Materials lists associations - to detail bubbles & not entities, why is that?

[LarryO]

We have been wanting to generate materials lists from the objects used in a project.

I was looking at the arrangement in VW and the data is required to be stored in detail bubbles. The list being generated from data attached to a detail bubble and not data attached to the items of an assembly or project. If population of the material's lists were to be automated, how would one exclude duplicate detail bubbles used to identify the same object(s) that are being viewed in another viewport? One would have to create a detail bubble for every instance to get correct quantities, would they not? If a characteristic such as material designation or length changes does the detail bubble automatically track this, or does it require a manual change in addition to the change occurring in the instance of the object?

 

I'm reluctant to go down the rabbit hole of introducing hidden data that requires manual tracking and updating, it is already an error prone process to manually maintain notes that one has in front of one's face.

Is there any insight into successful implementations of generating parts data from custom symbols representing  items which are often one or two off instances?

 

Larry

[Pat Stanford]

More detail please.  I just took a quick look at the Material Data Sheet and the Material Take Off reports and don't see any reference to detail bubbles being required. What list are you talking about? 

Even if that specific list is pulling from detail bubbles, the material data should be part of the object and not the bubble, so you should be able to reference it directly in a worksheet.

 

Can you post a simple sample file showing what you are trying to do? 

[LarryO]

I was given these links to implement a bill of materials after declaring that I couldn't track materials using named objects and named symbols because the implementation here wants one of the items within the symbol to be the base object for an assembly of the same mark name.

 

http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2016/eng/VW2016_Guide/Annotation/Creating_Detail_Bubbles.htm#XREF_29579_Creating_Detail

 

http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2016/eng/VW2016_Guide/Annotation/Creating_a_Parts_List.htm#XREF_75530_Creating_a_Parts

 

http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2016/eng/VW2016_Guide/Annotation/Creating_a_Bill_of_Materials.htm

[LarryO]

What the shop really wants is to mimic Trimble's Tekla where the software generates and tracks parts' detail sheets and materials lists.

Manual implementation has been rigged for errors from the start. A copy paste of a text error takes forever to ensure all instances get found and corrected, so we are currently still manually counting and aggregating materials for purchasing instead of generating materials lists from the presence of the objects in the 3d drawing environment.

[Pat Stanford]

So first, I completely misread your first post and thought you were talking about Vectorworks Materials, which is the ability to assign a "material" to a modeled part and that material will include data like what it is, density, thermal conductivity, etc. Then you can use that data from multiple objects to pull together overall data for an "assembly" of parts. VW Materials can be used for Components of Walls and Slabs or for individual objects.

 

Data bubbles are certainly one way to generate a parts list, but I believe that that example and workflow is pretty old and was originally developed for use when generating 2D drawings rather than 3D models.

 

Here is an example of a parts list I generated directly from the drawing:

 

 

In this case I was not worried about the connecting piping. Each of the components in the drawing is a symbol. The worksheet collecting the information is just reporting on the symbols on a specific layer. The report is the symbol and and the count of that object and the Class of the object (Electrical, Fittings, Instrument, Valve, etc.).

 

If you are doing something more like the stainless steel frame that all those parts are sitting on, you may need to attach a custom record (or maybe use VW Materials) to specify the parts and to be able to extract cut lists.

 

 

If you have a simple drawing with maybe 5-10 parts that you can share and a better description of what Tekla does, we can see about getting you a more automated solution.

 

[LarryO]

This package has a few inconsistent practices. Some of the parts drawings list only the thickness of the material whereas others list the overall dimensions in addition to the material thickness. The page below illustrates a technique used by the other software which I have faked here whereby one instance of p22 which is part of hidden sub-assembly bp20 was chosen to be labeled as CP1 while the whole assembly is CP1.(see detail 6, FRONT ISO) I believe the thinking is that all other named parts are attachments to CP1 as part of the final configuration of CP1. So this assemblage of parts has at its root a part that is the parent or base of the final product. The construct in Vectorworks being a symbol for the assemblage of parts and a means to identify an track the subparts of the assemblage. Therefore one part becomes a conflict with the assemblage's name, an aspect I am still trying to work through in my head if there is a solution using the basic elements of VWs.

On page p20 the material that would appear in the materials list on page CP1 is listed under the Mark (the part id) and Quantity (currently manually tracked) tag and the length of material required in this instance is 660. On page p22 (which is also the material required for CP1 in addition to all the parts) is shown as a complete description of the material required. but the reality is that the material description is 6.4mm plate and the amount is 172x165. For now we are ignoring the holes which would be required information to make the leap to estimating take offs. It will be many years before industry provides enough data in their design documents to need a place to store the manufacturing/labour data in order to facilitate estimating.

The modelling layer is called "Canopy" the presentation layer for the parts is called...."parts". The latter would not be necessary if Viewports had the ability to display symbol definitions. I probably should have stripped out the incomplete stair portion of the file but didn't.

521188469_9039Lot4ArkRd.vwx

[Pat Stanford]

2 hours ago, LarryO said:

CP1 while the whole assembly is CP1.(see detail 6, FRONT ISO) I believe the thinking is that all other named parts are attachments to CP1 as part of the final configuration of CP1. So this assemblage of parts has at its root a part that is the parent or base of the final product. The construct in Vectorworks being a symbol for the assemblage of parts and a means to identify an track the subparts of the assemblage. Therefore one part becomes a conflict with the assemblage's name, an aspect I am still trying to work through in my head if there is a solution using the basic elements of VWs.

Let's start with the easy things.  If you need to be able to name things without having to fight the unique naming requirements of VW, create a custom record format and put the name for the object there rather than using the Name field on the OIP. It will be a little less convenient as you will have to go to the Data pane of the OIP to enter or change the name, but VW will not then care if you name 100 different parts all CP1.

[Pat Stanford]

I see that you are still on on VW2019. There are a number of things that have been added since then that could improve your workflow. These include Materials (2021) and lots of Data Tag and Worksheet improvements (2023).

 

I think the Structural Member tool has also been greatly improve and might be well suited to designs similar to what you have shown.

 

The name one part the same as the assembly sounds like a workaround that someone came up with due to a limitation in another program. If you need to keep that then you do. But is there any real benefit to it other than that is what you and your bosses are used to? If not, I recommend that you consider what will work best in the software you are using rather than trying to force a workflow/naming scheme onto software not meant for it.

[LarryO]

Actually I've been using 2022 for 4 months now, I had forgotten to up date my signature.

15 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

The name one part the same as the assembly sounds like a workaround that someone came up with due to a limitation in another program.

I'm with you in that observation regarding Tekla and naming. I too think an assembly should have a new identity once all of its parts are combined into a new whole object, but for some the cliché is their modus of operandi, "that's the way its always been done. Follow the example it is the correct way of doing things!" It is a good thing that there are visionaries who are not constrained by the past. We only need to remember the past so we don't repeat our mistakes. ( another apt cliché )