Timeliner

This tutorial was originally created by Michael Smith and updated by Kevin R. Miller.
Modified 04/26/2016

Timeliner is used to show building animation and checking for clashes that would occur as the project is constructed.

To start this tutorial, in the Navis Dataset/Timeliner folder, open theNavisAligned 2014.nwf file.

Creating Search sets

Search sets allow you to search through the model whereas Selection sets only allow predefined objects to be found. The benefit of the Search set over the Selection set is that as different models are used, searching the new model for objects will be more inclusive than a selection set would be.

1. Select Find Items on the Homeribbon.
2. The first search set that will be made for this tutorial is the roof.

Select a component of the roof and look at its name in the Selection Tree.

If the Selection Tree is not open,on the Home ribbon, select the Selection Tree tool to open it.

If the selection tree is docked on the left side of Navisworks, select the docked Selection Tree and pin it open.

As different roof elements are selected, the naming systems varies quite a bit.

To locate all the roof objects in the model, on the Find Items palette, on the right portion of the palette, make the Category Item, the Property Name, the Condition Contains, and the Value Roof. (It may be beneficial to widen the Category, Property and Value columns in the Find Items palette.)

UncheckMatch Case.

Press Find All.

This selects every object that has Roof in it name. If you look carefully, you will notice that the roof drain are also selected as well as all the objects contained in the Mechanical_Roof.nwc file. So maybe too many things have been select.

On the Find Items palette, on the left column select the Arch.nwc file. By selecting the Arch file, it will only perform the search for the one model rather than all the models. This can be useful in some instances. Now press the Find All button again and notice the differences.

The Match Case box should be uncheck, then press Find All.

Go to Sets palette on the left of the screen (if not visible, go to the View Ribbon, Windows and checkmark Sets) and right click in the Sets palette and select Save Search. On the search set that is created, right click and name the search set Roof. Now any time the entire roof needed to be selected, left click on the Roof search set.

Search Set -- Below Grade Concrete

Move the View Cube so you can see the underground portion of the model and select a footing.
On the Find Items palette, in the Search in portion of the palette, select the Conc model and make the selections as shown in the graphic below.


The plus sign in the Category column is added by right clicking and selecting Or Condition as shown in the graphic below. Using the “or” logic in this example, an item must be Concrete- Cast-in-Place and a GB or Concrete- Cast-in-Place and a DP. This makes it so that only grade beams or drilled piers are selected.


PressFind All.
On the Sets palette, save the search set as Footings.

To gain alittle more experience in creating search sets, create the following search sets.

Make search sets with the following names, make sure they are named exactly as seen:

Model / Category / Property / Condition / Value / Set Name
Arch.nwc / Item / Name / Contains / interior wall / Interior Walls
Steel.nwc / Item / File Name / Contains / Steel / Steel

Now export these search sets to an XML file. The benefit of exporting these search sets is that in future projects, you don't need to recreate them. Rather they can be imported into the project as you will see in the Timeliner tutorial.

To export the search sets do the following:
On the Search Set palette, select the Import/Exporttool .

Select Export Search Sets, The location of the file should be where the Navisworks dataset is located.
Name the file CustomSearchSet.xml and press Save.

Importing Search Sets

There are other search sets that have been created that you can import for this tutorial.

To import the Search Sets on the Search Set palette, select the Import/Export tool select Import Search Sets and select theNavis Dataset\Timeliner\search sets science building.xmlfile.

Linking Files

Once Search Sets have been created they can link automatically to Activity names from a spreadsheet. For the autolinking to occur, the Name in the CSV file must be the same as the Search Set Name in Navisworks. The spreadsheet (csv file) can also contain dates which will help drive the schedule. For this tutorial, a csv file is already created. Take a second to open the science schedule.csv file contained in the Timeliner folder. The headings of each column align the data fields with the Navisworks fields. The dates contained in the CSV file are that start and end dates that will be used for Navisworks.

Timeliner

If the Timeliner palette is not shown, On the Home ribbon select Timeliner. If you need to close the Find Items palette to make more room on your monitor, feel free to do so.

Data Sources

Select the Data Sources tab.
Press the Add button, and select CSV importand select the science schedule.csv.

On the Field Selector window make the selections as shown in the graphic.

Select OK.

Rules

Click the Task tab and select Auto-Attach Using Rules tool.

Now select New.

1. In the Rules Editor window select Attach Items to Tasks.
2. In the bottom portion of the window, ensure that Name, Selection Sets and Ignoring are in blue text. Press OK

Press the checkbox for the rule just created.

Press the Apply Rules button and close the Timeliner Rules window.

Data Sources

Select the Data Source tab. Right click on the New Data Source file and select Rebuild Task Herarchy and then right click and select Synchronize.
On the Tasks tab, left click the first box under Task Type and select Construct. Now reselect the first task and all the tasks below and select Fill Down. The task window should look like the image below.

If the Attached column is blank, then the Rules didn't apply correctly. Go to the Rules and press the Apply Rules button again to see if will correct the Attachment on the Tasks tab. If that doesn't work, you can do either of the approaches below to fix the problem.

  1. If you see the Search Sets on the Search Set palette, but it isn't Attaching correctly, do the following:
  • Select the first Search Set that isn't attaching on the Sets palette.
  • On the Find Items palette, in the Search in: area, select/highlight the model that should be associated with the search, ieELECTRICAL.nwc.
  • On the Sets palette, right click on Rough Electrical and select Update.
  • After this is done for the various search sets, reapply the Rules that were previously created.
  1. If task was not connected to the building and you want to force a connection to the search set, simply right click in the Attached column and select the set you wish to attach.

Simulate

All tasks, if named as shown above in the selection sets, are now linked to the project. Click the Simulate tab.

Press the Settings button and change the view to the Planned radio button.

Press the Play button to build the building.
For comments on this tutorial, please send them to .

Rotating the Model

If you would like to rotate the model during the simulation, there is an easy way to do this. In the tutorial below, a simple rotation will be made from 3 different viewpoints.

  1. Open the Saved Viewpoints menu and pin it open.
  2. Navigate to the starting view of the rotation. For this view, starting below the footings may be a good view to start with.
  3. Right click on the Saved Viewpoints palette and select Save Viewpoint. Name the first view point 10.
  1. Move to the next view from which a Viewpoint should be made. Name this Viewpoint 20.
  1. The final Viewpoint name is 30.
  1. On the Saved Viewpoint palette, right click and Add Animation.
  1. Drag the 3 viewpoint to the animation.
  2. Rename the Animation to Timeliner Animation. It could be named anything, but that is the name that I selected.
  3. On the Timeliner palette, select the Settings button.
  1. On the Simulation Settings window, under the Animationheading, select Saved Viewpoints Animation. Press OK.
  2. Select the Timeliner Animation on the Saved Viewpoints palette.
  3. Now play the animation on the Timeliner palette.

Sectioning the Model

To make it easier to see in the model during the animation, a section plane will be added to the animation.

On the Timeliner palette, make sure the timeline slider is all the way to the right. This will make it so the complete building is visible.

On the Saved Viewpoints palette, select viewpoint 20.

On the Viewpoint ribbon, select Enable Sectioning.

On the Sectioning Tools ribbon, select the Current Plane as Plane 6. If the Gizmo isn’t visible, select Fit Selection and also toggle the Move tool.

Grab the Red Square of the Gizmo and move it to the right so more of the building is visible.

On the Sectioning Tools ribbon, select Save Viewpoint. On the Saved Viewpoint palette, name the new viewpoint 25 and drag it just below 20.

Unselect the Move tool so the Gizmo disappears.

Now orient the view to look similar to this.

Right click on Viewpoint 30 and select Update

On the Timeliner palette, drag the timeliner tool to the left so it is at the beginning of the animation.

Now play the Timeliner Simulation.