How to map Items from .FBX Source to Timeliner Task 'Attached' using CSV Data Source

[npriceHT4SD]

I am trying to simulate a construction in Navisworks.

The source model is a .FBX, modelled and exported from Blender. For a given floor, there are a number of objects that need to be rendered one after the other which makes it difficult to use Selection Sets. As well, since this is nonstandard .FBX, I don't have any of the standard property metadata that I would get from Revit or something similar. Since I am handling about 200~ elements within the .FBX, I do not want to set the property for the attached model by hand for each task, and in case sequencing changes, I'd like to rely on the CSV to handle the ordering.

I watched this tutorial on how to use Microsoft Project to handle Reference & Synchronization IDs. I do not have access to Microsoft Project, so unfortunately I cannot follow this directly.

In essence, I want to know if, then how, I can link elements of a .FBX to the Attached column of a task using a .CSV file as a data source to generate a task list. I am looking at ways to add further metadata to the .FBX for use in Navisworks, but for now I am assuming I will have to use the element's name property.

[PatrickDavis20]

I personally gave up using FBX with Timeliner during the short and tubulated Autodesk Showcase days.

If you are not going to use Selection Sets, then somehow you need a property to assign a task to. iConstruct allows you to add custom properties/parameters to objects. I have never done this with an FBX file, but I am guessing it will work. I would reach out to iConstruct and ask them for help service.desk@iconstruct.com. 

[npriceHT4SD]

Hey, thanks for the answer! I appreciate that.

What I ended up doing was just writing my own CSV format and mapping the Mesh Name to Display ID.  Its extremely annoying that custom props arent easily passed on the .FBX export, but I'm not as familiar with that format in technical detail as much as a .GLTF, but thats a whole other ball game. One of the main gripes I have is that the indentation data source doesnt work and I have to do it manually.. but whatever, i was already knee deep in elbow grease (hm.. that doesnt quite sound right...)

Anyway - to elaborate on what I ended up doing finally,  was to add alongside the other columns in the CSV, just adding the Mesh Name as exported from my software, I think I put it under the Display ID and made an Auto-Rule that was like, If Display ID == Mesh Name assign to Task. So if your Mesh is called Cube.001, or ARC_COL_30 or whatever, add that to a column in the CSV and map that to whatever Rule you want.

Its messy, but it does function how I would expect. In the future i'll try harder to model it with Revit instead of Blender, but i'm still getting to grips with it.

I think that it could be Better Practice :tm: to use a User Defined column instead of the Display ID, as I see people usually use Display ID and Synchronization ID as some sort of check. I'm not exactly sure why that is, however.

I'll also see what iConstruct is up to, thanks for the tip. 

[npriceHT4SD · Accepted solution]

For any future viewers, this was my workflow:

Generate a CSV in Excel to generally map the tasks. Column names in CSV do not need to follow exact conventions in Navisworks, but it is probably a good idea to do so where possible. Task Type can take Custom names as well.

After this, import the Data Source from the TimeLiner as you normally would, making sure to map the Model Name to another given Column. Then, in the Tasks tab of the TimeLiner, add a custom rule that will search the items available in the selection tree and map tasks to Items that have the same name.