Navisworks Manage and Freedom: dim steel not involved with clash in freedom.

[dan.bick]

Hi, When viewing clash detection reports in Navisworks Manage, it allows each clash viewport to dim all other steel that is not involved with that certain clash. However when viewing the same clashes in Navisworks Freedom, there is no option to dim all steel that is not involved with that clash. Does anybody know of a solution to this problem? Thanks, Dan.

[dgorsman]

No, there's no way around that.  The Clash Detective module applies a variety of view settings at run-time which are not saved in the viewpoint.  This feature (run-time Clash Viewer, view-as-clash, whatever you want to call it) has been a popular request for a number of releases.

[dan.bick]

bad news, it seems strange to expect clients to purchase navisworks manage if they want to view the work as we have done it. I guess there is no way of scripting navisworks freedom to hide everything no selected either?

[lee.mullin]

The views are specifically set up for users with Clash Detective, so for Navisworks Manage users. The most common workflow to get these out into Freedom is to export a Viewpoint Report then manually go in and change any viewpoints where objects obscure the clash, these can also contain comments about the Clash which can be viewed in Freedom.

[dgorsman]

I produce a multitude of information for clash management.  The NWF gets saved clash views, for those using Simulate and those using a published NWD.  The saved views include redlines and additional comments where required for clarity.  An HTML clash report is generated, along with a picture which shows the shaded and highlighted objects as in the Clash Detective.  Since most of our checkers are "seniors" who are used to doing yellow-off and other checking on paper a hard copy of the HTML clash report is created as well.  On top of all of that, the clash NWF is in a common network location and our single Manage license is network (as opposed to stand-alone) so they can take turns electronically approving clashes.

The clash report can be generated in XML, which includes selection tree information about what is clashing.  In theory, a talented programmer could create something to manipulate the display properties in Freedom using the XML file as the shaded/highlighted object identifiers.  If somebody created a third-party application which did this (plug-in for Simulate, not sure if Freedom supports plug-ins so external automation there) I'm pretty certain it would sell well enough to be viable.