Construction Setting Out Point Automation

Hi All,

I am working on a project where I need to provide a table with hundreds of Setting Out Point coordinates, to allow for the contractor on site to construct various civils assets. Due to the number of coordinates required I want to provide in a table but can't find a simple way to automate this, ideally live linking to the 3d model directly or a 3d model of just the specific points.

I have experimented with SOP cells with a defined item type, but have struggled to get this to work consistently. 

Any recommendations on the best way to do this would be much appreciated, as I keen to develop a standardised approach to doing this for myself and my team.

Many thanks for your help with this in advance, 

Ben

  • Hi Benjamin,

    Can you please let us know which version of OpenBuildings Designer you are using?

    Regards,
    Sayan Acharyya

  • Hi Benjamin,

    What do you mean with SOP cells?

    Cell containing Item Type would also be my first choice. That way you can add some kind of label to the item type for easy sorting and data management. Then you can use Reports to create the table.

    but have struggled to get this to work consistently. 

    What exactly is the problem in consistency?

  • Hi Sayan,

    I have just updated to OpenBuildings Designer Connect Update 10 version 10.10.00.199

  • Hi Johan, 

    Regarding the SOP cell reference I created a cell, that I placed to indicate the position of the coordinate and then labelled to cross reference to the table.

    I had similar thoughts about linking a label to display the item type text, i.e. SOP001, but to refresh this text in the label it required manually clicking on the text box and re applying the field, which if I had many causes just as many issues as manually typing out.

    The inconsistency I mentioned came from replicating the Report Definition to create a table of Reference, X,Y,Z coordinates. I was finding even if the settings were the same sometimes it wouldn't work. The only way I could get it to successfully work in the end was copying the report definition from one file to another and then re applying the item type to that new Report Definition, which seemed quite convoluted. 

    Maybe this is still the best approach, but I was hoping there was maybe a better system built in that I had missed.

  • I had similar thoughts about linking a label to display the item type text, i.e. SOP001, but to refresh this text in the label it required manually clicking on the text box and re applying the field, which if I had many causes just as many issues as manually typing out.

    Why not put the label inside the cell? That's how I'd to it. In order to have some geometry to link the text field to, I place a "point" at the cell origin. Then when placing the text you can select field "by element", select the point, then choose the start coordinates (a point is in fact a line with length = 0).

    That should resolve the issues with updating the labels.

    The inconsistency I mentioned came from replicating the Report Definition to create a table of Reference, X,Y,Z coordinates. I was finding even if the settings were the same sometimes it wouldn't work.

    Do you need the X, Y and Z coordinates to be separate columns? If not, I think you can just use the cell origin in the report definition. That will put X, Y and Z in one column. What I do when I need them separated is export to Excel, then use flash fill (or text to columns) to split the single cell into multiple columns.

    The only way I could get it to successfully work in the end was copying the report definition from one file to another and then re applying the item type to that new Report Definition, which seemed quite convoluted.

    In my experience it is usually best to define the report definitions, as well as Item Type definitions, in a dgnlib.

    Now with the approach above, you don't need the Item Type for the coordinates. I'd say the only additional info you'd need is the name of a point and maybe some additional info like a type of "SOP" if you use that. It should be easy to add this Item Type. As I said above, make sure the Item Type definition is in a DGNLIB so that both the .cel file and the .dgn design file can access it.