Tekla Import

[mitch.cornelius]

I'd like to get some insight into everyone's practices with Tekla. I'm working with a steel detailer who has created a very comprehensive structural model. I'd like to import this into Navisworks but there doesn't seem to be a great way of going about it.

I was initially sent .dwg files exported from Tekla but they lost all of their intelligent information in the conversion process. He is working on sending a .ifc file but the project is so large his machine is having trouble handling the process. Breaking the structure up is almost too time consuming. I've never used Tekla; is there a way to export directly to .nwc?

Any input or advice would be appreciated.

[TroyGates]

I am wondering the same thing. We are just now moving into Navisworks and it seems there isn't an importer for Tekla models. Anyone have any best practices for importing a Tekla model into Navisworks 2009? Thanks

[thomas183523]

Tekla uses a CSG core so you could try SETP (or IGES). You could also talk to the Tekla ppl to make sure attribeutes are correctly exported to DWG objects, but IFC is probably the best choice for getting all meta-data through.

[Sean Doolan]

You may want to look at Solibri's free Ifc optimizer here:

http://www.solibri.com/solibri-ifc-optimizer.html

In my experimentation with Tekla and Navisworks, Ifc was the only file format that was able to get extended and custom attributes into Navisworks. You must set up a custom mapping file for Tekla to know which attributes/properties you want to map into the Ifc file. I had to contact Tekla to get more information on how to do this and it's been several months now and I can't remember the exact process, but I remember that it did work and I could search and filter by these attribute values once I got them all into Navisworks using Ifc export from Tekla + custom attribute mapping file. Hope this helps.