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| Product(s): | OpenBuildings Designer (and AECOsim Building Designer) | ||
| Version(s): | CONNECT Edition and V8i | ||
| Area: | Architectural Design | ||
| Subarea: | Walls |
Insulation is most commonly shown by linear symbology, the traditional wiggly line. This can be produced by a MicroStation custom line style based on a cell containing one complete loop. Such linestyles can be used with OpenBuildings Parts to display linear patterns when object such as walls are cut in plan (only, this does not currently work in section).
This method can be helpful where curved walls on plan are involved:
Achieving this requires a few steps:
- Create/modify a suitable custom line style
- Create the OpenBuildings Parts
- Create the OpenBuildings Catalog Items
Examples files are attached to this page for download. The BuildingTemplate_NM example dataset and WorkSet are used in the following demonstration.
The method is to apply an insulation Custom Line Style to a wall Part Centreline, the add the Parts to OpenBuildings catalog Item Types.
1. Line Style
Creating Line Styles is covered in other documentation including this worked example: MicroStation - Creating Custom Line Styles.
The Insulation 100mm linestyle shown on this page is contained in Metric_Insulation.rsc
Copy this file to C:\ProgramData\Bentley\OpenBuildings CONNECT Edition\Configuration\WorkSpaces\Building_Examples\worksets\BuildingTemplate_NM\Standards\Symb
2. OpenBuildings Parts
Due to a current limitation with Line Style behavior the insulation Line Style applied to part centreline cannot automatically scale to match wall thicknesses so it is necessary to create one part for each insulation thickness create the parts as shown in the BuildingTemplate_NM WorkSet (or download the example parts: Insulation_parts.xml, Copy this file to C:\ProgramData\Bentley\OpenBuildings CONNECT Edition\Configuration\WorkSpaces\Building_Examples\worksets\BuildingTemplate_NM\Standards\Part):
Shown here are three parts, 100, 200 and 250mm respectively. Crete one, then copy it amending the thickness labels and value.
Switch to the the Centerline Symbology view, select all three parts then:
- Tick on 'Ctr Ln Toggle'
- Set 'Ctr Ln Style' to 'Insulation 100mm' (this will be available once Metric_Insulation.rsc is loaded)
- Set the Ctr Ln Scale according to the wall width, the line style is created to be 100mm wide so the scale factors are simple, as shown above
3. OpenBuildings Catalog Items
In the Walls Catalog Type create a new Catalog Item (in the WorkSet) Insulation 100mm, setting the essential parameters/values shown below, link it to the 100mm insulation part.
Duplicate this to the other thicknesses modifying the Part Definition and Width appropriately:
These items can be downloaded: Architectural_Insulation.xml
Copy this file to C:\ProgramData\Bentley\OpenBuildings CONNECT Edition\Configuration\WorkSpaces\Building_Examples\worksets\BuildingTemplate_NM\Standards\DataGroupCatalogs
In Use
For the purposes of this example place a wall:
Obviously these parts are more appropriately used as wall leaves within compound walls.
To see the insulation symbology as shown in the opening image above in Reference Presentation for any Drawing Model views created from Callouts turn on 'Generate Centerlines' and 'Connect Centerlines':
Note that this will display all centrelines, any object that has centerlines enabled in its part will display a centerline. However, in Dataset NM most objects have the centreline turned off in the part so this may not be a problem for most users.
These Reference Presentation settings can be pre-set by amending a project or organization's Drawing Seed Templates, more information on this can be found via CONNECT Advisor: