREA_PROJECTION_XY_GROSS", "AREA_PROJECTION_XY_NET", "USERDEFINED.MANUFACTURERNAME"],
"assembly": ["NAME", "WEIGHT", "ASSEMBLY_POS", "ASSEMBLY_POSITION_CODE", "ASSEMBLY_BOTTOM_LEVEL_PROJECT", "TOP_LEVEL_PROJECT", "AREA_PROJECTION_XY_GROSS", "AREA_PROJECTION_XY_NET", "USERDEFINED.MANUFACTURERNAME"],
"bolt": ["NAME","BOLT_STANDARD", "DIAMETER", "LENGTH", "GRADE", "MATERIAL", "NUMBER", "NUT.NUMBER", "NUT.TYPE", "NUT.NAME", "WASHER.NUMBER", "WASHER.DIAMETER", "WASHER.TYPE", "WASHER.NAME"],
"rebar": ["REBAR_POS", "NAME", "GRADE", "SIZE", "LENGTH", "WEIGHT", "WEIGHT_TOTAL", "SHAPE", "DIM_A", "DIM_B", "DIM_C", "DIM_D", "DIM_E", "DIM_F", "DIM_G", "DIM_R", "DIM_TD", "SHAPE_INTERNAL", "ANG_S", "ANG_T", "ANG_U", "ANG_V"],
"pour": ["MATERIAL", "VOLUME", "WEIGHT", "WEIGHT_NET", "POUR_NUMBER", "POUR_PHASE", "POUR_TYPE"],
"pour_unit": ["NAME", "NUMBER", "WEIGHT_ONLY_POUR_OBJECT", "WEIGHT_NET_ONLY_POUR_OBJECT","WEIGHT_ONLY_REBARS", "VOLUME_ONLY_POUR_OBJECT"]
}
Different objects have their properties listed on, just add the properties you intent to see on the model between "" marks and save the file. The next time you do a writeout Tekla structures will also export those quantities to Trimble Connect.
In case, you don't see any updates on your model you can check your model folder for error log and it'll show the log of errors, in my case I was constantly doing the writeouts to check if is working or not but then I realized I made a mistake in the way I typed the custom UDA.
You can learn more about how to link your model with a project on Trimble connect here
Thanks for reading.