Automating Navisworks Model Building And File Management

Manage your navisworks model builds as you sleep using tools native to Navisworks.

What you'll learn

Automate Navisworks Federation UsingBatch Utility

Automate Navisworks Federation Using FileToolsTaskRunner

Automate Navisworks Federation Using Roamer

Manage Large Number of files using Robocopy

Requirements

Some programming/scripting is advantageous but not required

Description

Over the years I have often had to manage a large number of files across many projects. This often required the building of federated models or in other words, appending the same files and saving the same models over and over. This is both tedious and error prone and in any case I am sure you have better things to do with your life than mindless clicky work that can much easier be done by a computer. Scripting in Navisworks is a little known tool that comes pre-packaged with Navisworks and is very useful for managing large numbers of files and sorting them into federated models and sub-models. Here we will cover all the tools required to run model federation with no additional tools needed. The only pre-requisite is a working Navisworks Manage or Simulate installation. Some programming or scripting knowledge is beneficial but not required as everything will be explained in a step-by-step basis with no prior knowledge assumed. We will cover the batch utility, roamer.exe and filetoolstaskrunner.exe as each has specific advantages dependant on the situation at hand. This is also a good stepping stone towards writing code in a more powerful language such as C#.

Overview

Section 1: Meet the instructor

Lecture 1 About me

Section 2: Introduction

Lecture 2 Introduction

Lecture 3 Setup

Lecture 4 Navisworks Help

Section 3: Batch Utility

Lecture 5 Introduction

Lecture 6 Working with file specs (extensions)

Lecture 7 Single file output (Federation) -

Lecture 8 Multiple file output

Lecture 9 Working with individual files

Lecture 10 Logging Saving and Scheduling

Section 4: Introduction to batch files

Lecture 11 Windows command prompt

Lecture 12 Windows command prompt with Navisworks

Lecture 13 Comments and debugging

Section 5: FiletoolsTaskRunner

Lecture 14 Batch command anatomy

Lecture 15 Creating first batch file

Lecture 16 Defining inputs

Lecture 17 Defining outputs

Lecture 18 Logging

Lecture 19 Switches

Section 6: Roamer.exe

Lecture 20 Introduction

Lecture 21 Basic structure

Lecture 22 Command line switches

Lecture 23 Intro to plugins

Lecture 24 Loading and executing plugins

Lecture 25 Executing Appearance profiler

Section 7: More on batch files

Lecture 26 ROBOCOPY

Lecture 27 ROBOCOPY - Basic structure

Lecture 28 Excluding Files

Lecture 29 ROBOCOPY - Mirroring

Lecture 30 ROBOCOPY - Moving

Lecture 31 Chaining - Motivation

Lecture 32 Writing chained scripts

Lecture 33 Script scheduling

Section 8: Final Challenge

Lecture 34 Final challenge assignment

BIM Coordinators, Managers and Engineers