Overview

The Tekla Structural Designer Support Team occasionally see models with geometry issues such as entities that are very close to - but not quite - co-planar. These small inconsistencies can cause issues with many operations, such as load decomposition and analysis, and should be avoided. Such issues rarely result from modeling directly in Tekla Structural Designer, but may more commonly occur for import of models with geometry issues from other applications.

Planarize can assist in resolving these inconsistencies by allowing you to move nodes of not-quite co-planar entities into the ‘correct’ target plane, as selected by you.

To run Planarize

Right-click on the slope, frame, or grid line that you want to move nodes into, and then select the Planarize option from the context menu.

This displays the Planarize properties, identifies the target plane into which nodes can be moved, and color codes entities according to their location with respect to the target plane.

Planarize properties


Item	Usage
Tolerance	Define the tolerance (default 25mm) for entity nodes to be considered near enough to the target plane to be able to be moved into it. As the tolerance is increased, more nodes become available for moving into the plane.
Attached to plane	Display or hide entities that are attached to the target plane. When this option is selected, any entities attached to the target plane are shown as ghosted.
Defined in plane	Display or hide entities already defined in the target plane. When this option is selected, any entities already in, and associated with the target plane are shown in gray.
Limit to Grid Extent	By default this option is selected which restricts the length of the target plane to the extent of the grid line. This means that only those entities adjacent to the grid line defining the target plane are considered. If this option is unselected, the target plane is projected to the model extents so that all entities within the tolerance are considered. For further details, see Limit to Grid Extent.
Target Plane	The plane into which nodes will be moved.

Color coding of entities in relation to the target plane

In the 3D scene view, different legend colors are used to distinguish between entities close to, aligned with, and already defined in the target plane.

The figure in brackets after each legend band indicates the number of entity nodes within the band (not the number of entities).


Legend band	Description	Color
Defined in plane	An entity associated with the target plane, with all its nodes already in the target plane.	Gray
Aligned with plane (in other plane)	An entity associated with another plane, but with all its nodes already in the target plane.	Dark green
Aligned with plane (not in any plane)	An entity that is not associated with any plane, but with all its nodes already in the target plane.	Light green
<value>	Entities with any nodes less than the stated <value> away from the target plane are indicated in the specified color. (The color being determined by the distance to the furthest adjacent node.) The maximum <value> cannot exceed the tolerance specified for the target plane. The adjacent nodes are the nodes that can be moved into the plane.	(varies)

Adjacent nodes

When you select entities close to the target plane, their adjacent nodes (i.e. not quite co-planar nodes) move into the target plane.

The entities then change color to indicate their adjacent nodes have moved and that they are now either aligned with, or defined in the plane.

Adjacent nodes are categorized as described in the figure below.

A grid line (1) defines the target plane (2) around which an adjacent zone (3) is formed.

The zone width (4) = 2 x Tolerance

The zone length (5) defaults to the length of grid line, (although this can be increased to the model extents by unselecting Limit to Grid Extent).

Nodes that lie inside the zone are categorized as adjacent nodes (6). Those outside the zone are non-adjacent (7).

When the beam and column shown in the above figure are planarized, only the adjacent nodes move into the target plane, the non-adjacent nodes do not move.

While not illustated here, when the target plane is defined by a slope the adjacent nodes are categorized in a similar way.

Move nodes into the plane of a grid line

To do this, run Planarize from a 2D or 3D scene view as follows:

Hover the cursor over the target grid line to highlight it.
Right click and select Planarize FRM <grid ref>.

Different colors and a legend are used to identify entities defined in, attached to, and near to the target plane.
In the Properties window set the Tolerance as required.

Note: Tolerance should typically be kept small to allow the correction of small mis-alignment errors only.
Hover the cursor over a color coded entity to display its tooltip.

The tooltip lists the entity nodes (#1, #2 etc.) within the tolerance and shows their distance from the target plane.
Select the entity to move the entity nodes listed in the tooltip into the target plane.

Only the nodes indicated in the tooltip are moved from their current location into the target plane, other nodes connected to the entity but outside the tolerance are not moved.

Note: If moving the nodes results in an entity being defined in the target plane, a new frame will be automatically created for the target plane if it didn't already exist.

A typical use case for grid line or frame planarization is given in this Planarize Frame Example.

Move nodes into the plane of a frame

To do this, run Planarize from the Project Workspace as follows:

Expand the Frames branch In the Structure tree.
Right click on the required frame and select Planarize <frame ref>

Different colors and a legend are used to identify entities according to whether they are defined in, aligned with, attached to, or near to the target plane.
In the Properties window, set the Tolerance as required.

Note: Tolerance should typically be kept small to allow the correction of small mis-alignment errors only.
Hover the cursor over a color coded entity to display its tooltip.

The tooltip lists the entity nodes (#1, #2 etc.) within the tolerance and shows their distance from the target plane.
Select the entity to move the entity nodes listed in the tooltip into the target plane.

Only the nodes indicated in the tooltip are moved from their current location into the target plane, other nodes connected to the entity but outside the tolerance are not moved.

A typical use case for grid line or frame planarization is given in this Planarize Frame Example.

Move nodes into the plane of a slope

To do this, run Planarize from the Project Workspace as follows:

Expand the Slopes branch In the Structure tree.
Right click on the required frame and select Planarize <slope ref>

Different colors and a legend are used to identify entities according to whether they are defined in, aligned with, attached to, or near to (within the tolerance of) the target plane.

Note: You may need to increase the Tolerance in the Properties window if members near to the target plane are not initially shown.
Hover the cursor over a color coded entity to display its tooltip.

For aligned entities in another plane, the tooltip indicates their current plane.

For entities near to the target plane, the tooltip indicates their current plane. The entity nodes (#1, #2 etc.) within the tolerance are also listed and their distance from the target plane is shown.
Select an entity near to the target plane to move the entity nodes listed in the tooltip into the target plane.

The nodes indicated in the tooltip are moved from their current location into the target plane. If there are any other nodes connected to the entity but outside the tolerance they are not moved. If all the entity nodes are now in the target plane its color changes to indicate it is 'Defined in plane'.
Continue selecting other entities to move into the target plane as required.
Note:
When a frame is planarized, if an entity changes its categorization from being either near to, or 'Aligned with' a plane to 'Defined in plane' the entity's local axes are unaffected. However this does not apply when a slope is planarized. In this case, when an entity changes from 'being either near to, or 'Aligned with' a plane to 'Defined in plane' its local y axis rotates to lie in the plane of the slope.

Beam aligned with sloped plane Beam defined in sloped plane

A typical use case for slope planarization is given in this Planarize Slope Example.