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The Element module is used when modifying shop drawings of elements excluding double walls and form slabs.

Commands

Below will the different commands under the Element tab will be presented.

Wall Ties...

Set Mass...

Set Product...

Draw Panel Thickening...

Draw Recess/Filling...

(Same for the plan)(Same for the elevation)

The command starts with a properties dialog. The commands are as follows:

• Type: Rectangular, Circular & Polygon.
• Side: Front & Back.
• Cut out Through the element or not.
• Distance from front/back: Can be defined when drawing or by filling in this field. Cut out needs to be unticked to use this.
• Countersinking: Can be defined when drawing or by filling in this field. Cut out needs to be unticked to use this.
• Dimension type: Center, Edge, Edge and extents, Edge and extents X, Edge and extents Y, None, X-axis only & Y-axis only.
• Specify On-screen This is used if the Type is set to circular and the user wants to specify the diameter when drawing. If this is unticked and the diameter is set to 0 then it works in the same way as if specify On-screen is ticked. If the box is unticked then a diameter can be written and the circle will get that diameter.
• Height/Diameter: See above for Diameter. Height is active for the Type rectangular.
• Annotation text: Shows a predefined text taken from Standard Admin (variables). The text can also be overwritten with any other text.
• Description: Free text.
• Material: If a material is chosen then this will be a filling instead.
• Text material If the box is ticked then the name of the material will be shown in the filling.
• Cut reinforcement mesh Box option.
• Add to hole specification Box option.
• Alterations and additions Box option.
• Select objects A polyline can be chosen.
• Retain objects The chosen polyline will add a material (filling).
• Delete objects The chosen polyline will remove material (recess).

The GIF below shows how the function can be used.

Alterations and additions (New in Q1/2023) :

The idea with this is to be able to mark the recesses so that they, later on, can be filtered. An example below will show this function. 

The two main functions that we will work with here are "Add to hole specification" & "Alterations and additions".

In the example below, there are 4 recesses. The one without any name (Top right) has neither "Add to hole specification" nor "Alterations and additions" ticked.

H1 - "Add to hole specification" ticked, "Alterations and additions" unticked.

H2 - "Add to hole specification" ticked, "Alterations and additions" ticked.

H3 - "Add to hole specification" ticked, "Alterations and additions" ticked.

A new field (attribute) must be added to the hole specification (block) for the changes to be shown. "Alterations and additions" have been called "AA" in the hole specification below.

To read about how to add the information to the correct block, click on the links below: 

To change the list of holes table header, click here

To change the list of holes table body, click here

There is also a possibility to change what the text string/number should be when "Alternations and additions" is ticked or unticked.

DWGTEXTTABLEHOLEALTERATIONSADDITIONS - Sets what the text string/number should be when "Alternations and additions" is ticked

DWGTEXTTABLEHOLENOTALTERATIONSADDITIONS - Sets what the text string/number should be when "Alternations and additions" is unticked

Edit Element...

(New in Q4/2024) Possibility to have four lift points on the left or right side of solid- insulated- and sandwich walls. The same rules from the lift table applies as for the lift in top.

Line-up Project MEP key

(New in Q3/2023)

Line-up MEP key only shows the MEP keys used in the project and the element information as the line-up endcap.

See the video below to see how this function works.

Bend Bars...

Note: For this to work the shape code MB must be present in the drawing. A drawing containing this shape code can be found below:

MB shape code

How to import the shape code to your file can be seen below:

Download the pictures for the shape code here.

This function gives the possibility to bend bars in a bar mesh and then include those bended bars in a Unitechnik export.

To make this feature possible a new shape code for the bended bars needs to be added to the drawings. The new shape code can have a maximum of four 90° bends at each end as shown in the picture below:

The command starts by letting the user select the bars they wish to bend from the reinforcement views of the shop drawing.

The picture to the left shows an example of a reinforcement view with bar mesh drawn for the inner panel, and the picture to the right shows the same view but where a sample selection of the bars to be bent is made. After the user selects the bars a dialog similar to the picture below is shown.

The dialog contains a box called “Bar selection” where the user can make a subset of the selected bars by filtering on the orientation (horizontal/vertical), construction part (bar mesh name), and length so that the user knows exactly which bars they edit, to further help with this, the current selection of bars are also displayed along with the element in a 3D preview control in the dialog. Depending on the orientation of the selected bars another preview control will show the element and bars in a vertical or horizontal view to get a clear view of the bended bars.

The dialog also contains a box called “Leg measures” where the user can specify the bended measures of each leg and end of the selected bars. This way the user can change multiple bars in a single command by just altering the selection filter or they can also select new bars with the button “Select bars”.

When the user is finished with all changes and presses “Ok” the bending will be applied and the straight bars will be converted to the new shape.

Unitechnik part

The bended bar mesh should be included in the Unitechnik export and the information regarding the bending should be filled in as “additional store” option 2, “flection data record for freely selectable flection forms”.

Group Reinforcement Text

Group Reinforcement Text draws the text when multiple alike bars or stirrups can be grouped. There are three settings that decide how the text should be shown and if any text should be drawn out. 

The first and most important setting can be found in Project Manager. This one decides if the text should be written out or not. The project properties setting under the drawings tab called "Group reinforcement proposal text" must be set to "Yes" for the text to write out. 

The next setting that decides how the text looks is placed in standard admin. The reinforcement variable DEFAULT_TEXT_STYLE among other functions decides which text style that should be used when the group reinforcement text command is run.

The last place to check is the designation style. This is where the text is defined, and what it should consist of. Designation style -> ES (as the default text style was set to that in standard admin in this example) and then Textgroup. More about this can be read here.

In the GIF below a sandwich wall have two vertical bars and two horizontal bars that are alike. These are therefore grouped when the command is run and due to the settings made before. This GIF shows that if a text is erased it can be returned with the command. If an additional identical bar is placed the text is changed.

New Detail...

New detail lets the user create a detail of an important part of an element. 

The command shows a dialog with many boxes to fill in/write something in. In the next chapter, Edit Detail... all the fields will be described.

In the GIF below, a name and a description are given for the detail. Next, the button select section is run to define the detail start and endpoint. Either a distance is chosen with the mouse or "No distance" is chosen which will show a section in just that part. Here a distance is chosen.

The last part here is to choose the insertion point for the detail. The rotation can be chosen for this. The detail is placed to the side of the wall. 

Edit Detail...

When this command is run the user is asked to select which section detail that should be edited.

The same dialog shows up as when New Detail... is run. Here all the fields will be presented.

Bullet points 1-14 are shown. 3, 4 & 5 are shown in the New Detail... chapter. Nr 4 is used if the area of the detail should be changed. 

1. Name any text (6 in the example below)
2. Description any text (6 in the example below)
3. Select section is shown in New Detail...
4. Width [mm] is shown in New Detail...
5. Select section is shown in New Detail...
6. Text height [mm] of the name, description and scale text. 
7. Scale 1:X this affects the size of the detail.
8. Text dimension [mm] this affects the size of the dimension lines.
9. Dimension cast-in materials decides if the cast-in materials should be dimensioned or not.
10. Dimension reinforcement decides if the reinforcement should be dimensioned or not.
11. Include Cast in material decides if the cast-in materials should be included or not.
12. Include reinf. view 3 (elevation) decides if the reinforcement in the elevation view should be included or not. (In the example below there is one straight bar in the elevation)
13. Include reinf. view 4 (reinf. inner panel) decides if the reinforcement in the inner panel should be included or not.
14. Include reinf. view 5 (reinf. outer panel) decides if the reinforcement in the outer panel should be included or not.

Down below a GIF is showing a couple of these settings when they are changed.

Update Detail...

Update detail is used if something is changed in the detail, either added, removed, or if the detail is moved.

In the GIF below, the reinforcement bar, lift, and bracing is removed and the detail is updated. 

Mass Properties

Mass Properties works for solid, insulated and sandwich walls. Common for all the wall types is that information about the volume, mass, and centroid is shown in the command box in Cad. Sandwich walls have some additional features which will be shown below. 

The first picture is what shows for a solid wall when the command is run. The second is for an insulated wall.

When the command is run for a sandwich wall there are three alternatives to choose from. First of all, information about the different panels is shown as for the other wall types. 

The three alternatives are:

• Outer panel - Draws two lines where the intersection shows the center of gravity. A recess is added to the outer panel of the wall which makes the center of gravity to be moved a bit to the right. 
• Total - Draws a symbol in the elevation view as well as in the vertical section. The block can be changed in the vertical section, to read more about this click here.
• Exit - Stops the command. 

Draw Wall Ties...

(Same for the elevation)

Draw Wall Ties on the element/elevation is shown below.

Which definition (name) can be chosen, number of bricklayers (how many layers of bricks before wall ties will be placed), number per square meter, distance from bottom/top, show all layers.

When drawing the wall tie there are two questions shown, specify first/last corner point.

An MTO Cast-in Material can be run afterward to show the values in the wall ties table.

Note: For the wall tie table to show a setting in standard admin needs to be ticked and a setting in project properties needs to be set to yes.

In Standard Admin - Settings - Common - Drawings - Drawing Types - Right Click - Properties - Table of Wall Ties. This needs to be ticked. 

In Project Manager - Project Properties - Drawings - Layout- Show table of wall ties - This needs to be set to Yes.

Edit Wall Ties...

(Same for the elevation)

The dialog looks like this when a wall with wall ties is selected:

Draw Sections

Draw Sections can be used for both slabs (not hollowcores) and walls (not doublewalls) in the shop drawing. The idea with this function is that if a change is made which is only interesting to see in the section then the whole drawing does not need to be redrawn. Another example could be that a section is added or moved and then this can be run.

The GIF below shows when a vertical section is added to a wall and then the function draw sections is used.

Approve Bars

Clear Approval Bars

See above chapter "Aprove Bars" for video.

Reinforcement template

Reinforcement template can be created for Wall, Insulated Wall, Sandwich Wall, Slab and Prestressed Slab. The functionality can be found under the Reinforcement section in the element tab.

Possibility to use C-bars as edge reinforcement in left and right edge for walls.

To make bars as long as the length of the element, full height, a setting can be changed in the reinforcement template.

Cast in material template

Cast in material template apply to CIM templates (not hollow core) and command "Upstand wall". The functionality can be found under the Components section in the element tab.

Added a new option for CIM template, where you can distribute the CIMS evenly from the first CIM to the last CIM.

CIM templates for hollowcore elements in IMPACT is now possible.

Apply CIM template now allows individual selection of previous CIM templates to be removed.

Freeze elevation works for solid slab, prestressed solid slab, hollow core & walls.

How this works can be read here.

Draw Mesh

"Line + Box" option is now available for drawing mesh on the shop drawing.

Reinforcement group

RC group text rotation

Export Reinforcement Group to PXML

New in (Q3/2024)

It's now possible to export reinforcement groups to Mesh Machines. This is done with the "Export Reinforcement Group to PXML.

The PXML file contains the Reinforcement group information and the following fields:

The file will be placed in the drawing folder and will be named like this: ProjectName_ElementMark_ElementID_Reinforcementgroupname.pxml.

In AviCAD will the Reinforcement group be of the type "Cage". Below is an example of how two different reinforcement groups look in AviCAD after the export.

Example 1

IMPACT for CAD.

Imported PXML file to AviCAD.

Example 2

IMPACT For CAD.

Imported PXML file to AviCAD.

Note: The Producibility rules are not implemented for the export of Reinforcement Groups.