Add Description in Quantification Line Item

[rskelton]

Is there a way to add into AutoCAD blocks an attribute that would show Description or comments in the Quantification Line Items? I'm appending multiple drawings into one nwf, and the parts are all similar but with different names and weights. One drawing may have piece one used in it 12 times, while the second drawing may have piece one used 14 times. Quantification will do a count based on the block name and number of counts, but the description cell is empty and the comments cell is empty. I would like to kow how to have those definitions filled in AutoCAD to be brought over to Navisworks.

[john.vellek]

Hi @rskelton,

Is it possible to attach a sample file with your blocks so I can see if there is a way to get the data in those fields inside of Navisworks?

[rskelton]

This is one of the files that I have. It has the blocks that I work with, and the attributes for the blocks as well that I would like to bring in. The biggest attribute I would like is the weight. I'm unsure on how to do that with Navisworks.

Thanks for your help.

[john.vellek]

Hi @rskelton,

I am looking at the AutoCAD dwg - thanks for providing that.  Please tell me how you have assigned the properties to each element. They do not appear to be assigned as attributes but possibly as Extended Entity Data.

I fell that we should move this back to the Navisworks forum and I will ask a Navisworks Specialist to try and give  you some support on this issue.

I apologize that I don't know Navisworks well enough  to help directly.

[rskelton]

It was created as a block table in block editor. I don't know how to add attributes to the CAD blocks to make them appear in the quantification table, so I'm at a bit of a loss. I've also tried adding data as an attribute to the blocks, but that didn't seem to work for me either unless I've done something incorrectly.

[Lance.Coffey]

Hello @rskelton,

From what I’m finding, this doesn’t look like a simple/easy task.

I found a discussion on this topic in the context of adding custom properties to objects and it was noted that custom DWG properties would not be read by Navisworks (there was also discussion about leveraging existing properties for other uses).

If you have some programming skills, the following AEC DevBlog posts could help in getting custom data into Navisworks:

Display Custom Properties of DWG in Navisworks - 1

Display Custom Properties of DWG in Navisworks - 2

Reading the Block Table of a Dynamic Block

Another approach would be to use Block Attributes:

INCORPORATING ALL PROPERTIES OF A CAD BLOCK AS A TOOL TIP IN A NAVIS PROPERY