What is Navisworks Manage?
Navisworks is a project review tool that is a relative newcomer to the Autodesk family of products. I think of Navisworks as a universal viewer and CAD-aggregator. There are several varieties of Navisworks, Navisworks Manage is the fullest functionality flavor of the product. I've got several customers using the heck out of it for scheduling and staging construction activity. With Navisworks you can pull together many different file types including DWG, DGN, point clouds, Revit, Inventor, 3DS Max, Sketchup and Pro E files (just to name a few).
Getting Started:
In Navisworks Manage, you will want to change a setting that will make it much easier to update the model from the Civil 3D file.
From the Navisworks Application Menu
click Options (similar to how you jump into Options in AutoCAD).
Expand the Model category on the left part of the Options Editor and highlight Performance.
Place a checkmark next to Close NWC/NWD files on load.
This option allows us to keep the Navisworks project open and export a new output file (NWC as I create later in this post). If I kept it on, it would not allow me to overwrite the NWCs as updates occur. For those of you familiar with the XLOADCTL variable, think of this option as changing XLOADCTL from 0 to 2.
In Civil 3D 2012 (this will also work in 2011, btw):
Freeze unwanted layers and hide items you don't want displayed in Navisworks. Generally, the only things you want to bring in are pipes, surfaces, corridors and parcels that have elevation to them. I recommend creating a Layer State specifically for NWCOUT.
At the command line, type NWCOUT. Civil 3D will prompt you to save an NWC file. Save it in a sensible location with the rest of the project you are working with. This file provides the link between Civil 3D and Navisworks, so renaming it, moving it or deleting it once it is in use would break the link. Wait a moment or two for the NWC file to generate.
In Navisworks:
In Navisworks, click Append.
Once the file has been imported, use the view cube and the navigation bar to look around in the project, similar to how you would in the Civil 3D object viewer.
In my example, I have pipes that I'd like to see, but in most views they are obscured by the surface model. I can make the surface model transparent.
Select the surface in Navisworks by clicking on it. A context tab pops up and you can override the default color and transparency here.
If you have made changes to the project in Civil 3D and wish to update the Navisworks side, click the refresh button in Navisworks' Quick Access toolbar.
As you go back and forth between civil 3D, any overrides you place on objects in Navisworks hold - even after a refresh. Do not re-Append the NWC or you will end up with duplicate data!
That's all for now. I plan to add more information about working with Civil 3D objects and Timeliner (the scheduling piece of Navisworks). See you soon!
Navisworks is a project review tool that is a relative newcomer to the Autodesk family of products. I think of Navisworks as a universal viewer and CAD-aggregator. There are several varieties of Navisworks, Navisworks Manage is the fullest functionality flavor of the product. I've got several customers using the heck out of it for scheduling and staging construction activity. With Navisworks you can pull together many different file types including DWG, DGN, point clouds, Revit, Inventor, 3DS Max, Sketchup and Pro E files (just to name a few).
Getting Started:
In Navisworks Manage, you will want to change a setting that will make it much easier to update the model from the Civil 3D file.
From the Navisworks Application Menu
click Options (similar to how you jump into Options in AutoCAD).Expand the Model category on the left part of the Options Editor and highlight Performance.
Place a checkmark next to Close NWC/NWD files on load.
This option allows us to keep the Navisworks project open and export a new output file (NWC as I create later in this post). If I kept it on, it would not allow me to overwrite the NWCs as updates occur. For those of you familiar with the XLOADCTL variable, think of this option as changing XLOADCTL from 0 to 2.
In Civil 3D 2012 (this will also work in 2011, btw):
Freeze unwanted layers and hide items you don't want displayed in Navisworks. Generally, the only things you want to bring in are pipes, surfaces, corridors and parcels that have elevation to them. I recommend creating a Layer State specifically for NWCOUT.
At the command line, type NWCOUT. Civil 3D will prompt you to save an NWC file. Save it in a sensible location with the rest of the project you are working with. This file provides the link between Civil 3D and Navisworks, so renaming it, moving it or deleting it once it is in use would break the link. Wait a moment or two for the NWC file to generate.
In Navisworks:
In Navisworks, click Append.
Once the file has been imported, use the view cube and the navigation bar to look around in the project, similar to how you would in the Civil 3D object viewer.
In my example, I have pipes that I'd like to see, but in most views they are obscured by the surface model. I can make the surface model transparent.
Select the surface in Navisworks by clicking on it. A context tab pops up and you can override the default color and transparency here.
If you have made changes to the project in Civil 3D and wish to update the Navisworks side, click the refresh button in Navisworks' Quick Access toolbar.
As you go back and forth between civil 3D, any overrides you place on objects in Navisworks hold - even after a refresh. Do not re-Append the NWC or you will end up with duplicate data!
That's all for now. I plan to add more information about working with Civil 3D objects and Timeliner (the scheduling piece of Navisworks). See you soon!
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