cleaning up CAD detail for THERMal modelling

[vyuen]

Hi,

I am wondering if anybody here has worked with AutoCAD and THERM.

I have to clean up CAD Details of curtainwall mullions so it can be brought into THERM to do some energy calculations. 

It seems like there is a lot of cleanup to be done so the detail will work in THERM. 

Anybody else have done this and have tips to make this step faster and easier?

Thanks

[TheCADnoob]

were your CAD files developed for the purpose of using them in therm? if so, i would contact who ever gave you the files and see if they can clean them. 

If you are repurposing the files there might be some things you can do but im not familiar enough with therm to know what it needs.

What kind of cleaning are you having to do? if its simple removal of annotation you can use things like quick select (QSELECT) to select elements across the drawing. you can select all the text or leader etc and delete them all at one. Also using somthing like select similar may help. Also if the objects that need cleaning are on certain layers you may be able to manage them by manipulating the layer they are on. 

If the clean up involves closing lies etc you can use the JOIN command. Also OVERKILL can be helpful if there is just a bunch of overlaying geometry. 

[vyuen]

sorry maybe i wasn't specific enough about what kind of 'cleaning up' i was talking about.

basically i had to take a section detail of a curtainwall, lets say at the stack joint, and take the curtainwall die (ie kawneer 2500UT) and decurve it. remove as much snaps as i can but try and maintain the profile. making sure lines running parallel together don't cross, etc. that kind of work. it is very tedious, i'm wondering if there is an easier and faster way of doing this. 

one of the issues i have is the lines crossing each other. let's say i draw 2 polylines, back to back so it looks like 1 line. when i zoom in, the 2 lines somehow cross one another, or the snaps are out of place, not together... i don't know why autocad does that and i don't know how to solve this problem without having to zoom all the way in at every lines.

[tcrish]

Hi vyuen,

I do this for inserting CAD files into Therm.  Here is what I do:

• "Copy" the assembly to a new clean dwg file
• Delete any hatching
• "Explode" the entire assembly multiple times to make sure
• Verify there is no left over hatching like SOLID Hatches
• Select everything and put it all on layer zero
• Use the "OVERKILL" command to remove any overlapping entities and duplicate overlays
• Use the "Purge" command to get rid of any left over junk.
• "Save As" a r12.DXF file

These steps seem to work for my department to insert into Therm.  Just make sure to use a copy in case there are issues.

I hope this workflow can ease the grief.

Thanks,

Tom

[vyuen]

I will try this! I am only starting to do this and I'm not in charge of importing to Therm. I was told that objects need to be in joined polyline? I am surprised that you explode the entire assembly as this will create a lot of polylines that is not joined to anything. I will try it out and see if this works.

[tcrish]

Hi,

We explode for our Therm guy to draw geometry over my linework.  I always believed joined polylines should work in Therm, but we always have grief.  Not sure why.  The Therm program does seem painful here, maybe because it's an older version, or our Therm person. 

Tom

[TheCADnoob]

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@vyuen wrote:

I will try this! I am only starting to do this and I'm not in charge of importing to Therm. I was told that objects need to be in joined polyline? I am surprised that you explode the entire assembly as this will create a lot of polylines that is not joined to anything. I will try it out and see if this works.

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one of the things overkill does is join polylines

Combine Partial Overlap

Overlapping objects area combined into single objects.

Combine End to End

Objects that have common endpoints are combined into single objects.

[vyuen]

for some reason this does not work for me, the polylines do not join in overkill.

[vyuen]

Ohh I see!! Yes I asked our therm guy and he told me the same thing. By importing lines from AutoCAD, they have to go in in Therm and draw the objects over the lines again. I guess it is either tedious in AutoCAD or in Therm...

[TheCADnoob]

Have you looked into using the BOUNDRY command? I have used it to recreate geometry. 

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/AutoC...

[Anonymous]

Use HTFlux -> htflux.com/en/ instead of therm. Easy to use, validated against ISO 10077-2. A 30 day trial is available, afterwards you have to buy an annual license.

Preparing DXF files is easy, just make sure that you convert everything to closed polylines, lines, circles, arcs ...