Navisworks find items

[jleigh8DZF6]

Hi , Im having a problem with find items in navisworks , when i click on the Category tab a list drops down containing some but not all categories , the category i am looking to use is Element but i don't see element in the list .

as you can see from the image , i have lots of DWF categories , when i scroll to the bottom of theses there is no element in the list. 

list 

[Kelsey.S]

Hi @jleigh8DZF6,

Could you post a Screencast video showing the steps you are going through? In the meantime, I found a few references on the topic that may be helpful: 

How TO Find Items In Navisworks Manage 2018

Find Items Window

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question. Likes welcome.

[USJM05000]

Navisworks initially only loads a subset of properties in the Find tool.  Scroll to the bottom of the list.  There should be an ellipsis (. . .).  Left click on the ellipsis and remaining properties should load - although it may take a while depending on number of objects in the federated model.

Note that it is possible to quickly scroll down the list by entering the first letter of the property of interest.

Hope that helps.

Joe M in WV

[Kelsey.S]

Hi @jleigh8DZF6,

I am just checking back to see if the replies to your post is helpful regarding your question.

If they were, please consider clicking "Accept as Solution" so that other members of our community can easily find it and benefit from it.

Thank you!

[jleigh8DZF6]

Hi Kelsey,

 Sorry for the delay, 

No I still haven't found a solution ,

AS you can see in the image below , in find items I can only scroll down as far as 'D' , but the elements I want to find have Properties in Element Category . 

I clicked on the little three dots on the bottom of the list to bring up the full list of categories but I'm still only able to scroll down as far as 'D'

Regards

Jason 

[USJM05000]

I believe that DWF exports are good at retaining physical characteristics (size, shape, orientation and location) of 3D elements but DWF exports are not so good at retaining element meta-data (design and/or manufacturing characteristics).

Directly opening the native file format or exporting native models to NWC format should maximize successful import meta-data into the Navisworks environment.  IFC export may also preserve meta data from native model to Navisworks- but some customization to the IFC export process may be required for non-standard elements or properties.

Hope this helps,

Joe M in WV

[jleigh8DZF6]

Thanks for getting back to me, 

The NWD has both NWC and DWF's in it . the files I want to 'find items' in is an NWC , if you look a the image in the previous post , you can see I have clicked on an element, showing that the objects contain Element properties.  

I am starting to think that the 'find Item' dropdowns are limited to a number of properties that it can display. 

[LauraJCC]

Hi @jleigh8DZF6 , I am having exactly the same issue. Did you find a solution for this?

[Mohamed-Nassar]

Are DWF is still in there path of folder?

[rade_tomovic]

Can you provide sample NWD file? Or try Productivity Toolbox from Autodesk App Store - it has an option to create search sets from categories and properties (if you don't know how - there are YT tutorials or just send me a message here)

[philip_simon]

 

Same issue.  I am trying to create selection sets from an appended nwc file in a federated model nwf.  The last visible categories in the find items window are all dwf objects.  There is no ellipsis at the bottom.  There is also an asterisk next to the find items line, if that's meaningful.  The category menu apparently only holds so many entries, so the dwfs truncate the menu, so that "element" is unavailable.

My workaround is to create a new nwf with nothing in it but the nwc of interest, create the search sets there, export them, and import them back into the federated model nwf.

Hope that helps.

[blawrenceMJVV5]

I am having the same issue. It appears that the "category" dropdown is truncated list of all the possible categories. Since "dwxf" files create a unique category for every unique piece of 3D geometry, this blows the list out, and you probably won't see anything beyond "DWF -". The only work around I have found is like Phillip Simon has suggested above, but it is pretty cumbersome just to achieve a simple search.

I would assume that "max categories in find" is not a user-facing setting, so a fix would have to be done in the Navisworks code and released as a patch. Any ideas how this can be flagged as a "known issue" for Autodesk to acknowledge and work on for a future release?

[JK-CAMERON]

Of course there is no response or solution.  Unreal  This is a simple function that every program on the planet has.  Update and fix Autocad...  because of this single issue we are looking at alternative software.

[ilya-frumkin · Accepted solution]

Come on Autodesk, move it before we start getting BIM solutions from OpenAI. 

[jperkins1MXXNE · Accepted solution]

well here we are a year later and there is still no solution to this except to stop using DWFs. I support that position. I believe the DWF file is out of date and unhelpful in Navis. I wish AutoDesk would make some global statement to that point and ask that everyone stop using DWF files.