Drawing improvements

Tekla Structures
2022
Tekla Structures

Drawing improvements

Tekla Structures 2022 introduces new functionality, improvements and changes in rendering, snapping, zooming, handling view frames, accessing property dialog boxes, hatches, dimensioning, Document manager, 2D Library, rebar pull-outs and marking, layout names, handling non-solid lines, and handling fonts.

New FOG drawing rendering engine

With the new FOG drawing rendering engine the overall rendering is faster, which can be seen when you pan or zoom, for example. To activate the FOG rendering, set the new, user-specific XS_DRAWING_RENDERING_ENGINE advanced option to FOG in the Drawing views category of the Advanced options dialog box. To use the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) rendering, set this advanced option to GDI. GDI is the default value.

Note that setting the XS_USE_SMART_PAN advanced option to TRUE is useful for the Windows GDI only and has no effect on FOG rendering.

Snapping improvements

  • The color of the snap reference lines in the drawing mode is now light blue, the same as in the modeling mode. Earlier, it was dark blue.

    Also snap symbols are now more clear in the drawing mode.

    New snap reference line color and snap symbol:

    Old snap reference line color and snap symbol:

  • When you add level marks in a drawing, snapping now works according to the selected snap switch. This improvement was already introduced in Tekla Structures 2021 SP6.

For details about snapping in drawings, see Snapping in drawings.

Better handling of non-solid lines in drawings

Overlapping cut and non-solid (dashed, dash-and-dot) lines are now removed automatically in drawings. Earlier, cut and non-solid lines sometimes became misaligned and looked like solid lines in drawings. Because of this, hidden objects were sometimes presented as not hidden, causing serious issues, especially in concrete drawings.

Note that cut lines that have been manually added in drawings are not removed automatically.

The removal of overlapping cut or non-solid lines is controlled by the XS_ENABLE_OVERLAPPING_CUT_LINE_REMOVAL advanced option. It is by default set to TRUE, and the overlapping cut and non-solid (dashed, dash-and-dot) lines are removed.

Before the fix:

After the fix:

Show or hide drawing view frames

A new user-specific advanced option, XS_VIEW_FRAMES_VISIBLE, has been added in the Drawing views category of the Advanced options dialog box:

  • When you set this advanced option to FALSE, the drawing view frames are hidden until you move the mouse pointer over the view. This is the default value.
  • When you set this advanced option to TRUE, the drawing view frames are visible all the time.
  • In Tekla Structures versions 2019 and earlier, the drawing view frames were always visible. In Tekla Structures 2019i, the drawing view frames were hidden and only displayed when the mouse pointer was over the view frame.

Property dialog boxes available through Quick Launch

You can now open property dialog boxes for drawing objects, such as parts, reinforcement, surface treatment, and grids, through Quick Launch. Type properties in the Quick Launch box in the drawing mode, and Tekla Structures lists all the property dialog boxes that are available for opening.

Improvements in drawing hatches

The new hatching algorithm correctly handles a much wider range of complex geometries, such as self-intersecting polygons, collinear polygon edges, touching polygon vertex/edge cases and many others.

For details about drawing hatches, see Define hatches in drawings.

Dimensioning improvements

  • Reading dimensioning rule files from relative folders using the advanced options XS_FIRM and XS_PROJECT is now possible. For example, XS_FIRM=".\ts" can be used to read files from the 'ts' folder inside the model folder.

  • Drawing dimensioning performance has been significantly improved when you use the Filter dimensions method to dimension reinforcement.

  • Items can now be dimensioned to the first reference point (insertion point). The Dimensioning rule properties dialog box has a new setting, Items, for controlling how items are dimensioned. The options are:

    By reference point: Places the dimensioning point to the first insertion point of the item.

    As secondary objects: Creates item dimensions similarly as parts are dimensioned. This is the default value.

  • Dimensioning of items that have other material than concrete has been simplified to be based on the extrema box of the item. Previously, accurate item geometry was used, which had a huge impact on the performance when complex items were used.

  • In the Dimensioning rule properties dialog box, the label Start point has been changed to Direction, which better represents the meaning from which side the dimension is constructed.

For details about dimensioning, see Add automatic view-level dimensions.

Document manager improvements

Document manager UDA search

Document manager now searches for DocumentManagerUDAs*.txt files recursively in extension folders and subfolders in addition to the previously available search locations.

The DocumentManagerUDAs*.txt files define the drawing UDAs that are shown in the Document manager columns.

This improvement was already introduced in Tekla Structures 2021 SP1.

Improvement in Select all

The behavior of the Select all command has been changed. Previously, if the number of the currently selected documents was less than the total number of displayed documents, all documents were selected, but if all were already selected, then everything was unselected. This meant that if a single item was visible and the user right-clicked it (at which point it became selected) and then selected Select all from the context menu, the document was actually deselected. That made it impossible for macros to reliably select single items in the document list. This behavior has been changed so that now all visible items are always selected and the toggling behavior is disabled.

For details about Document manager, see Document manager.

Drawing 2D Library improvements

Support for grids added

Drawing 2D Library now supports grids in details. To include the grids in the selection when you create details, click the Options button and select the new Include grids option.

Support for polygons and polylines with alternating bulges added

Drawing 2D Library now supports polygons and polylines with alternating bulges. Previously, when you created a detail from a polygon or polyline, the main bulge value was set to all the sections in the detail.

New placement logic in placing details from the drawing 2D library

  • Default scales of new details: Details that are created in a view will have the default scale of the view it is created in. When the detail is placed outside the view, new views will be created having the default scale or the new defined scale, and a detail without a view will be scaled with the set scale in relation to the main 1:1 drawing paper.

  • Default scales of new DWG/DXF details: Newly added DWG and DXF details need to be created as 1:1. When another scale is defined, this will be the default scale for the model. The .dde files related to the detail can be moved to the firm or project folders to have their scale set for all models.

For details about 2D Library, see 2D Library in drawings.

Limitation in drawing layout file names

Drawing layout (.lay) files whose names are longer than 63 characters are no longer displayed in the Layout list in drawing properties, because Tekla Structures does not allow the use of layout files with names over 63 characters.

For details about drawing layouts, see Define drawing layout.

Log warning about replacing a font

There is a new log warning if the requested font in drawings cannot be found, and another font is used instead.

Rebar pull-out picture and marking improvements

  • New Scale setting: You can now define the pull-out picture scale on the Rebar tab. In Type, select Auto or Custom. If you selected Custom, type the needed Scale value.

  • Rebar pull-out picture and marking now supports unit, precision, and format editing for all float type template attributes. The attribute needs to be specified in the contentattributes.lst files.

  • Rebar pull-out picture and marking now supports rebar strands.

  • Tapered lengths have been improved so that lengths are considered over the bars inside the tapered group.

  • Rebar pull-out picture and marking now uses tapered values in pull-out dimensions.

For details about Rebar pull-out picture and marking, see Draw rebar pull-out pictures with Rebar pull-out picture and marking application.

Improvements in Rebar group marking

A new setting, Center position number to line, has been added to the Mark 3 tab to center the rebar position number to the end line. This setting will automatically place the position number as the first element in the list and align this element with the leader line.

For details about Rebar group marking, see Add reinforcement marks with Rebar group marking application.

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