When you select a shape in the Shape catalog or Select shape dialog box, you can now see a preview of the selected shape in the upper right corner of the dialog box.

In the preview, you can zoom in and out by scrolling with the mouse wheel, rotate the shape using the left mouse button, pan using the middle mouse button, and adjust the viewing angle using the right mouse button. When you do these, the mouse pointer changes accordingly. For example:

, , or

The preview is available for shapes that have less than 64 000 vertexes in their 3D geometry. If the preview cannot be shown, an error image appears instead.

You can move and copy groups and sub-groups of shapes in the Shape catalog dialog box.

These improvements were introduced in Tekla Structures 2021 SP3 and SP5. See also 2021 SP5: New features, improvements, and important fixes for details.