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Cable tray mapping

5 REPLIES 5
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Message 1 of 6
huntersc75
1604 Views, 5 Replies

Cable tray mapping

Hi Everyone,

 

I have a question about adding user defined materials to Navisworks. I have a model that I want to render and it shows a lot of cable tray for all the electrical wiring, however this is modelled as a solid duct. I want to be able to place a material on the item that has some transparency and looks like cable tray. I looked in the file structure and it appears as though Navisworks only uses lightworks files (I dont have a copy of this) Is it possible to add a normal photo and use it to map onto the items.?

 

Or does anyone have a cable tray solution?

 

Thanks,

SC

5 REPLIES 5
Message 2 of 6
dgorsman
in reply to: huntersc75

You should be able to use a photo to create a custom material with a bit of prep work.  I wonder if it would be visually acceptable, though.  Materials are good for small repetetive features like brickwork, grass, gravel, and so on but something as visually coarse as a cable tray may not work e.g. does it look the same from the sides as the top/bottom?  Are they modeled as separate surfaces?  Depends heavily on what style of cable tray you are working with.

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If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 3 of 6
huntersc75
in reply to: huntersc75

Hi dgorsman,

 

Thanks for your quick reply. I tend to agree with your comments it will probably be too difficult to get a nice looking representation of it due to the tray is modelled at one solid (Cadworx cable tray..I regognise your handle and that you also are on the Cadworx fourm)  I think I might just create the trays as a detailed CAD file and then just apply materials. I wish CADworx had a better cable tray module, as this has really let me down on the current project.

 

Anyways thanks for your help.

 

BR

SC  

Message 4 of 6
dgorsman
in reply to: huntersc75

Detailed trays can be done in CADWorx, but it requires a bit of work.  Our pipers use the OOTB stuff for boxing out space while they work, and the electrical designers use our in house tray system.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 5 of 6
huntersc75
in reply to: huntersc75

Hi,

 

Yeah, I could create some standard tray parts and perhaps configure them as a piping part with a centerline which would generate an ISO, but then I would also have to play around with all the Skeys in Isogen. In your inhouse tray software can you store information about the content of the trays? (i.e. cable id tags etc.) Also is your cable tray items based on a standard part from a particular company and include all hangers etc.? I know in PDMS I can get a catalouge from several cable tray manufactures, but alas this is not the case in Cadworx, which is a pity as I like the software more when doing smaller jobs.

 

I know there is a add-on from ECE design called ElectroMOD, but I think this is just basically what I suggested above. Have you had any experiences with this ad-on?

 

Sorry for all the questions, but once I finish this project I want to start to build on the CAD architecture that I need.

 

BR

SC

Message 6 of 6
dgorsman
in reply to: huntersc75

Not sure about the catalog information - our electrical designers took care of all the part creation, except for the straight runs which are parametrically generated.  Haven't tried the ElectroMOD but it *is* from ECE and they are pretty good about their work.  At the very least their catalog could save a lot of work.

 

Isometric creation is an interesting idea, but not something we do with cable tray so I don't have to fight that particular dragon 🙂  I did put together a custom BOM routine though.

 

The CADWorx data contains most of what we need, so I just manipulate that, and it will show up in Navisworks without any extra work.  If we need to add other information, then I'll need to add extension dictionaries but it won't show up in Navisworks without coding up a custom exporter.  *Not* looking forward to that eventuality, its one of the reasons I've pushed for some sort of native or simplified API support for custom extension dictionary/xrecord/xdata data in Navisworks.

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If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


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