Improved drawing automation - Better cloning and update of views and dimensions
Tekla Structures 2025 provides improvements in drawing cloning and updates particularly in respect to placing the dimensions and drawing views.
- The view placement logic has been improved to prevent the view overlapping, misalignment, and the placing of views outside the drawing frame. The views in the drawings are now placed similarly to how they were placed in the template drawings. Also, the relative location of the section views is now respected. Earlier, there were a lot of view overlapping issues and cases where views were placed outside the drawing sheet, resulting in extra work to clean up the drawings.
- The dimension placement logic and the mechanism to avoid dimension overlapping with other texts have been improved, and now the dimensions in the cloned drawings are placed similarly to how they were placed in the template drawings. The bolt object dimensioning logic at drawing update has also been improved. Earlier, the dimensions were not always placed in cloned drawings according to the original placement pattern used in the template drawing, which caused extra work when dimensions had to be moved to appropriate locations.
Due to the improvements in the drawing cloning and updates, the following Tekla Structures features now work more reliably and with better results:
- Smart create in fabrication drawing creation
- Cloning through Document manager
- Generic drawing update behavior caused by changes in the model
Examples of improvements
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Example 1a: Before
The dimension order is incorrect with irregular distances between dimension lines.
Example 1b: After
The dimension order is correct with regular intervals between dimension lines.
Example 2a: Before
Main views and section views are overlapping.
Example 2b: After
Views are aligned and placed without overlapping.
Example 3a: Before
The dimension order is incorrect with irregular intervals between dimension lines.
Example 3b: After
The dimension order is correct with regular intervals between dimension lines.
Example 4a: Before
The dimension order is incorrect, and some marks overlap with other objects.
Example 4b: After
The dimension order is correct, and marks are placed without overlapping.
Other improvements in cloning and updates
- Knock-off dimensions are now preserved better in cloning.
- Handling radial dimensions in drawing update and drawing cloning has been improved.
- Earlier, in cloned drawing views, manually created dimensions for rebar objects or embeds could be non-associative in certain cases. This issue has now been fixed.
- In cloning, the detail views are no longer associated to objects that do not exist in the view.