Updated for V21

BricsCAD BIM
Training
Contents*
Introduction to BIM ...................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 5
Interface, viewing, and navigation...................................................................................................... 6
Modeling ................................................................................................................................. 18
Components ............................................................................................................................. 28
Adding BIM data ........................................................................................................................ 38
Drawing documentation basic ........................................................................................................ 45
Collaboration ............................................................................................................................ 52
Increasing LOD .......................................................................................................................... 55
Structural modeling .................................................................................................................... 60
3D constraints and parameters ....................................................................................................... 73
Drawing documentation advanced .................................................................................................. 82
Point clouds ............................................................................................................................. 98


This document can be used by Bricsys Partners to create their own localized BIM training. Bricsys only requests to receive the localized content
when finalized.
1
Introduction to BIM

What is Building Information Modeling (BIM)?

BIM is an acronym for Building Information Modeling or Building Information Model. It is a virtual, digital representation of your building. As you
make design choices and add information to a BIM, the level of development (LOD) of the BIM increases. And as LOD increases, the BIM becomes a
progressively richer source of design data. A BIM represents the concept of a single source of truth about a building project.

BIM as a central library

In BIM, a line isn’t just a line. The entire model is built from construction elements that refer to reality. In that sense, a wall ‘knows’ it is composed of
different layers with different physical properties and a window ‘knows’ it can only be placed inside a wall. This results in the fact that BIM can also
perform energy analysis for example and that the construction joints can be modelled with the correct details. You do not necessarily need to input
more in a BIM model than in a CAD model, but the output is so much smarter and more complete.

During a BIM process, a central model is built. All info is extracted from this model such as 2D drawings (plans, sections, elevations – for all design
stages, details, type plans, …), 3D information (renderings, IFC-files, 3D-detailsections, …) and schedules (preliminary quantity take-offs, …).

Why Building Information Modeling (BIM)?

The business case for making the move to Building Information Modeling continues to grow. The potential for a better end-to-end design
workflow is driven by the concept of a BIM as a ‘single source of truth’ in building design. Principals love the marketing power of BIM, citing
the strong competitive advantage they get from it. This is especially true when firms solicit business from new clients.
- Business Value of BIM report, McGraw-Hill Publishing 2017

The business benefits of BIM are clear and well-founded. Better document coordination with reduced potential for design errors can lead to savings
of money and time in all phases of a building’s lifecycle. The authors of the McGraw-Hill report state that building owners also see the long-term
value of BIM. They appreciate the fact that more accurate as-built documentation facilitates, and simplifies, maintenance and remodeling projects.

2
Regular CAD vs BIM

But what is the advantage of BIM? Well, as opposed to the regular CAD process, all involved parties can start together from the very beginning. The
BIM process makes sure that files no longer need to be sent separately to all parties once they are almost finished, to then being sent back with a
ton of corrections that again need to be sent for feedback to another party, etc. No, with BIM this is history because BIM makes sure that all involved
people can work together on one big model, being adapted in real-time. A model that stores all the latest information regarding costs, execution,
fire safety and so much more.

Why choose BricsCAD® BIM?

Because traditional BIM is not enough. At Bricsys, we’ve compared 2D drafting-based design workflows to 3D BIM based design concepts. And it’s
clear that Building Information Modeling workflows offer a better choice than 2D drafting-based design workflows. But traditional BIM systems
don’t always offer an ideal workflow. Part of this is because of legacy, and part because of the way that these traditional systems were designed.
Regardless, we are here to offer you a unique BIM workflow; one that delivers on the promise of BIM, and more.

The Bricsys BIM story starts with DWG

Unlike making a move from 2D to traditional 3D BIM, Bricsys can offer you an incremental change in your existing workflow. How? First, we offer a
familiar environment: one that current users of DWG-based CAD products already know and appreciate. We declare that users of DWG-based CAD
software have 80% of the knowledge that they need to use BricsCAD BIM in an effective way.

The commands and procedures that you already know from 2D CAD work seamlessly in BricsCAD, and therefore inside of BricsCAD BIM. Finally,
using tools that are familiar lets you work smart - with a safety net.
It’s about approaching the move to BIM at your speed, and on
your schedule. Another benefit? Your huge collection of existing
models and drawings can be re-used directly. Working in DWG
also offers a unique ability to divide your BIM model into smaller
pieces. XREFs are familiar, and they are BIM-ready. The workflows
are very well known and supported by the majority of file storage
and management applications. XREFs are supported across the
entire BIM workflow in BricsCAD BIM. This is important because
your BIM models can be split into smaller, light-weight models /
components. The spatial relationships between the XREFs are
managed automatically in the database that underlies the
BricsCAD BIM workflow. Bricsys is a founding member of the Open
Design Alliance – the industry recognized second source for DWG
compatibility. We are one of the largest contributors to the
consortium. This helps ensure the highest compatibility with the
DWG file format, now and into the future.

3
One product, one platform

BricsCAD BIM enables full, CAD-accurate 3D modeling from the very start. We offer simple and accurate modeling tools that separate the process of
geometric modeling from BIM data. It means that you can begin with a CAD-accurate massing model, where any geometry can be classified as any
BIM type. You are not restricted by libraries of parts, where you need to know in advance what you want to model. Your model can remain light and
responsive because it’s not over constrained. There is a direct link to Rhino / Grasshopper from McNeel & Associates to deliver algorithmic design
capabilities to ensure that your greatest ideas can be realized in the BricsCAD BIM workflow.

More than this, BricsCAD BIM offers a single product / platform for BIM and mechanical design. This opens the possibility to use mechanical
assemblies in a BIM model, or to design detailed manufactured building components directly in BricsCAD BIM. Think about the sheer number of
products in a building that are manufactured. The ability to go from conceptual design of a building element to fully detailed manufacturing
drawings is a dream in other BIM systems, but it’s a feature of BricsCAD BIM. And the mechanical design tools in BricsCAD Mechanical run side-by-
side with BricsCAD BIM, in one product, on one platform.

The power of machine learning/ A.I.

The freedom to model without limitations, creating geometry without regard for entity type is a hallmark of the BricsCAD BIM workflow. But a real
BIM requires strict entity classification. Here’s where the power of machine learning shines in the BricsCAD BIM approach. When your concept
design is complete, you can automatically classify BIM geometry with our BIMIFY machine learning / A.I. workflow. BIMIFY examines each
component in the model and automatically assigns it an IFC entity classification. This functionality can save hours of work in building a BIM. The
massing model becomes the BIM, it’s just that simple. And since BricsCAD BIM stores geometric data in industry-standard DWG files, BIMIFY works
across multiple external references (XREFs). This workflow is well known in the industry, by engineers, architects, and designers alike.

BIMify is not the only of the use of A.I. in our 3D BIM workflow. Our PROPAGATE workflow allows you to speed the increase in a consistent level of
development across your entire BIM, automatically. For example, you can adjust a composition ply at a ceiling / wall juncture and automatically
propagate the change across the entire model. With the PROPAGATE tool, the user always has full control over changes made versus changes
deferred – and the option to accept or reject changes is noted graphically, directly on the BIM model.

BIMIFY: PROPOGATE:
turn your design concept Model once, use many times
into a full BIM with one click

Detailing

Why is model accuracy important? As we’ve stated earlier, one of the most powerful benefits of a BIM workflow is automated generation of drawing
views for the creation of construction documentation. BricsCAD BIM ensures CAD-accurate drawings, driven by the BIM model, and detailed in the
industry’s best drafting workflow – again, all in one product. And when the BIM model changes, all associated drawing views are automatically
regenerated to ensure that documentation stays in sync with the model. In BricsCAD BIM, drawing view generation is threaded across multiple cores
of your PC’s CPU, to let you keep working as the drawings are updating.

To find out more, visit: www.bricsys.com/bim/

4
Introduction
1. The step-by-step instructions also have figures included to provide additional context for select steps

2. Modules have “starter .dwg files” that should be used

3. The text in “bold blue” indicates BricsCAD BIM commands

4. The text in “bold black” is inserted and/or selected values

5. The exercises are in metric units (mm)

Before beginning, make sure the following settings are enabled:

- In the Status Bar (bottom right of your screen): ESNAP, STRACK, DUCS, DYN, QUAD, RT

- In the Command Line: DMEXTRUDEMODE = 3, BIMOSMODE = 1, QUADDISPLAY = 5, (optional - for better on-screen rendering)
ANTIALIASSCREEN = 2

5
Interface, viewing, and navigation

This module explains BricsCAD BIM V20 interface, shows how to show and hide (selected) entities, makes
sections and how to navigate in 3D.

1 Interface

1.1 BricsCAD Launcher

When starting BricsCAD, the Launcher dialog appears.

Here you can select your workspace. Since our training
is for BIM we will select the BIM workspace.

1.2 Getting Started

In the welcome window, you have 3 main sections (1)

HOME, (2) LEARN and (3) APPLICATIONS.

1. From the HOME tab, you can create a new

drawing, choose your units, open a drawing or
access your most recent files.

2. From the LEARN section, you can access tutorials.

3. From the APPLICATIONS section, you can

explore third-party applications.

6
1.3 New Drawing

Before starting a New File, check that you use the BIM-
mm template. You can change it by scrolling down
through the Templates and selecting BIM-mm.

NOTE: Once the model space appears, check that the

settings are according to the one mentioned in the
introduction.

1.4 File Menu

The FILE menu can be accessed through the BricsCAD

icon, in the top left corner of the ribbon.

1.5 Dark Interface

BricsCAD is set by default to have a Dark Interface, but

this can be easily changed by right-clicking anywhere
in the ribbon or toolbar, and de-selecting Dark
Interface.

1.6 Workspaces

Switching between workspaces can be done from the

status bar. If you right-click on the tab displaying BIM,
the list of different workspaces will be displayed.

TIP: You can also access the Workspaces by right-

clicking anywhere in the ribbon or toolbar.

1.7 Access Toolbar

BricsCAD Access toolbar at the top of your screen acts

as an Express Toolbar. Here you will find the most
used tools when 3D modeling.

You can access this toolbar by right-clicking in the

ribbon, selecting toolbars, then BRICSCAD and
Access3D.

7
1.8 Ribbon Tabs

Common tools are organized in groups within tabs,

each tab corresponds to a group of functionality.

1.9 Drawing Tabs

This allows you to easily switch between different

open drawings.

1.10 Model Tab

Model Space is an area in which you create two-

dimensional and three-dimensional entities based on
either the World Coordinate System (WCS) or User
Coordinate System (UCS).

1.11 Layout Tab

The layout tab can also be referred to as paper space.

Here is a work environment that provides the model
space view at a given scale, depending on the size of
the paper.

8
1.12 Dockable panels

A set of dockable panels is shown on either side of the

screen. In the BIM workspace, by default, the Structure
browser, Project browser and BCF Panel are pinned to
the left-hand side.

On the right-hand side, you will find the Tips,

Properties, Components, Details, Compositions,
Profiles, Layers, Mechanical browser, and 24/7 Panel.
Most of these will be covered later in this document.

1.14 Commandline

In the lower field, you can type the commands and

BricsCAD shows prompt, options and other
information regarding the execution of commands
here. Press F2 to show the full command prompt in a
separate window, or Shift + F2 to show/hide the
commandline.

1.15 Status Bar

The Status Bar sits along the bottom edge of the

BricsCAD application window. It contains a lot of
information about the settings in the current drawing.

2 Viewing
If you work with many entities in a drawing, everything that you have in the drawing is visible in the view. When you want to
temporarily make only a few entities or a particular entity visible and manage them in a view, you can use the Hide or Isolate
tools.

2.1 File: Select Template: BIM mm. Then click on Open

drawing. Select file Building_M1.dwg.

2.2 Hiding Entities

The Hide tool temporarily hides the selected entities

in the view.

In this drawing, we will hide the windows from the

right building

1. Select windows

2. Quad appears, move the cursor to Select tab and

click on HIDE ENTITIES icon .

9
 All entities that have been selected are hidden in the
view.

2.3 Isolating Entities

The Isolate tool temporarily hides all entities except

those that have been selected.

In this model,

1. Select the front windows from the left building.

2. Once the quad appears, go to Select tab and click

on ISOLATE ENTITIES .

All entities that have been selected are temporarily

isolated.

10
2.4 Showing entities

The Show Entities tool brings back all hidden entities

in the view.

Let’s bring all entities back to view

1. Right-click in the model space. The quad appears

in no selection state

2. Move cursor over the General tab and click on

SHOW ENTITIES

All entities that were temporarily hidden and isolated

will be shown.

2.5 Structure Browser

The Structure Browser can also be used to hide and

isolate selected entities as well as revealing all hidden
entities in the model space.

1. Open the Structure Browser.

2. Make sure the current configuration is set to bim.

If not, click the hamburger menu on the top right
corner of the structure browser.

3. Select Wall elements. All entities under this

element will be selected.

4. Right-click and select Hide.

All the walls have been temporarily hidden.

NOTE: Make sure the settings for the structure

browser are correct by clicking on the name Bim on
top of the structure browser. You will enter a dialog
where you need to go to the Options tab. There you
need to choose the preset Select entities when
selected in tree from the dropdown.

11
12
3 Navigate in 3D
As you navigate around and through your 3D model, the location of the model in space remains constant. It’s your current
view (viewpoint) of the model that is changing.

3.1 Mouse and Keyboard Navigation

Most used navigation tools are the zoom in/out, pan

and orbit which can be easily accessed through the
mouse and keyboard.

1. Zoom in/out – roll the mouse wheel.

2. Pan – hold the mouse wheel or middle mouse

button.

3. Orbit – hold Shift key and mouse wheel.

3.2 View Ribbon Tab

Extra zoom, panning and orbit tools can be found in

the View Tab from the ribbon tool.

3.3 LookFrom Navigation Tool

The LookFrom tool is displayed in the upper right

corner of the drawing area.

Click on different places on the LookFrom tool to

display the view from standard viewpoints.

TIP: To view Bottom viewpoints hold CTRL key.

NOTE: A right-click menu offers access to additional

controls and settings. To learn more, refer to
BricsCAD Online Help.

3.4.1 BIM Sections

The DEFINE SECTION tool allows you to

create a cross-section in your BIM model and thus
view the interior details.

1. Select DEFINE SECTION from the No

Selection Quad.

13
 2. You are prompted Select a point to place
section or [Detail/Interior/Scale/Reflected
ceiling]:

Do one of the following:

a. To create a plan section, click a point

anywhere outside the model.

b. Hover the cursor over the face of a 3D solid

which is parallel to the section plane you
want to create (DUCS in the status bar
needs to be active) and left-click.

c. Optionally, hit the Shift key to lock the

highlighted plane, allowing you to start
from a point outside the selected 3D solid
face and left-click.

The initial section plane displays dynamically and

the 3D model is clipped accordingly.

3. You are prompted Specify distance:

Do one of the following:

a. Type a value in the dynamic dimension field

to offset the section from the initial
position.

b. Move the cursor until the section plane is at

the location you want it to be and left-click.

The BIM Section entity is defined

3.4.2 BIM Section types

TIP: The BIM Section tracker indicates:

1. SECTION PLANE

2. VIEW DIRECTION

NOTE: The Section Type will depend on the section

plane directions and its place in the model.

3. PLAN shows a horizontal section plane.

4. SECTION shows a vertical section that cuts

through the model.

5. ELEVATION shows the exterior elevation view.

14
3.5 Properties Panel

Extra view settings can also be found in the

Properties Panel while nothing is selected.

1. PERSPECTIVE: Reports the current value of the

PERSPECTIVE system variable;
switches perspective view mode on and off.

2. VISUAL STYLE: Reports the current visual style

and allows you to select a different one.

15
4 Selecting entities and Quad cursor
The following steps will demonstrate how to work with the Quad Cursor and highlight & select 3D model entities.

4.1 File: New, select BIM mm template. Note that the

drawing units of this file will be in millimeters.

4.2 Using the Quad

The quad is a floating toolbar that adjusts its content,

depending on what you are or are not highlighting,
and what you may have selected in the current
workspace.

We’ll start with an empty drawing.

1. Right-click in the model space. The quad appears

in no selection state.

2. Move the cursor over the Model tab.

The tool group is expanded with more tool

options.

3. Click the BOX icon from the quad.

4. Draw a simple 3D box.

5. Hover the cursor over one of the faces of the box.

The Quad displays a single icon, which is the
most recently used tool with this entity type.

6. Right-click to launch the most recently used tool

or move the cursor over the icon to further
expand the Quad.

4.3 Selection modes

Selection modes allow you to control which sub- Enable Controls whether 3D solid edges are
entities (faces, edges, and boundaries) should detection of 3D highlighted by selection preview, and can
highlight in selection preview, and can be selected. solid edges be selected.

1. Selection modes can be found in the Access

Enable Controls whether 3D solid faces are
toolbar or by typing SELECTIONMODES in the
detection of 3D highlighted by selection preview, and can
command line.
solid faces be selected.
2. Click the face and boundaries options.
Enable Controls whether closed boundaries in XY-
Select edges is inactive whereas select faces and boundary plane of the current coordinate system or
select boundaries are active on the face of 3D solids are detected.
detection

16
4.4 Highlighting vs Selecting entities Highlighted/Selected
Face

When select Edges is off, select Faces and Boundary

Detection are on (default), do one of the following:

1. Hover over the face with your mouse cursor

Highlighted Solid
The solid face is highlighted in orange. When
the face is highlighted, click this face to select it.

2. Hover over one of the faces of the solid while

holding down the CTRL key.

The solid displays in blue. When the solid is

highlighted, click the solid to select it. Selected Solid
3. Hover over the edge of the solid while holding
down the CTRL key.

The edge displays in blue. When the edge is

highlighted, click the edge to select it.

Highlighted/Selected
Edge

4.5 Selecting multiple entities with selection windows

The selection windows allow you to select one or

more than one entity at a time.

There are two types of selection windows in BricsCAD;

,
Blue selection window: It appears when creating a
window from left to right.

Green selection box: It appears when creating a box

from right to left.

1. Click and move the mouse to the right to create

a blue window around the box geometry you’ve
created before. When the box is completely
inside the window, it will be added to the
selection set

NOTE: by default, selection window only selects

entire entities (e.g. solids, lines, polylines, blocks…) but
not sub-entities (e.g. solid faces, solid)

2. Press CTRL key once during window selection to

select the faces of the 3D box.

3. Press CTRL key twice during window selection to

select edges of the 3D box.

4. Click and move the mouse to the left to create a

green window around the box geometry.

When the box overlaps the window or is completely

inside the window, it will be added to the selection
set.

To select faces or edges of the 3D box with the green

selection box, follow the same process as the blue
selection box.

17
Modeling
Creating the geometry of a model can be done in several ways. The main point to take away from this section is that no matter how you obtained the
geometry, you can still use it later to add intelligence and data, and take it further in the BIM process. That is, as long as you’re working with solids.
Some possible ways to create the geometry are:

- Starting from an existing 2D layout, either by extruding objects upwards or by using Quickdraw

- Starting from some 3D mass model and ‘sculpting’ your way to a more detailed model

- Importing geometry from another file format such as .3dm or .stp

- Using the RhinoInside plugin in BricsCAD BIM to be able to run Grasshopper scripts directly inside BricsCAD

- …

1 Importing geometry
The following steps will give an example of how to import geometry and how it can be used to enrich your BIM Model.

1.1 Open Overall.dwg.

You should see something like the image on the right.

Hovering over the objects, you should notice that the
drawing consists of three Xref’s: one for each building
volume and one for the site.

Also, note that one of the building volumes is currently

just a box. We will turn this into an actual building later
in the process.

1.2 Importing geometry

1. Click the Bricsys button next to the Home tab on

the Ribbon and click Import, or type in the
IMPORT command.

2. Select Canopy.3dm and click Open.

3. A large canopy structure should appear in between

the two buildings. This canopy consists of solids,
which means that the geometry can be used for
further manipulation and information can be
added to the geometry.

18
2 Sculpting a model
The following steps will give an example of how to turn a simple volume study into actual building geometry. You will learn
some basic modeling tools along the way.

2.1 Manipulating the basic shape of an object

1. Hover your cursor over the building that looks like

a box and in the Quad under Modify, click OPEN

XREF . Alternatively, open the Attachments

Panel , right-click East and click Open. If the

Attachments Panel is not showing in your panel
stack, right-click any empty space of the Ribbon
and under Panels, enable Attachments.

2. Now you should be able to see the box in a

separate drawing. We want to rotate some faces of
the box to create a more interesting shape. To do
this, make sure Face Detection is enabled.

3. Hover over the end face of the box so that it is

highlighted in orange, and in the Quad under the

Model tab click ROTATE .

4. A yellow widget appears that indicates the rotation

direction and axis. Move your cursor close to the
bottom edge of the face, until the widget ‘rotates’
around that edge.

5. Move your cursor to the right so that the face

rotates ‘outwards’,

type in 10 and hit Enter.

6. Do the same for the top face:

rotate it 10 degrees downward around its left

edge (see image).

7. Do the same for the opposite end face of the box:

rotate it 15 degrees outward around its bottom
edge (see image).

8. In the end, you should end up with a shape similar

to the one shown in the final image (side view).

19
2.2 Using Push/Pull

We want to use some Push/Pull to create a more

interesting shape. We want the shape to be similar to
the one of the West Building (see Overall.dwg).

1. Rotate the camera so you can see the bottom side

of the solid. We will be using the existing
rectangles as a basis for what to push/pull.

2. Make sure Boundary Detection is enabled.

3. Move your cursor on the bottom face of the solid

so that the boundary is highlighted as shown in the
image on the right.

4. Once you have this boundary selected or

highlighted, use PUSH/PULL and push

these faces inward over a distance of 5500. Thus,
you should end up with something similar as
shown in the final image.

2.3 Using Shell

Currently, our building is still just a box: if we section

through our building, we see that it is not hollow so no
spaces can be made inside.

1. In the Home tab of the Ribbon, click SECTION

. Hover the cursor over one of the side faces

until it is highlighted in orange, and left-click. You
should now be able to clip vertically through your
model. Move the cursor inward so that you’re
clipping about halfway through the model, and
left-click.

2. In the Modeling tab of the Ribbon, under Solid

Editing, click SOLIDEDIT > BODY > SHELL .

3. Select the solid and press Enter.

4. When prompted the enter the shell offset distance,

type in 300 and press Enter.

5. Hit Enter twice more to exit the solid editing

command.

2.4 Splitting the model into separate pieces

The solid is now hollow, but it still consists of 1 single

object. In general, we want to split up the model so
every object is a separate entity. Otherwise, you might
run into problems when performing commands like
Bimify or when assigning compositions. We can split up

20
the model manually using tools like Slice, but in this
case, we’ll use an automatic way to do this.

1. Remove the section plane if you haven’t done so

already.

2. Highlight the solid (not one of the faces), and in

the Quad under Model click SPLIT . This

command will try to assume how to split the model
into separate solids.

Note: this works best on simple geometry.

3. We now have 18 solids. We need to clean up a bit

after using Split, because it did not do exactly what
we wanted. As we can see on the image on the
right, the large sidewall (on either side) was also
split into two pieces.

4. Select the two walls as indicated on the image in

the top right, and in the Quad under Model click

LCONNECT . This allows you to change how

the two walls are connected.

5. Hit ctrl a few times to cycle through the different

options. Finally, press Enter when encountering
the solution as indicated on the image on the right.

6. Finally, start the UNION tool and union the

two coplanar walls together, as shown on the
image.

7. Repeat this process on the other side of the

building.

8. Highlight the side wall solid and in the Quad under

Select tab, click HIDE ENTITIES

9. Now that we can look inside, we see that the floor

slab has a hole in it where the support structure is
located, and the slab itself is split into 4 separate
pieces.

10. In the Modeling tab of the Ribbon, under Solid

Editing, click UNION and select the four

parts of the floor slab, see image.

11. To remove the hole in the slab, highlight any of the

inner faces of the hole (make sure Face Detection
is enabled), and in the Quad under Model,

click CONNECT WITH NEAREST

21
2.5 Creating some more interior walls and slabs

Let’s change the connection between the upper floor

slab and the wall highlighted in the image.

12. Select both solids as highlighted in the image, and

in the Quad under Model tab, click L-TYPE

SOLIDS CONNECTION

13. Hit the Ctrl-key a few times until the connection is

shown as in the image, i.e. with the slab butted
against the wall instead of resting on top of it.
Press Enter to accept.

14. Highlight the top face of the wall (make sure Face
Detection is enabled), and in the Quad under

Model, click CONNECT WITH NEAREST .

This should connect this wall with the roof slab, so
we now have to separate rooms inside our
building.

15. We can create some more interior floor slabs. We

can do this by simply copying the existing upper
floor slab in the Z-direction, or we could use the
BIM Copy tool

16. Highlight the top face of the upper floor slab and
in the Quad under Model tab, click BIM COPY

17. Move the cursor upward, type in 4000 and hit

Enter

18. Hit the Ctrl-key once so you go into ‘repeated

copy’ mode; move your cursor until there are in
total 3 slabs above each other. Press Enter to exit
the command.

19. Notice that the two upper floor slabs are not
connected to the slanted end wall. We can again

use CONNECT WITH NEAREST on the end

faces to solve this problem.

20. The BIM Copy tool can also be used on

boundaries; Make sure Boundary Detection is
enabled and hover the cursor over the boundary
highlighted in the image. This way you can easily
copy (parts of) walls and floor slabs around your
mode.

22
3 Starting from a 2D Layout
In this section, we’ll create a building starting from a simple 2D layout, on the one hand using Quickdraw and on the other
hand using more standard tools like Extrude.

3.1 Using Quickdraw to trace over an existing layout

1. Open Office Building.dwg.

2. Let’s start with the layout that is drawn along the

current UCS and that has simple rectangular
spaces.

3. In the Home tab of the Ribbon, click QUICKDRAW

4. A special cursor appears, indicating the locations

of the walls you will be creating.

5. Move the cursor close to one of the corners of the

layout: you will see that it snaps to the lines.
Position your cursor as shown in the image.

6. Left-click: you are now drawing the first room.

Move your cursor to the opposite (bottom right-
hand) corner of the layout and left-click again. If
you now rotate the camera, you’ll see that you
created 4 walls and a slab.

7. We can expand this room into an L-shaped room

by moving our cursor into the corner of the two
walls highlighted in the image and left-clicking.

Note that the walls you are snapping to are

highlighted in blue.

8. By moving the cursor to the right, you will see that

a part of the right-hand wall becomes red. This
means that we will be removing this part of the wall
so that the room can be expanded into an L-
shaped room.

9. Again, snap to the (other) bottom right-hand

corner and left-click. You should now have an L-
shaped room.

10. We can use these steps to trace the interior walls

as well. Note that the cursor becomes ‘thinner’ as
it snaps to these lines.

11. Continue using Quickdraw until all of the lines of

this layout have been traced over, and you have
every inner wall in place.

12. Note that Quickdraw uses default values for slab

thickness, room height etc. These default values
can be found and changed in the settings dialog.

13. Also note that this Quickdraw tool can be used in

combination with direct modeling tools. For the
sake of simplicity this section and the previous
section were split up but it is perfectly possible to
use hybrid methods.

23
3.2 Copying floors using Quickdraw

1. Note that when Quickdraw is active, a little ‘+’

icon is displayed next to the building. Clicking it
gives you three options:
- Copy an entire floor
- Copy only the outer walls of the floor
- Create a flat roof

2. Click the copy entire floor button four times so you

have a total of 5 floors.

3. Finally, click the create roof button to finish the

building envelope.

3.3 Creating stairs

Creating stairs can be done in several ways; again, direct

modeling is an option. However, it’s easier to use the
dedicated stair tool.

1. Activate a vertical section so you can see inside the

building.

2. In the Home tab of the Ribbon, click STAIR

3. A special cursor appears, similar to the Quickdraw

cursor. This time it shows the first tread and the
direction of the stair. Hit the Ctrl-key to change the
direction.

4. Note that the cursor snaps to existing slabs and

walls. This allows for easy alignment with existing
objects.

5. Move the cursor so that it snaps to the back wall

and is going ‘towards’ the left wall, as shown in the
image.

6. A live preview of the stair is shown as you move

your cursor over the slab beneath it. You can make
single-flight stairs, L-shaped stairs, and U-shaped
stairs.

7. Move your cursor along the left wall so that an L-

shaped stair is previewed;

8. Note that when the stair is created, automatically

a hole is made in the upper slab. This is based on
the HEADROOM setting. More default settings
can be found in the settings dialog under BIM →
General → Stair.

9. Select the stair and open the Properties Panel.

Under Parameters, you can find and alter its
geometric properties, such as stair width or step
thickness.

24
3.4 Starting from non-rectilinear layouts

The previous example consisted of a rectilinear layout,

aligned with the current UCS. The second example is not
so simple: the outer walls are not aligned to the current
UCS, the inner walls are not perpendicular and there is
a cylindrical wall.

Since Quickdraw only works in the current UCS, it’s not

straightforward to use this tool for this particular
situation.

1. Make sure Boundary Detection is enabled

and move your cursor inside the two lines of the
outer walls. The boundary should be highlighted in
green.

2. In the Quad under Model tab, click SOLID

EXTRUDE .

3. Move your cursor upward, enter a value of 3000

and press Enter.

4. Let’s also PUSH/PULL the bottom face of

the walls down over a distance of 250 mm so we
can easily create a floor slab.

5. Now we can use the boundary between the lower

edge of one of the walls and the layout lines to

SOLID EXTRUDE the floor slab. You may

need to construct part of the floor slab first and

then use CONNECT WITH NEAREST so it

connects properly with the cylindrical wall (see
third image).

6. Currently the outer walls are all constructed as 1

solid; use SPLIT to split it up into separate

pieces.

7. Notice that the walls were split up into three parts

instead of five; the cylindrical wall was not taken
into account when splitting. We can still split this
up manually.

8. Highlight the solid of the wall (see fourth image)

and in the Quad under Model tab, click

MULTISLICE (careful: this icon look very

similar to Slice by Object, which is less
straightforward to use in this case).

9. Multislice asks for a slicing plane: choose the face

of the wall perpendicular to this part of the wall (in
the image: the wall in the bottom left-hand corner).
A blue slicing plane should appear that indicated
where you will slice the selected object.

10. Snap to the point where the straight wall and the
curved wall come together, and left-click. Hit
Enter to exit Multislice.

11. Do the same in the perpendicular direction for the

other segment of the wall.

25
 12. In total we should now have 5 walls: four straight
walls and one cylindrical.

13. Make sure Boundary Detection is enabled

and move your cursor inside the two lines of the
interior walls. The boundary should be highlighted
in green.

14. In the Quad under Model tab, click SOLID

EXTRUDE .

15. Move your cursor upward, enter a value of 3000

and press Enter.

16. Now use SPLIT on these interior walls to

split them into separate solids.

17. Now we can simply copy this floor up using COPY

or using the Manipulator.

4 Starting from a mass model

In this section, we’ll use an existing mass model and turn this into a building with walls & slabs in a semi-automatic way.

4.1 Quickbuilding on imported geometry

18. Open a new drawing starting from the BIM-

mm.dwt template. This can be done by going to
the Bricsys button next to the Home tab on the
Ribbon and clicking New Wizard, or by typing in
NEWWIZ in the command line.

19. Click the Bricsys button next to the Home tab on

the Ribbon and click Import, or type in the
IMPORT command.

20. Select mass_blocks.3dm. If you don’t see the

model, use the LookFrom widget at the top right
of the modeling area to zoom out.

21. This geometry was imported as a single solid,

representing the mass model of a building. We can
turn this into an actual building using
Quickbuilding.

22. Highlight the solid and in the Quad under BIM,

click QUICKBUILDING

23. Enter a desired story height of 3000 mm and press

Enter.

24. Note that a new drawing is created in a temporary

location – Quickbuilding did not alter your original
mass model. To make sure you don’t lose your
work, save this drawing to another location.

25. Quickbuilding has created walls, slabs and roofs, as

well as spatial elements in for form of an
enveloping building, stories and spaces.

26
4.2 Quickbuilding on lofted geometry

Quickbuilding also works on more complex geometry,

such as lofted or twisted objects. It generally takes a bit
more time to generate the required geometry – the
more complex the mass is, the more difficulties
Quickbuilding will have.

26. Open mass_lofted.dwg

27. Highlight the solid and use Quickbuilding on it.

28. Enter a story height of e.g. 4000 mm and press

Enter. This might take a minute.

27
Components

You will learn to use the Library Panel, insert objects into your model, create a simple non-parametric window
and create windows and curtain walls on the fly.

1 Inserting components

1.1 Using the Library Panel

1. Open East.dwg in the Components folder.

2. On the right-hand side of your screen, open the

Library Panel . It should contain several

categories such as Windows and Doors. If it does
not, click the little menu icon in the top right corner
and enable Bricsys BIM Library.

3. Note: aside from the BIM components also the so-

called Bricsys Mechanical Library is delivered with
the product. This library contains components used
in mechanical design, such as standard parts and
sheet metal features.

4. The BIM Library and Mechanical Library are saved

under C:\Program Files\Bricsys\BricsCAD V20
en_US\UserDataCache\Support\en_US.

5. On Windows, when creating custom components

these will be saved under C:\ProgramData\Bricsys\
Support\Bim\Components, or whichever path is
specified in the COMPONENTSPATH variable which
can be found in the settings dialog.

For Mac open the Finder, go to the Go tab and click

on ‘Go to folder…’ and type in
var/Bricsys/Components.

6. Left-clicking a category will open it. Left-clicking a

component will allow you to insert it.

7. Note: when inserting a component the command

BMINSERT is launched. Thus, if you want to insert
a component that is not in your library, you can
always manually call BMINSERT or click the Insert

Component icon on the ribbon or Quad.

1.2 Inserting a window

Let’s insert a library window into one of the walls.

1. Make sure the Dynamic UCS (DUCS) and Dynamic

Input (DYN) are enabled. This can be toggled on in
the status bar, at the bottom right of your screen.

2. In the library panel, browse to the Windows

category

3. Left-click the Window 1x1 component

28
 4. Automatically the properties panel is opened and
the properties of the window are shown. Here you
can change its geometric parameters such as Width,
Height or GlazingDepth. Change the Width and
Height both to 10000 mm.

5. Move your cursor over the back wall of the building.

The outline of the window is displayed, and dynamic
inputs are displayed indicating the distances to the
edges of the wall.

6. Enter a value in the dynamic dimension field that is

highlighted (e.g. 1700), and press Tab to jump to
the next dimension. The one you entered is now
locked and displayed in red. Using this technique
you can accurately position the window in the wall.

7. While still placing the window, press Ctrl once. Now

the dynamic input fields change from ‘positioning’
to ‘dimensions’: you can now still edit the width and
height of the window while placing it. Again you can
press Tab to toggle between width and height.

8. To go back to ‘positioning’ dynamic inputs, press

Ctrl again.

9. To finally place the window, press Enter or left-

click.

10. Note: If you highlight this window and in the Quad

under Model tab click BIMINSERT you will be

able to copy this exact window (including its new
parameter values) over to other locations in your
drawing.

1.3 Editing an existing window

1. Select the window that you just inserted.

2. Open the Properties Panel

3. Here you can find several properties of the window,

such as for example IFC Common properties. Also
the geometric parameters that you saw before are
visible here.

4. Change some of the parameter values and see what

happens to the model.

29
1.4 Inserting other types of components

These same steps apply for inserting other types of

components as well, for example furnishing elements.

1. Activate the vertical section plane so you clip

through the building

2. Try inserting some furniture into the drawing using

these same steps.

3. Insert a door in one of the interior walls of the

building.

4. Note that the door displays a swing line. If you want

the door to have a different orientation, highlight it
and in the Quad under Model tab, click either of the

BIMFLIP icons:

1.5 Customizing a library object

If you want to alter an object beyond its geometric

parameters (e.g. add extra geometry, change the
materials…) you can use the following steps.

1. Insert the object you wish to alter in your drawing

2. Hover your cursor over the component and in the

Quad under Model tab click OPEN COPY

3. Make the modifications you want

4. In the Library Panel, click the blue Plus icon at the

bottom. See also next section for a more detailed
explanation on making custom components.

30
2 Creating a custom component
In this section we will create a custom window component. Note that this window will not be parametric; this is a more
advanced topic that will be covered later.

2.1 File: New Wizard, choose Start from Template and

click Next, choose BIM-Window-metric.dwt. Uncheck
the box that says ‘Use the selected template as default’
and click Finish.

This template already contains some predefined layers

such as BC_SUBTRACT or WINDOW_FRAME.

2.2 Change current layer to ‘BC_SUBTRACT’. Layers can be

found in the Layers panel on the right-hand side .

2.3 Let’s create the Subtractor Solid. This is the volume

that will be cut away from the wall in which the
window is inserted:

1. Select BOX icon or type BOX in the command

line.

2. To start, type 0,0,0 and enter.

3. Move cursor towards upper right (i.e. first quadrant

of the XY-plane). Type 1500 in highlighted cell, and
press Tab.

4. Type 700 in highlighted cell, and press Enter.

5. Move cursor downward (negative Z-direction).

6. Type 600 in highlighted cell, and press Enter. The

depth of this solid doesn’t matter much, as long as
it’s thicker than the walls you will be inserting it in.

31
2.4 Create a window frame

1. Change current layer to ‘WINDOW_FRAME’.

2. Highlight top surface boundary of box.

3. Quad select OFFSET in the Draw tab.

4. Move cursor towards center.

5. Enter 40 + enter (polyline created).

6. Zoom in so cursor is fully within 40 mm boundary,

so boundary is highlighted (see figure).

7. Quad select SOLID EXTRUDE .

8. Move cursor downward, and press Ctrl once so you

enter ‘Create mode’ instead of ‘Auto mode’, which in
this case will subtract. Input 100 and press Enter.

2.5 Turn off ‘BC_SUBTRACT’ layer by clicking the

lightbulb next to the layer nameand make ‘GLASS’
layer current.

2.6 Create window glazing

1. Highlight boundary inside window.

2. Quad select SOLID EXTRUDE .

3. Move cursor upward.

4. Input 25 + enter.

2.7 Move window glazing

1. Select the window glazing solid. While doing so,

hold down the left mouse button slightly longer.
This should make the Manipulator appear, a yellow
cursor that allows you to easily move, rotate, copy
and mirror entities.

2. Click the vertical bar of the Manipulator as shown in

the image. This should make sure you move the
object vertically upwards or downwards.

3. Move your cursor down, enter 75 and press Enter.

32
2.8 Classify as Window

1. Currently, this drawing is just a bunch of solids. We

can classify the drawing as a Window so that upon
insertion in another drawing, a Window object is
inserted instead of just a ‘dumb’ block reference.

2. Make sure you have nothing selected by pressing

Esc.

3. Launch the BIMCLASSIFY command.

4. Enter ‘I’ for wIndow and press Enter.

5. Press Enter again to classify the entire drawing.

6. If you now open the Properties Panel on the

right-hand side of your screen, you will see a new
tab with BIM properties. The properties you fill in
here will also be displayed after inserting this
window into another drawing.

2.9 Creating the component

1. Open the Library Panel .

2. Browse to the folder where you want to save this

component (Windows in this case).

3. Click the blue Plus icon at the bottom of this panel.

4. A dialog box displays.

5. Tick the Entire Drawing option

6. Enter a name in the Name field, e.g. Custom Window

7. The category and folder where it will be created

should already be filled in correctly.

8. Click the Create button

9. Note: If the window is not displayed in the Library

Panel click the right-hand side menu button and
select the Generate thumbnail option in the fly-out
menu.

10. Now this window can be inserted into walls like you
would insert any other component. If you don’t wish
to save this object into the library, you can just save
the .dwg anywhere on your system and insert it
using the BMINSERT command.

33
3 Alternative methods of creating windows
In this section we will create a custom window component. Note that this window will not be parametric; this is a more
advanced topic that will be covered later.

3.1 Using BimWindowCreate on a polyline and a boundary

BIMWINDOWCREATE lets you create window

components with custom geometry on the fly without the
need to predefine a window or fiddle with existing ones.
This command allows three types of input geometry:

- Closed boundary on any solid face

- Closed polyline

- Grid

1. Go back to East.dwg. On one of the sides of the

building a trapezoid and two lines were already
drawn. We can use this as input geometry to create
windows.

2. From the ribbon under the Modeling tab, click

CREATE WINDOW .

3. As input geometry, click the polyline highlighted in

the image on the right and press Enter.

4. A dialog box appears allowing you to choose the style

of the window. Let’s select the top left one.

5. A window is created in the shape of this polyline.

Select the window and open the properties panel. You
should be able to alter its properties such as Frame
Thickness and Frame Depth.

6. Undo until before the window was created.

7. Now let’s use a boundary to create a window. Make

sure boundary detection is enabled:

8. Move your cursor inside the polyline; a boundary

should be highlighted as shown in the image on the
right.

9. In the Quad under Model tab, click CREATE

WINDOW .

10. Again a dialog box is displayed. Choose a window

style.

11. Do the same for the other portion inside the polyline
so that you have two windows as shown in the final
image.

12. Note: It’s also possible to select multiple polylines or

boundaries before using BimWindowCreate, this way
you can create multiple windows at once.

34
3.2 Using BimWindowCreate on a grid

It’s possible to use grids as input geometry for window

creation.

1. Let’s create a temporary grid on one of the façades.

Using the LookFrom widget on the top-right corner of
your screen, click the Back position so that you have
a side view of the building.

2. Let’s create a temporary grid on one of the façades.

From the ribbon under the Modeling > Create tab,

click the RECTANGULAR GRID icon .

3. Move your cursor on the side façade of the building.

Make sure your UCS is pointing the right way up (X-
axis horizontal, Y-axis vertical) and hit the Shift key
once to lock this plane, see image on the right.

4. Left-click anywhere on this face to start creating the

grid. Move your cursor outwards until you see
multiple grid cells appear

5. Four dynamic input fields are displayed: two for the

individual grid cell sizes (X and Y direction) and two
for the overall grid size (X and Y direction). Hit Tab
until the dynamic input field is highlighted that
governs the vertical dimension of one grid cell.
Type in 1200 and hit Tab.

6. Move your cursor until you have grid of 5 by 1 cells,

in total a grid of 25 meters by 120 cm, and left-click.
The grid is now created (Note: automatically grid
labels are created)

7. (Optional) you can now still make modifications on

the grid by using the BEDIT tool.

8. Highlight the grid and in the Quad under Model tab,

click CREATE WINDOW

3.3 Using the Curtainwall tool

1. In the ribbon under the Modeling tab, click the

CURTAIN WALL icon

2. Select one of the side faces of the small box

underneath the building

3. Automatically a first grid is laid out on this face. You

can use the dynamic input fields to give an
approximation of how wide and high you want the
grid cells to be. Alternatively, you can use the
command prompts to enter the number of panels in
both directions.

4. Type in NU and press Enter. Type in 1 and press

Enter.

5. Type in NV and press Enter. Type in 5 and press Enter.

6. Once you are happy with the sizes of your panels,

press Enter again.

7. At this stage it is possible to change the Frame Width,

Frame Depth, Glass Thickness and Connections Type.
To see what the different connection types are, please

35
 refer to the article on Curtain Walls on
help.bricsys.com.

8. Press Enter to create the curtain wall.

9. Repeat the process for the other sides.

3.4 Some more advanced glazing

1. Open Curtainwall.dwg in the Components folder.

2. Select the grid that is drawn on the face of the large

straight wall. Note: this grid was created by using the
rectangular grid tool as shown before, and using
BEDIT. The different grid axes were randomly rotated
and shifted to generate a random pattern.

3. In the Quad under Model tab, click CREATE

WINDOW

4. In the ribbon under the Modeling tab, click the

CURTAIN WALL icon

5. Click the face of the lofted surface in between the two

perpendicular walls. Note: this surface was created by
using the LOFT command on three arcs.

6. Choose a proper panel size so that the glazing still

looks smooth enough. Try 1500 x 1500 cells, and
press Enter.

7. You are now asked whether to Planarize the cells. In

the previous example you were not asked because it
was already a planar face.
Whether to planarize or not depends on the type of
surface you are using. Generally planarizing can be
useful as it tends to simplify the geometry. However,
in the case of twisted surfaces this may not lead to
satisfactory results.

8. In this case, we will choose not to planarize. Type in N

and press Enter.

9. Change the Frame Depth to 150 and the Connection

type to Smooth. Press Enter to accept.

10. A smooth glazing façade should now be created in the

shape of the lofted surface.

36
37
Adding BIM data

This module explains the different methods to add more BIM data into your BIM model.

1 Structure Browser and Classifications

1. Open ‘Main Building_Start.dwg’ from the Adding

BIM data folder.

2. First, let’s get started with the Structure Browser.

3. Open the STRUCTURE BROWSER from the

Tool panel at the left-hand side.

The structure browser is an interactive tree that

displays all the entities in the current model.

The tree structure of the Structure browser

represents the hierarchical set of rules in a graphical
form. Each rule has a filter property, a grouping
property, and a sorting property. Organizing the
properties in the Structure Browser enhances the
performance of your project while querying the
entities among others.

4. Make sure the default bim.cst configuration file is

active. Using the configurable structure tree on the
Structure Browser the BIM model can be organized
in a way that you want to view the elements. Once
you configured the tree, you can easily save this
structured tree as a .cst file. By default, the .cst files
are stored in the Support Folder.

5. If it is not, at the top of the structure tree click the

little hamburger menu.

6. Choose bim from the drop-down list.

7. There are 64 Solids and 14 Block References in this

drawing.

Note: When you use smart modeling tools like

Quickdraw, WindowCreate, BimStair, Propagate, etc
to create your model, it will already automatically
classify your model into different BIM classifications
and spatial locations.

2 Bimify

1. Select the two top slabs and use BIM: CLASSIFY AS

ROOF from the Quad. Now you have two

Roof elements in your drawing.

Note: In Structure browser, it has shifted to

Building Elements: Roof

2. Classifying elements can be done manually, or

automatically using BIMIFY . If any solids

remained unclassified, BIMIFY will take care of them.
Bimify will also add elevations and floor sections.

38
 3. In the Ribbon under the Bimify button, open
BIMIFY ADVANCED: here you can choose options
to use in your BIM model by ticking the boxes.

In the Bimify dialog, you have the option to scan the

entire drawing, or just scan selected entities in the
drawing.

Bimify can automatically detect whether a model is an

Architectural, Structural or MEP model. BricCAD uses this
information during the autoclassification process. Define
this information before you launch Bimify, to improve the
accuracy of the automatic classification.

Classification enables us to classify 3D Solids and Block

References automatically.

Checking the Structural/MEP Profiles box allows us to

automatically assign column, beam, member or flow
segment profiles. If their profiles match a definition in
the profile library, the profile name will be automatically
added to the entity’s properties as meta-data. If no
matching profile definition is found, a new one is created
in the library.

Spatial information will assign locations to objects, i.e.

whether they are part of a certain building or floor.

Create Spaces will create new solid objects that are

classified as spaces, based on the adjoining walls and
slabs.

Sections allows to create automatic elevations and floor

plan section planes.

4. Press OK to use all the options.

5. Expand Building Elements in the Structure

Browser: All the 3D solids in the model are divided
in different sorts of building elements.
Select one in the structure browser, and one in your
model, to show the link between model and
structure browser and the ability to quickly select
solids.

6. Spaces, Elevations and floor sections have also been

added to the model.

3 Structure Browser and Spatial Locations

The spatial locations allow you to specify a building and

its stories in a project. In BricsCAD, a BIM model file can
contain one site and multiple buildings and a building
can contain multiple stories. When the entities are
classified as a building element in the project, these
classified entities will have a Building and a Story
property. Every building element in the BIM model
resides in a particular story within a particular building.

1. Quad select SPATIAL LOCATIONS (Quad:

BIM tab).

39
 2. You should see one building. Rename it to Main
Building.

3. Inside this building should be 5 levels.

4 Customizing the structure browser

As mentioned before, the structure browser is fully

customizable. Let’s take a look at how this can be
accomplished.

4. Click bim at the top of the structure browser. The

Configure Structure Tree dialog appears.

5. First, let’s make sure we create a new configuration

file instead of editing the existing bim.cst. Click File
at the top left, click Save as and create a new file,
e.g. custom.cst

6. For now we are only interested in the Building

Elements rule, so we can collapse all other ones (i.e.
Spatial elements, Sections & Entities).

7. We can see that the Building Elements rule only

displays entities that have a certain Building Element
Type, as defined by the filter.

8. Then, we see that these objects are grouped

according to different rules: first they are grouped
according to their Diff type (we can ignore this for
now), then they are grouped by Building, within
each building they are grouped further by story, by
type etc.

9. Finally, the objects within each group are sorted by

BIM Name and Name.

10. Let’s say we are not interested in the Building &

Story information, so we can simply remove them
from the grouping properties. Right-click BIM
Building and delete the property. Do the same for
BIM Building.

11. What if we want to group existing objects by a

certain property? We can easily add a rule by
clicking the green Plus icon. This opens up a new
dialog where we can select a property.

12. Scroll down this list and under Extensions >

Quantity, select Thickness.

40
 13. Finally, select the Thickness property in the list of
Grouping properties, and move it down using the
down arrow on the left-hand side of the dialog box.
Move it so that it you have the same configuration
as shown in the image on the right.

14. Finally, click OK.

15. The structure browser should now look different.

When expanding Building Elements, you should
no longer see a Main Building with different floors
in it, but rather see the types directly grouped
together i.e. walls, slabs etc.

16. When expanding walls you will see 57 walls with no

composition, and when expanding this node further
you should see two groups: a group of 31 walls with
a thickness of 0.15 m, and a group of 26 walls with
a thickness of 0.3 m.

5 BIM Compositions

To further add BIM data to our drawing, you can add

Compositions to the entities of the model. They can be
either multiple plies or single-ply. In BricsCAD,
predefined compositions of each building element type
are stored in the library database.

1. Open the BIM Compositions Panel on the

right-hand side of your screen. If the panel is not
shown, right-click a blank menu area and select BIM
Compositions.

2. It should appear with an icon in the Tool Panel. If it

appears as a standalone, drag it over Tool Panel and
position cursor until the large rectangle turns blue
and release.

3. Use the search button to find Roof, Flat, Concrete.

4. (Optional) Double click to open the Composition

dialog to edit the composition plies.

5. Drag and drop this roof type onto the Roof.

6. You are prompted to select a reference face. The top

face should be highlighted by default. If it is not, you

can change it by clicking this icon: .

7. The selected face (reference face) will stay in the

same position while the other face will shift if the
object needs to get thicker or thinner.

8. In this case, you need the reference face to be the

top face. If not, you should flip it and press Enter.
The composition is now applied to the roof.

9. Make sure RENDER COMPOSITION MATERIAL

is toggled ON. This option allows to enable

41
 displaying render materials of compositions applied
to objects in the model.

10. Create a BIMSECTION in the ribbon or Quad

select in Model tab.
11. Select the front face of the building to define the
direction of the section.
12. Type in 2000mm to define the distance of the
section.

13. Click on the dropdown menu of the Compositions

panel and choose Show only compositions in
project...

14. Using the structure browser, select the two Roofs

and drag-and-drop the Roof, Flat, Concrete on one
of them. Accept the default reference faces.

15. Repeat this process with the following types &

compositions:
5 slabs: Floor, Concrete, Insulated
31 interior walls: Interior wall, Plaster
26 exterior walls: Cavity Wall, Front

7 Composition Plies

To further add more detail and information in your

drawing, let’s increase the LevelOfDetail (LOD) by editing
the plies of the compositions.

16. Zoom in to the connection between the bottom

floor slab and exterior wall.

17. Make sure LEVEL OF DETAIL is toggled ON.

Level of Detail allows to manipulate individual
composition plies/materials.

18. Since you will be editing the plies of the

compositions, Selection of faces should be ON in
the ribbon or SELECTIONMODES should be value
2.
19. Hover cursor near the concrete surface of the floor
slab, and press Tab until the Ply Face of the
Concrete ply is highlighted.

20. Quad select PUSH/PULL and move it to the

insulation layer of the wall (like the image on the
right).
21. Do the same for the floor screed layer, until it looks
like the right images.
22. You can check the change in the geometry of the
floor slab.
23. Selection of faces can be turned OFF in the ribbon
or SELECTIONMODES should be value 0.

24. Highlight floor solid.

25. Quad select ISOLATE ENTITIES

26. The floor geometry is isolated, and you should see
the form changes that you just made.

27. Quad Select SHOW ENTITIES

42
8 Automatically copying details with BIMPROPAGATE

BimPropagatePlanar is one of the five Propagate

options in BricsCAD BIM. It can be used to copy detailed
connections between two or more planar entities.
Propagate will search for similar situations in the drawing
where the connection can be applied to. Common
examples are wall-slab connections or wall-wall
connections.

1. Toolbar select BIMPROPAGATE PLANAR

(Quad: Model tab).

2. Select the floor and wall that have been edited

previously.

3. Press Enter twice, once to confirm the reference

solids, once to confirm an extra solid (optional).

4. The detail should be shown as in the top right

image. Press Enter to confirm the detail.

5. The locations where the desired detail can be

applied will be marked with a green checkmark.

6. Press Enter to apply all 29 visible suggestions.

7. The section will be activated again.

8. Zoom in to the other side of the building where you

didn’t edit the composition plies to see the applied
connection.

43
9 Properties

Every entity has properties. A Line entity has CAD

properties such as Color, Layer and Linetype. BIM entities
have these properties as well, but besides other
properties are available depending on the type of entity.

1. Select one of the exterior walls and open the

Properties Panel

2. Mass properties are calculated based on the

geometry of the solid and are not editable.

3. BIM properties include spatial locations,

compositions, and other BIM specific properties

4. Quantity properties are also calculated based on

the geometry of the solid. This section also allows
you to see quantities of separate composition plies
(e.g. volume of concrete in a composite wall).

5. Wall Common is part of the IFC Common

properties, governed by BuildingSmart. These are
hardcoded and used by other BIM applications.
Note: if you select a window this will show Window
Common instead of Wall Common.
You can enter values for Fire Rating or Acoustic
rating here.

6. It’s possible to create custom properties as well. In

the No selection Quad under the BIM tab, click

Properties . The dialog box displays for

specifying and editing properties of BIM projects.

7. By default, three namespaces exist. IFC2X3 contains

the IFC common properties that we talked about
earlier. User contains custom properties. Quantity
contains some quantities of BIM objects, such as the
length of a wall.

8. Go to the User namespace, add a new Property Set

and give it a name, e.g. Custom Properties

9. You can choose which types of objects this property

set applies to. This way, you can make custom
property sets for e.g. windows, or columns and
beams, or whichever combination you want. In this
case, we’ll just apply it to all categories.

10. Add a new property to the selected Property Set

and give it a name, Cost.

11. You can also define the type of the data:

Boolean: an ON or OFF value.
Integer: a whole number between -2147483648
and 2147483647.
Real: an approximation of a real number.
String: a sequence of characters, can be both
numbers and letters.

12. Change the Cost property to a Real type.

13. Let’s add another property to this set:

Manufacturer. The data type should be String.

14. If we now select any BIM entity, we should be able

to see these new properties in the Properties Panel
and fill in the values.

44
Drawing documentation basic

This module explains the basics of drawing documentation. We will use the Project Browser to set up a project
and place sections and schedules, generated from our BIM model, onto sheets.

1 Opening the file

Open Master.dwg from the Exercise folder in the

Drawing documentation basic folder.

2 Adding section planes

Before making a project it is better to have defined

all Sectionplanes from which you would like to
generate a section. You can do this by running
Bimify on the model you will use for your project.

1. Let’s open up the Xref of Building 2 by selecting

XOPEN from the Quad (select Xref: Modify

tab.

2. We can run BIMIFY (Quad: Bim tab) on it

to generate the section planes, or manually
create section planes using the BIMSECTION

command. Note that a section plane has a

property called ‘Project Section’; if this property
is ON, the section plane will appear in the Project
Browser and you can use it to generate drawings.
Let’s run BIMIFY on this drawing. Automatically,
one floor plan and four elevations are created.

3. If we now save the file, go back to our Main

model and reload the attachment in the

ATTACHMENT PANEL , we can see the

sections appear in the drawing.

3 Project set-up

1. On the left-hand side of the screen, open the

PROJECT BROWSER Panel

2. Click Create Project... button in the panel.

3. Create Project window appears. It is divided into

4 tabs:

a. Project:

Here you see the path of the folder in which

your current dwg is located. You also see all
the files that are in the specified folder,
because those might be all the files that we
want to keep together.

Dwg’s that are noted with a building icon are

models that are part of the project.

On top of the project folder structure tree,

you find the path in which the folder is
45
 located and you can specify a name for the
project.

b. Sheetset:

Here you can set the name of the .dst file

that will contain all the sheets in the project.

c. Models:

Here you can choose which models will be

included in your project. We choose Building
2 and Master to be included. For now, we
don’t need Building 1. We will add that one
later.

d. Library:

In the library tab you can find which library

is used by which file.

A new external library will be set for all

models so that they all share the same
library. This file is a database which stores
information such as materials and
compositions, steel profiles, custom
properties and so on. Using this external
database avoids duplicating materials, and
allows you to modify a material or
composition over the entire project instead
of just one model.

Now your two drawings share the same

library. If you for example make a custom
property set in one of your drawings, these
properties will also show up in the other
drawings and vice versa.

4. After going through the different tabs, hit OK

to confirm the settings.

46
4 Sheetset set-up

1. In the second step of the creation of a project,

we get the Sheetset set-up dialog. Here we can
see a list of all our sections and previews of our
sections onto sheets.

2. The dialog consists of 4 parts:

a. Info at the top:

You see the path of the sheetset that you

specified in the previous step. You see the
sheetset template that is being used. You
can specify your own here if you wish. You
see the layout that is selected, is available in
the sheetset template.

b. Sections:

You see all the sections available in the

models of your project. You can select or
deselect them to be placed onto sheets. If a
section is already placed on a sheet then this
is stated in the ‘Current Destination’ column.
These sections will not be placed onto any
new sheets, so that the current destination
will never be overwritten. You can also
change the scale of the drawing. To begin,
the sheetset set-up takes the scale specified
in the Properties of your section planes. By
double-clicking the scale however, you can
still change it afterwards.

In this project we will accept the default:

include all the sections with their predefined
scale.

c. Sheets:
Here you see a preview of your sections’
outline onto your sheets. We are creating 2
sheets now: one with the floor plan, called
A-100, and one with the elevations, called A-
300.

d. Configuration:
Here you can specify some naming options,
as well as make sure that different types of
sections are placed onto separate sheets or
onto the same sheet. You can also specify
margins. We will not touch the default
settings however.

3. Click on Create Sheets to finish the project and

sheetset set-up.

47
5 Explore the project

4. You now can see that the project is created and

it has 4 tabs:

a. The first is the sections tab with a list of all

sections in the project. If you right-click one
you can select one, with ‘Select Section
Entity’, or go to its view, with ‘Display Section
Result’, if there is already a sheet with this
view on.

b. In schedules, you will be able to find all

schedules that were generated. Schedules
list quantities of your model, specified in the
order that you want. We don’t have any
schedules for now, but we will make them
further on in this training.

c. In sheets, you find all the sheets in the

sheetset. You can enable BricsCAD to update
them in a background process: the ones
without icon are already updated, the ones
with the loading sign are in progress and the
ones with an orange dot next to them are
queued and will be done after the previous
one is finished. To enable background
updating, click the hamburger menu in the
top right corner of the panel and check the
setting Enable Background Update. You
can still manually update sections by right-
clicking the section result you want to
update and selecting ‘Update’. You can also
display the section results by right-clicking
on them and selecting ‘Display View’.

d. In models, you can find the models in the

project and you can navigate to them by
double-clicking them.

5. Normally, the Project Browser should now be

populated with a set of 5 sections, 2 sheets and
2 models: the master file as well as the one Xref
we included.

6 Edit the project

1. We now want to include Building 1.dwg as

a model after all.

2. To do this we can go to the hamburger

menu in the top right corner of the panel
and click on Project set-up.

3. Then we get the same dialog as upon

creation.

4. Go to the models tab, check the checkbox

of Building 1.dwg and hit OK.

5. We now see that in the Models tab of the

PROJECT BROWSER ‘Building 1’ is

listed as one of the models. You also see
that in the Sections tab the sections from
Building 1 are listed as well now.

48
7 Add new sections to new sheets

1. If we go to Sheetset Setup (under the

hamburger menu ) we can now include

the new sections on new sheets.

2. We get the same dialog as during the

creation of the project.

3. Now you see that in the Sections tab we

have sections that already have a current
destination filled in.

4. In the Sheets tab, we get three sheets: one

for the plan, one for the elevations and one
for the vertical sections. The sections that
already had a destination file are not placed
onto these sheets again.

5. Let’s try and change the default scale to

0.05 for the section ‘Plan – Building 1 –
Ground Floor’ in the Sections tab.

6. If we now go back to the Sheets tab, we see

that if the viewport is too big for the paper
size, it will turn red.

7. We can go back to Sections to change the

scale back to 0.02, so that the sections fit
the sheet again.

8. Hit Create Sheets to create the sheets.

9. We see that the sheets are added to the tab

Sheets and they are again automatically
updated in the background.

8 Check generated drawings

1. To see the resulting drawing of section

Ground Floor, right-click Ground Floor,
and select Display Section Result in the
flyout menu.

2. The floor plan is placed on a sheet and we

see the cut through representation of the
walls, as well as some automatically placed
tags. However, we don’t see the furniture.

3. To fix that, filter on BRX_2D in the LAYERS

PANEL . Make sure all layers with this

in their name are turned on.

4. If the BRX_2D layers are turned on we see

our furniture. This happens because our real
section was replaced by a 2D symbolic
representation. The component we cut
through had a 2D representation on the
BRX_2D layer and this makes that our actual
section will be overwritten. If you want a 2D
representation together with the actual
section, you need to use the BRX_2D+
layer. This is, for example, handy for doors,
where you want to display a door swing
together with the cut-through
representation of the door.

49
 5. We will discuss in more detail the created
layers in the Drawing Documentation
Advanced module.

9 Changing the 3D model

1. Let’s make some changes to the BIM model

and update the floor plan. Open up the Xref

of Building 2 by selecting XOPEN

from the Quad (select Xref: Modify tab).

2. Clip the section plane of Ground Floor by

double-clicking the section plane or

selecting CLIPDISPLAY in the Quad

(Select section plane: Model tab).

3. Select an interior door and Quad select BIM

Flip (Select door: Model tab). The

door swing is flipped.

4. Delete the couch in the living room.

5. Open the LIBRARY PANEL .

6. Browse to the Furnishing Elements.

7. Drag a chair into the living room.

8. Give the outer walls the composition Cavity

Wall, Brick by first selecting the walls and
then drag and drop this composition from

the COMPOSITIONS PANEL onto the

selected elements.

9. Save drawing Building 2.dwg.

10. Switch to the Ground Floor plan.

11. Update the floor plan either using

PROJECT BROWSER or select the

BIM Viewport and Quad select UPDATE

SECTION (Quad: Model tab).

12. The floor plan view will update to display

the changes.

50
10 Schedules

1. We now want to create a schedule of the

doors in Building 2.

2. Go to the PROJECT BROWSER and

right-click the header Schedules.

3. Click Add Schedule (Wizard)…

4. You end up in a wizard where you can

choose a file with a customized pre-set of
what data you want to include in your
schedule. This file is called a dxd-file or data
extraction definition in full. You can set it by
checking on the box Based on an existing
data extraction definition.

5. Click the three dots and choose the dxd file

Doors (BIM).

6. You can name your schedule how you like

and specify a sheet on which it needs to be
saved. For example, save the schedule
named Doors on S-1.dwg.

7. Click Next.

8. On this page, you can choose whether or

not you want to extract entities from blocks
and xrefs. We don’t want to extract entities
from blocks so turn this off.

9. Click Next.

10. On this page, you can still choose to

exclude or include some more properties,
but we would like to keep it as it is specified
by the dxd. Except for the
BlockViewProperty2, Fire rating and Fire
exit, which we turn off.
BlockViewProperty1 is kept turned on. This
will show an image of the block in our
schedule.

11. Click Finish.

12. Right-click on the name Doors and hit

Create/Update Table.

13. Then right-click again and hit Display

Schedule.

14. We now see which kind of schedule is

created: you can find the name of each
component, the amount of times it is in the
model, the height and width, some
properties and an elevation, which is
convenient to know about which block we
are talking.

51
Collaboration

This module explains how to collaborate during the design of a project. You will learn how to import and
export IFC files, as well as work with BCF files. We will cover Revit import, and explain how the 24/7 panel
works.

1 Importing IFC files

15. Open a new drawing in the BIM-mm template.

16. Under Settings, scroll down and go to the section BIM

> Import and Export > IFC. Here you can find some
settings on import and export of IFC files

17. Make sure the default settings are applied, as shown in

the image (non-default settings will be highlighted in
blue).

18. Click the Bricsys button in the Menu Bar and select
Import. The import file dialog box displays.

19. Browse to the correct location and import

MainBuilding_Arch.ifc.

20. A building should be imported. Navigate through the

model using the structure browser, the spatial
locations manager and the compositions panel, and
check if everything is in order.

21. Now, Import the other IFC file: MainBuilding_Str.ifc.

22. A steel structure should be imported. In this case, the

steel structure is located on a different spatial location
(Steel structure as opposed to Main Building).

23. Notice that the geometry is imported as native

geometry such as solids and block refs. This means
that we can edit any imported geometry as if it were
created in BricsCAD!

2 Exporting IFC files

We will export this same file to IFC. However, we will define

some rules on what and how to export.

24. Browse to the folder where the two IFC files were
stored, and open exportmapping1.txt using a text
editor.
This is an export mapping file. It contains some simple
rules, such as mapping a certain BricsCAD BIM type to
a certain IFC type.
In this case, BimDbFootings are mapped to
IfcColumns. If no explicit mapping is mentioned in this
file, then the types will be implicitly mapped to their
corresponding IFC types (e.g. BimDbFooting to
IfcFooting, BimDbWall to IfcWall etc.)
It also contains two lines saying that furnishing
elements and flow terminals should be skipped, i.e.
will not be exported.

25. Open the Settings dialog. Under BIM > Import and
Export > IFC, find the Export Mapping File Path setting,
and choose exportmapping1.txt.

52
 26. In the Ribbon under the Home tab, click Export to IFC

, or alternatively type in the IFCEXPORT

command.

27. Press Enter to select the entire model

28. Choose a file name.

29. In the Save As type, you can choose to export as

IFC2X3 or as IFC4.

30. Click Save.

31. (optional) open the IFC file in an IFC viewer such as

Solibri. You will notice that no furnishing elements or Mapping to the default
flow terminals are present in the drawing. Also, the
type can be done in two
Footings were exported as columns.
ways: either by writing the
32. Browse to the folder where the two IFC files were corresponding export type
stored, and open exportmapping2.txt using a text explicitly, or by writing
editor. ‘default’ as the export type.
Here you will notice that 4 types have been
mentioned explicitly, even though they are using the
default mapping (BimDbColumn > IfcColumn,
BimDbBeam > IfcBeam, BimDbMember > IfcMember
and BimDbFooting > IfcFooting).
This is because of the * operator, which means ‘all non
listed entity types’.

33. In BricsCAD, choose this exportmapping2.txt as your

new export mapping file in the settings dialog, and
repeat steps 3 to 7.

34. When opening this IFC file in a viewer, you should see
that only columns, beams, members and footings
were exported.

3 Importing IFC files using custom mapping

The same method of export mapping can be used for

import mapping. The exact same rules apply, the same type
of file can be used, and the same syntax is used. The only
difference is the order of types: now obviously an IFC type
should be mapped to a BimDb type. So instead of writing
‘BimDbWall IfcWall’ you should write ‘IfcWall BimDbWall’.

35. Try to create your own Import Mapping File, e.g.

converting IfcWindows to BimDbDoors, and skipping
some entity types (hint: the delimiter used between
two words in this file is tab).

36. In the Settings dialog, select this new file as your import
mapping file

37. Import one of the IFC files, and check if it worked

correctly.

4 Working with the BCF panel

38. Open a new drawing in the BIM-mm template.

39. Under Settings, make sure the Import Mapping File

Path is empty, i.e. no mapping file is used

40. Import the West_Str.ifc file

41. Zoom out so you can see the geometry

42. Open the BCF Panel . If you cannot see this icon,
right-click anywhere in the ribbon and under panels,
enable BIM BCF

53
43. In this panel, you get the option to either log in to a
BCF service such as BIMcollab, BimSync or BIMtrack, or
to import a .bcf file. Due to practical reasons, in this
training we will only cover the .bcf file import. For more
information on synching with BCF servers, please visit
our help page.

44. Click Import a BCF file, and choose

Structural_node.bcf. You should see an active issue
appear in the BCF Panel.

45. Click this issue. You should find some information on

the issue e.g. creation date, due date & assignee.

46. Click one of the images at the bottom. This should take
your camera to the location of the issue. This allows
you to easily navigate through issues and solve them
where necessary.

54
Increasing LOD

This module explains how to further increase the level of detail in your model.

1 Details Panel

On Windows, paste the details from the Details folder

in the following path:
C:\ProgramData\Bricsys\Support\Bim\Details.

For Mac open the Finder, go to the Go tab and click on

‘Go to folder…’ and type in var/Bricsys/Details. Paste the
content of the Details folder there.
The Details folder can be found in the folder ‘Increasing
LOD’.

The Details Panel is a panel where you can store

construction details, like planar details (e.g wall-wall
connections, wall-roof connections, etc), structural steel
details and MEP details.
This way you can use a certain detail not only inside one
drawing but also in other drawings outside a certain
project.

1. Open ‘SecondBuilding LOD.dwg’

2. Turn ON of the Floor Plan section (Floor 1) by

using CLIPDISPLAY or by double-clicking.

3. Zoom in to the Wall, Front - Wall, Back-

connection

4. Open the Details Panel on the right-hand

side of your screen. If the panel is not shown, right-
click a blank menu area and select Details.

5. It should appear with an icon in the Tool Panel. If it

appears as a standalone, drag it over Tool Panel
and position cursor until the large rectangle turns
blue and release.

6. Like most of the dockable panels in BricsCAD, it is

equipped with a search tool so you can quickly find
the specific detail you are searching for. In the
Details Panel, this search function works with tags:
solid tags, general tags, and customized tags.
Use the search button to find all wall connection
using the Wall-tag. Click on the + sign once.

7. Choose the detail

‘WW_55_CavityBrickGypsum.dwg’ and open it
by double-clicking.

55
2 Propagate saved Details

1. Click Propagate in the detail dialog.

2. The locations where the desired detail can be

applied will be marked with a green checkmark

3. Only apply the suggestions on the connections of

the blind facade (like the image).

4. Press Enter to apply all 4 suggestions.

5. The floor section will be activated again.

6. Zoom in to the Wall, Front - Wall, Back-

connection again to see the difference.

7. Close the section plane.

8. Open ‘Main Building LOD_Start.dwg’

9. Drag and drop the detail

‘WW_55_CavityBrickGypsum.dwg’ into the
drawing to propagate.

10. The locations where the desired detail can be

applied will be marked with a green checkmark

11. Only apply the suggestions on the connections of

the blind facade (like the image).

12. Press Enter to apply all 10 suggestions.

13. Turn ON of any Floor Plan section by using

CLIPDISPLAY or by double-clicking.
14. Check the new construction detail.

15. Close the section plane.

3 Create an advanced Detail

1. Open ‘SecondBuilding LOD.dwg’

2. Open the vertical section plane.

3. Zoom in to the connection of the roof slab and

exterior wall.

4. Since you will be editing the plies of the

compositions, Selection of faces should be ON in
the ribbon or SELECTIONMODES should be value
2.

5. Hover cursor near the concrete surface of the roof

slab, and press Tab until the Ply Face (green) of the
concrete is highlighted.

6. Quad select PUSH/PULL and move it to the

insulation layer of the wall (like the image on the
right).

7. Let’s add a wall cap on the rooftop edge. Hover

cursor on the top face of the exterior wall, press
Tab until the Solid Face (orange) is highlighted.

56
 8. Quad select SOLID EXTRUDE , drag the face
up to create a new solid.

9. Type in 50mm for the height and press Enter. Now

a new wall cap solid is created in the construction
detail.

10. Hover of the horizontal face (orange on the image)

and SOLID EXTRUDE to delete the part until

the wall cap.

11. Highlight the same horizontal face and SOLID

EXTRUDE to create a new solid for insulation.

12. To finish, highlight the side face of the new

insulation solid and PUSH/PULL to the next

ply of the wall (see last image on the right).

13. Selection of faces can be turned OFF in the

ribbon or SELECTIONMODES should be value 0.

14. Open the BIM Compositions Panel and

search for ‘Concrete’ (Show only compositions in
project should be off).

15. Add following compositions to the 2 newly

created solids by dragging and dropping the
compositions:
- Wall cap: ‘Concrete, Plain’
- Insulation block: ‘Supporting Wall, Cellular
Concrete’

4 Save Details in the Details Panel

1. Type in BIMCREATEDETAIL in the command line.

2. A dialog will pop up to specify info about the detail.

Type in de detail name, for example, Rooftop
detail

3. Assign the detail to an existing category in the

dropdown menu. Or create a new category by
typing the new category name, for example, BIM
Training

4. Select the reference solids of the detail: these are

the original solids used to create this construction
detail. Here in this example, you should select the
roof slab and the exterior wall.

5. Select the detail entities: these are the new solids

created when editing the detail. In this detail, we
have the wall cap and the insulation block that you
should select.

6. Select section: the vertical section plane that is

currently open on the construction detail (see
image on the right).

57
 7. When all the information of the detail is added,
click Create.

8. You are prompted to confirm and accept the detail:

Press Enter once to accept the detail.

9. A new ‘Save detail’ dialog box will pop up. Here

the detail name and category are displayed again,
you can change it if you need to.

10. It is possible to change the thumbnail of the detail

by clicking the pencil icon on the top right corner.

11. Change the view of the detail you want and press
Enter.

12. Reference solid tags (2) and General tags (7) are
automatically created. You can delete them if you
want to, but you can also create your own tags for
this detail.

13. Let’s create an own tag by typing ‘Wall cap’ and

click ‘add’. The new tag is added to the General
tags (8) and is displayed in orange.

14. Click SAVE to finish.

5 Parametrize details

1. Open the Details Panel on the right-hand

side of your screen and search for tag ‘Wall cap’.

2. Click on the detail you have just created. On the top

of the dialog box, you can see that the detail is non-
parametrized. That means that the detail doesn’t
have any parameters and the thicknesses and
angles of the plies are fixed.

3. Let’s change that by adding parameters to this

detail. Click on ‘Parametrize’.

4. The parameters are automatically added to the

detail and the detail will be opened in a new .dwg-
drawing ‘Rooftop detail’.

5. Open the Mechanical Browser to check the

parameters and constraints added to this detail.

6. You can check the change in ply thicknesses by

selecting a parameter, for example,
‘Thickness_Ply3_Roof_32’ and right-click choose
‘Animate’.

6 Editing Parametrize details

1. Animate ‘Angle_32_31’.

2. Let’s add some constraints to the detail to create

the ideal Angle-parameter for your construction
detail.

58
 3. Selection of faces should be ON in the ribbon or
SELECTIONMODES should be value 2. Boundary
Detection should be OFF.

4. Select the faces to the wall cap and the insulation

solid (like the image of the right) and Quad select

COINCIDENT CONSTRAINT . This means that

the face of the wall cap and the face of the
insulation will be the same.

5. ADD DISTANCE CONSTRAINT on the top

and bottom surface of the wall cap, distance should
be 50mm (Press Tab until you highlight the right
surface). The distance of these two faces will always
be 50mm when the angle of the details will be
changed.

6. ADD DISTANCE CONSTRAINT on the top

and bottom surface of the insulations solid,
distance should be 355mm (Press Tab until you
highlight the right surface). The distance of these
two faces will always be 355mm when the angle of
the details will be changed.

7. Animate ‘Angle_32_31’ again to check the result.

8. Selection of faces can be turned OFF in the

ribbon or SELECTIONMODES should be value 0.

9. Select ‘ThicknessTolerance’ and change the

parameter to 100mm.

10. SAVE the drawing and close.

7 Propagate Parametrized details

1. Open drawing ‘Main Building LOD.dwg’.

2. Choose the parametrized ‘Rooftop detail’ in the

Details panel.

3. Drag and drop the detail into the drawing.

4. The locations where the desired detail can be

applied will be marked with a green checkmark

5. Enter to apply all 7 suggestions.

6. Zoom in to the rooftop edge to see the change.

7. Close the section plane.

8. SAVE the file.

59
Structural modeling

How to model a steel structure and how to detail it using propagate and the details panel.

1 Open a new mm drawing and save it

2 Creating a base grid

We’ll start by creating a grid, and drawing a base

slab underneath it

1. In the Quad under the Model tab, click

BIMGRID . Choose a start point by

left-clicking

2. Type in values for the grid sizes, using Tab

to switch between dimensions until you get
the values as shown in the image on the
right (i.e. grid cells of 5000 x 5000 and a
total grid size of 35000 x 20000)

3. Start the BOX command, and start

drawing somewhere outside of the grid

4. Choose the opposite corner so that the grid

is entirely on top of the slab (see image)

5. Type in 500 to give the slab a thickness, and

press Enter

60
3 Creating a column

1. Open the PROFILES PANEL on the

right of your screen.

2. Choose Domain: Structural Steel.

3. Choose Standard: EURO.

4. Click the I-shape icon, and search for HEA.

5. Drag the EURO HEA 300 profile into the

modeling area.

6. Start drawing the linear solid at the

intersection point of two of the grid axes.
Draw vertically upwards (make sure ORTHO
or POLAR is enabled).
Make sure the orientation is as indicated in
the image on the right (i.e. flanges parallel
with the Y-axis). If the orientation is not as
shown in the image, you can enter Q and
press Enter while still drawing to give the
profile a Quarter Turn.

7. Enter a height of 5000 and press Enter.

4 Understanding Propagate

Propagate is a very versatile tool that can be

used in many different situations. It is used to
automatically copy objects or details to similar
locations.

The key concept: there are 2 selection sets:

- Reference solids: solids that define the

relation of that detail. Specify as many
reference solids as relevant!
- Detail solids: solids that need to be
copied around.

We already saw some use cases of Propagate in

the basic training. In this section, we’ll use
propagate to copy the column to every grid
intersection.

1. Highlight the floor slab, and in the Quad

under the Model tab, click PROPAGATE

2. Select the column solid as your detail, and

press Enter.

3. You will be automatically zoomed into the

3D detail. We don’t want the detail to be
copied as a Block, but as a Copy, so press C
and then press Enter.

4. Propagate automatically detected that a

grid was attached to the slab. It will make
the first suggestion (see image).

5. Hover over the green checkmark and click

Bim Grid in the little dialog window.

61
 6. Then, click Explode, and the entire grid will
be exploded in a set of suggestions. We can
now manually toggle off individual
suggestions. Create a pattern as shown in
the image. Make a selection set over the
checkmarks you don’t need and toggle
them all off at once by clicking one of the
checkboxes you just selected.

7. Press Enter twice to accept.

5 Creating the truss

1. In the Ribbon, go to the Structural/MEP tab.

At the far right, make sure Display Sides and
Ends is toggled off, and Display Axes is
toggled on. You can also do this via the
Command Line: DISPLAYSIDESANDENDS =
0, DISPLAYAXES = 1.

2. In the Settings dialog, search for

bimosmode and find the setting BIM snap
mode. Expand this setting and make sure
the first suboption (Axis of linear solid) is
checked on. This setting will override
snapping for linear solids such as steel
column and beams, so you can more easily
snap to the axis of the solid instead of
snapping to e.g. profile corners.
Close the settings dialog.

3. Isolate the two columns of the first row.

4. Draw a line (select LINE from the

Annotate > Draw tab) between the top
end points of the column axes.

5. Move down the line 400 mm by long left-

clicking it and thus activating the

MANIPULATOR . Choose the vertical

bar, move it downwards and type in 400.

6. Press Esc to exit the Manipulator.

7. Draw another line, this time from the

midpoint of the previous polyline upwards
for 1400 mm.

8. Draw another line, this time from the

endpoint of the previous polyline to the top
end point of the left column axis.

9. Divide the bottom horizontal line into 20

segments and the upper one into 10, by

using the DIVIDE command (Quad:

Draw tab) and entering 20 for the bottom
line and 10 for the upper one.

10. Draw lines again. This time creating a truss

pattern as specified on the image to the
right.

62
 11. Delete the points that were created by

going to the STRUCTURE BROWSER

and selecting them and hitting the Delete
button.

12. Select the truss pattern and upper line and

bring up the MANIPULATOR (Quad:

Modify tab). Drag the Manipulator to the
right spot by using the little white grips.
Stand on the little blue Flip along X-axis
icon and flip the truss.

13. Enter C for Copy and enter the distance 0.

14. Press Enter to accept and Esc to go out of

the command.

15. Delete the midlines.

16. Search the EURO IPE 240 beam by typing

in IPE in the search box.

17. Drag it to the bottom line. The line changes

into the profile. Click Enter to accept if it is
rotated correctly.

18. Select the top lines.

19. Search the EURO IPE 200 beam.

20. Drag it to the top lines. The lines change

into the profile. Click Enter to accept if it is
rotated correctly.

21. Select the truss lines.

22. Search the EURO IPN 100 beam by typing

in IPN in the search box.

23. Drag it to the truss lines. The lines change

into the profile. Click Enter to accept if it is
rotated correctly.

24. The truss is created.

25. The top beams were probably classified as

members. BIM CLASSIFY them AS BEAMS

26. Delete the line entities via the Structure

Browser.

27. Show all entities.

6 Propagating the truss

1. Launch PROPAGATE .

2. Select the two front columns as reference

solids.

3. Select the truss as detail solids.

4. Press C to copy as solids. Press Enter.

5. Toggle off the bottom suggestions.

6. Press Enter twice to accept.

63
7 Adding sidebars

1. Hide the slab and the grid.

2. Search for EURO UPN 120 in the PROFILES

PANEL by typing in UPN in the

search field.

3. Drag and drop the profile in empty space.

4. Set BIMOSMODE = 0

5. Make the profile from the outer bottom

midpoint of the first column to the outer
bottom midpoint of the second column (in
the Y direction). Quarter turn by pressing Q
during the command, to get the profile
turned like in the picture to the right.

6. Highlight the U-shaped profile, and in the

Quad under the Model tab, click ADD

ECCENTRICITY .

7. A widget appears. Click the Outer arrow to

make sure the beam moves outwards with
respect to its axis. Press Enter.

8. Long-click the U-shaped profile to get the

MANIPULATOR and press the vertical

bar to move the beam upwards by 1500
mm.

9. Press the up bar of the Manipulator again.

Press R for Repeat. Enter the height of 900
mm. Move the cursor upwards until you
have 4 bars. Click in the space above the 4
bars. Press Esc to exit the command.

10. Launch PROPAGATE .

11. Select the two first columns as reference

solids.

12. Select the bars as detail solids.

13. Press C to copy as solids. Press Enter.

14. Select Option 2 for all the suggestions at

the other side of the construction.

15. Press Enter to accept.

64
8 Cleaning up some details

1. Show all entities again.

2. Select the two top beams of the first portal.

3. L-CONNECT (Quad: Model tab).

4. Press Enter to accept.

5. Launch PROPAGATE .

6. Select the two top beams of the first portal

as reference solids.

7. Press Enter three times to accept.

8. Select the three elements of the first portal

that are indicated in the right picture.

9. STRUCTURALCONNECT (Quad:
Model tab).

10. Select the column and top beam of the first

portal.

11. L-CONNECT (Quad: Model tab) them

like on the picture to the right by pressing
Ctrl two times during the command.

12. Launch PROPAGATE .

13. Select the elements as in the right-hand

picture.

14. Press Enter three times to accept.

65
9 Add details to the details library

15. Go to Manage libraries under the

hamburger menu in the DETAILS PANEL

16. Under Details Directory Path, click the

three dots, click Add Path and choose the
DetailsStructural folder under
C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Bricsys247\<tr
aining folder>\Documents\Starter files\08.
Structural modeling\DetailsStructural

17. Close the settings.

18. Now you should see a thumbnail of the

Structural folder in the Details panel.

10 Detail the truss connections

1. Drag and drop the detail TrussConnection

from the DETAILS PANEL (in the

Structural folder) to your workspace.

2. Click Enter to accept.

3. The trusses are now nicely detailed.

11 Creating a more detailed connection

BricsCAD BIM is not a structural detailing and

calculation software, however, it is still possible
to create steel connections using a combination
of direct modeling and our library of mechanical
parts. To be able to work properly on a
connection detail, there are a few things we need
to do first:

1. We need to add the standard mechanical

parts to the LIBRARY PANEL . You do

this by going to the DROPDOWN MENU

66
 on the top right side of the panel and
making sure the option Bricsys Mechanical
Library is turned on.

2. Let’s design the connection between a

beam and the flange of a column using an
end plate bolted to the column. We’ll

ISOLATE the beam and the column

so it’s easier to see what we’re doing (see
image).

3. First, we’ll create an endplate, welded onto

the beam. Start the BOX command

and hover the cursor over the side face of
the column. Then press Shift once, so that
this side face is highlighted in blue (see
image). Start in the outer corner of the
beam as shown in the image, and then click
the opposite outer corner. Give the plate a
thickness of 10 mm, so we end up with
something like is shown in the fourth
image.

4. PUSH/PULL the vertical sides of

the plate outwards by 20 mm.

5. Open the LIBRARY PANEL and go to

Standard Parts > fasteners > BOLT > HEX
HEAD > ISO.

6. Click and move the ISO 4015 onto the plate

and position it precisely using the Dynamic
Dimensions. Remember, you can press Tab
to switch between dimension field.

7. Give it a distance of 30 mm from the side,

and 55 mm from the top of the plate.

8. We’ll use the propagate tool to distribute

more bolts over this plate evenly. Highlight
the plate, and in the Quad under the Model

tab, click PROPAGATE

9. Select the bolt as the detail objects and

press Enter.

10. Press Enter again to accept the suggestion.

Now a blue question mark should appear.
Click it and it turns into a green checkmark.

11. You can edit this suggestion by hovering

over the checkmark and clicking Grid.

12. Add one row, so you end up with a

suggestion as shown in the image. Press
Enter to accept the suggestion.

13. To finish this detail, we will create a little

plate, welded onto the column beforehand,
on which our beam can rest during the
construction phase of the steel structure.

14. EXTRUDE the bottom face of the

endplate with a distance of 15 mm.

67
 15. PUSH/PULL the front face of the
new plate by 40 mm.

16. We can now give the elements a correct

classification. Highlight the plates and in
the Quad under the BIM tab, click

CLASSIFY MANUALLY . In the pop-up

menu select Plate from the Building
Structure Elements drop-down. Select all the
bolts and classify them as well, this time
select Mechanical Fastener.

17. The last thing we want to do is classify the

entire bolted plate as a building element. So
select the plates and the bolts and in the
Quad under the BIM tab, click CLASSIFY

MANUALLY . Choose Building

Element and check Convert to block and
classify the block reference. Give in a
name for the block and click OK.

The result looks like in the picture to the right.

12 Saving and propagating a detailed

connection

We can again use the DETAILS PANEL to

save this detail and then copy it over to the rest
of the drawing.

1. Click on the Create Detail button.

2. Give it the name BC_bolted plate (BC for

BeamColumn) and the category Structural.

3. Select the column and the beam as

reference solids.

4. Select the block as detail solids.

5. Don’t select a section element, as this will

allow us to create a 3D detail.

6. Click onto the Create button.

7. Press Enter to accept the detail.

8. Edit the thumbnail by pressing the pencil

icon, if you don’t like the current preview.

9. Click the Save button.

10. In the Quad under the General tab, click

SHOW ENTITIES .

11. Drag and drop the detail you just created

into your drawing.

12. You should see suggestions as shown in the

image.

13. Turn the question mark in a checkmark and

press Enter, to propagate this detail.

68
 14. Now this detailed connection has been
propagated to every possible location in
your drawing.

13 (Optional) Changing the blocks so that no

interferences occur

1. Revert to the file we had at the end of step

11 or go to intermediate file
Structural_13.1_optional.dwg.

2. Now EXPLODE the block that we created at

the end of step 11 and create a component
from the elements instead.

3. First, we need to change the UCS however

to the inside face of the flange of the
column, so that our component will be
defined as laying flat on this face.

4. To do that type in UCS and type F to select

a face. Select the inside face of the flange.
Make sure to enter the face from the left-
hand side while selecting it, so that the UCS
is turned as in the image to the right. Press
Enter to accept.

5. Now select the block with the plate and

bolts and convert it into a component by
typing in BMFORM.

6. Choose the midpoint of the upper edge

(near the column) of the bolted plate, as
specified on the image to the right, as an
insertion point.

7. Give in a name for your component and

press Enter.

8. CLASSIFY MANUALLY this newly

created component as Building Element.

9. Set your UCS back to World by typing UCS

and hitting Enter to accept the World
Coordinate System.

10. Now repeat step 12 with the component

instead of the block.

11. (Optional) Run the INTERFERE

command to check the amount of
interferences in the drawing. Select all
solids for the first set and check against this
same first set for the second set.. 192 solids
interfere. These are of course the bolts and
the plates/columns that interfere. We will
solve this issue now by replacing the
components we just created by one that
you can find in the starter files.

12. (Optional) UNDO step 13.11.

13. Select all the Building Element entities in

the Structure Browser. There should be 16,
namely the components we just created.

69
 14. Choose REPLACE from the Model tab
in the Quad.

15. Press Enter to choose from a file.

16. Choose BoltedPlate.dwg as source file.

17. Select all the Building Element entities

again and now choose Update from

the Model tab in the Quad.

18. As a result there should now be temporary

holes in your columns if you hide the
updated components. These holes will be
gone again if you delete the components.

19. Now go to your layers. You will see a new

layer called the BC_Subtract layer. It is this
layer that contains the solids that create
temporary holes once inserted into another
entity. To not see these solids (and just see
the holes), hide and freeze the layer.

20. Now run the INTERFERE command

again and see that the solids don’t interfere
anymore, due to the newly created
temporary holes!

14 (Optional) Creating diagonal braces

1. To let our structure resist wind forces, we

can create some diagonal braces in the roof.

2. Do this by drag and dropping the Euro L

35X35x5 profile into empty model space.
Draw diagonally from the second portal
beam to the first. Lock the face of the
flanges and snap to the points as indicated
on the images. Quarter turn, after the first
click, to get the right orientation of your
profile.

3. ADD ECCENTRICITY to the brace,

moving it up, so that it doesn’t cross the
flanges of the beams anymore.

4. Move the ends of the brace by grabbing the

grip points and make sure the ends don’t
stick out anymore.

5. Launch PROPAGATE . Select the two

top beams as reference solids and the brace
as detail solid.

6. Type C for creating copies. Press Enter.

7. Check all the suggestions as specified on

the image.

8. Press Enter to accept.

70
15 (Optional) Setting extra columns in front and
back portal

1. To be able to mount an exterior facade onto

our steel structure, we will complete our
model with some extra columns in the front
and back portal.

2. Open the PROFILES PANEL . Search

for 300 in the IShape category. Drag and
drop the EURO HEA 300 onto empty model
space.

3. Snap to the intersection of the grid lines

underneath the front portal. Turn the profile
just like in the picture to the right and draw
upwards with 4480 mm.

4. To copy the columns more easily, turn on

the display of sides and ends of linear solids

in the ribbon (can also be changed by

typing in DISPLAYSIDESANDENDS).

5. Highlight the side of the column and select

BIM COPY from the Model tab in the

Quad. Type in 5000 mm for the copy
distance. Press Enter. Type in 5000 mm
again, for the next column. Press Enter
twice to exit the command.

6. You now have three columns in the front

portal.

7. Select the fronts of the three columns and

choose BIM COPY from the Model

tab in the Quad. Type in 35000 mm for the
copy distance. Press Enter twice to exit the
command.

8. You now also have three columns in the

back portal.

15 (Optional) Creating cross-beams

1. To be able to mount a roof on top of our

steel structure we will create some cross-
beams on top of the roof.

2. To work more easily, turn off the display of

sides and ends of linear solids in the ribbon

(can also be changed by typing in

DISPLAYSIDESANDENDS).

3. Open the PROFILES PANEL . Search

for 80 in the IShape category. Drag and
drop the EURO IPN 80 onto empty model
space.

71
4. Lock the top face of the first sloped beam
(by hovering over it and hitting Shift) and
snap to the vertex displayed on the image.

5. Enter a distance of 35100 mm or snap to

the endpoint at the back portal. Click Enter
to exit the command.

6. ADD ECCENTRICITY (Model tab of

the Quad) to your beam. Click on the up to
right side arrow of the green widget.

7. We will now use an array to array this cross-

beam over the roof.

8. First, adjust your UCS to the top face of the

sloped beam by typing in UCS in the
command line. Type F to select a Face.
Select the top face of the sloped beam. Hit
Enter twice to accept.

9. Select RECTANGULAR ARRAY from

the Draw tab of the no-selection Quad.
Select the cross-beam to be arrayed.

10. Type in COL for Columns. Give in 10 for the

amount of columns. Type in T to give in the
total distance between start and end
columns. Click on the point specified in the
image to the right to start measuring the
distance. Click on the second point
specified in the image on the right to stop
measuring.

11. Press Enter to exit the command.

12. We now have too many rows.

13. If we select the array and go to its

properties in the PROPERTIES PANEL

we can see that the array has

parameters. One of them is Rows. Put this
value onto 1 and we have the array that we
need.

14. Put your UCS back to World by typing in

UCS and hitting Enter to accept the default
value of World.

15. Mirror the array along the centerline of the

grid by typing in MIRROR in the command
line and clicking two points on the
centerline of the grid. Type N and hit Enter
for keeping the original entities.

72
3D constraints and parameters

You will learn to understand and use 3D constraints and parametric expressions.

1 Open a new drawing.

Before drawing anything, open the

Parameters and Constraints panel on

the right side of your screen.
If you cannot find this panel, right-click anywhere
in the ribbon and under Panels, enable
Parameters and Constraints.
This panel will display all your constraints and
parameters. As the drawing is empty, of course
the panel doesn’t show anything. For this
section, we will shorten the name to Parameters
Panel.
(Optional) Turn off boundary detection and turn

on face detection:

2 Making parametric geometry

16. Draw a box of 1000 x 1000 x 1000.

17. In the ribbon, click the Parametric tab. Here

you will find commands to add constraints
to your drawing, both in 2D and 3D.
Alternatively, some of these commands can
be found in the Quad.

18. Select the two faces highlighted in the

image on the right

19. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: ADD

DISTANCE

20. Press Enter to accept the value of 1000

21. Now the Parameters Panel should show

one Distance Constraint with a value of
1000. Right-clicking it and clicking
‘Animate’ will give you an idea of what this
constraint does exactly.

22. So this distance constraint controls the

distance between these two faces. But
which of the two faces will move when
changing this constraint value? Right now
there is no way of knowing, so we’ll add a
fixed constraint

23. Select one of the two faces, and Quad select

CONSTRAINTS: ADD FIXATION

This new constraint should appear in the
Parameters Panel as Fix_2. This fixed
constraint will mean that this face will not

73
 shift; changing the Distance_1 value will
make the other face move further or closer.

24. Select this face again. You should see two

little icons appear. These show the
constraints that are currently active on this
face. Clicking on one of the icons will also
highlight the associated constraints in the
Parameters Panel.

25. Select Distance_1 in the Parameters Panel,

and change its ‘Expression’ field to another
value (e.g. 800); you will see the opposite
face shift so that the distance is now 800.
Alternatively, you can click the editable
dimension that is shown, and change its
value there, see image on the right.

3 Some more constraints

26. Draw another box next to the original one

27. Select two parallel faces: one of each box

(see image)

28. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: RIGID SET

29. A rigid set means the (sub)entities in this set

will remain rigid with respect to each other.
In this case this means the faces will always
remain the same distance to each other.

30. This can be illustrated by using PUSH/PULL

on one of these faces. You will see

that the other face in this rigid set will also
move along (see second image).

4 We’ll parametrize an existing component.

Open My Window.dwg.
The parameters we want to control are the total
Height, total Width, and the thickness of the
frame. Make sure the Parameters Panel is open.

74
5 First, let’s create some fixed constraints.
These make sure the selected faces will stay in
the same plane at all times.

31. Select left surface of subtractor box (make

sure you select the surface and NOT the
boundary)

32. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: FIXATION

(appears in Panel as “Fix_1”)

33. Select short, front surface of subtractor box

34. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: FIXATION

(appears in Panel as “Fix_2”)

6 Now we’ll create some Rigid Set constraints.

These make sure that all entities inside this
set remain in the same position with respect
to each other.

35. Highlight one of the side faces of the

subtractor solid

36. Quad select SELECT ALIGNED FACES

in the select tab

37. Now you should have two faces selected:

the side face of the subtractor solid, and the
side face of the frame

38. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: RIGID SET

This rigid set will make sure these two faces

remain coplanar.

39. Repeat process for the other three sides.

You should see each of these constraints
appear in the Parameters Panel.

7 We’ll want to do the same for the inside of

the frame.

40. Turn off “BIM_Subtract” layer

41. Highlight one of the inside faces of the

frame

42. Quad select SELECT ALIGNED FACES

in the select tab

43. You should again have two faces selected:

the inside face of the frame, and the side
face of the glass pane.

44. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: RIGID SET

45. Repeat process for other three sides.

75
 46. If all steps were followed correctly, you
should now have 2 fixed constraints and 8
rigid sets in the Parameters Panel, each
containing two faces.

8 Time to add some distance constraints. Two

faces that are linked by a distance constraint
will always be that distance apart.
The first thing that we’ll be handling is the frame
thickness.

47. Select the inside and the outside faces of

one end of a frame (see image):

48. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: ADD

DISTANCE

49. Dimension will appear, just press enter

(Distance_11 = 40 should appear in Panel)

50. To check which faces a distance constraint

controls, right-click it in the Parameters
Panel and click ‘Animate’. You should now
see the thickness of this side of the frame
change.

51. Repeat this process for the other three

sides.

9 Now we’ll add overall distance constraints.

52. Select the two opposite outer faces of the

window frame (see figure)

53. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: ADD

DISTANCE

54. Dimension will appear, just press enter

(Distance_15 = 700 should appear in Panel)

55. Select window frame bottom outer end

surface and top outer end surface (see
figure)

56. Quad select CONSTRAINTS: ADD

DISTANCE

57. Dimension will appear, just press enter

(Distance_16 = 1500 appears in Panel)

58. To check whether all the constraints were

applied correctly, try to animate these last
two distance constraints. If all went well, the
height and width of the window should
change, while the frame thickness stays the
same. Also the glass pane and the
subtractor solid should move along with
the animation.

76
10 Creating Parameters

59. At top of the Parameters Panel, click the

New icon. A new parameter will be created.

60. Select new parameter, and change name to

“W”

61. Change Expression to 700

62. Create a new parameter

63. Select new parameter, and change name to

“H”

64. Change Expression to 1500

65. Create a new parameter

66. Select new parameter, and change name to

“FrameThickness”

67. Change Expression to 40

11 Applying parameters

68. In the Parameters Panel select the distance

constraint with value 700

69. In expression field, type “W” (use same

syntax as parameter name), press Enter.

70. Select the distance constraint with value

1500

71. In expression field, type “H” (use same

syntax as parameter name), press Enter.

72. Select the distance constraints with value

40

73. In expression field, type “FrameThickness”

(use same syntax as parameter name), press
Enter. You will have to do this individually
for all four distance constraints

74. In the end, the Parameters Panel should

look similar to the image on the right.

12 Checking parameters

75. In Parameters Panel, right-click W and click

‘Animate’. Does it do what you expect?

76. You can now change the values of W, H and

FrameThickness before saving the file.

77. You can now save this component in your

library by opening the Components Panel
and clicking CREATE COMPONENT. After
dragging and dropping this new window
into another drawing, you will see these
parameters W, H and FrameThickness
show up in its properties, allowing you to
change the appearance of this window after
inserting it.

77
13 Using design tables
Currently this window can be created in all
possible sizes, from miniscule to supersized to
having odd sizes. In practice usually the allowed
sizes of an object will be limited to certain
parameter combinations due to manufacturing
constraints.
We can create design tables that impose these
restrictions up front. Let’s start with creating a
design table for the frame thickness.

78. Open the Mechanical Browser on the

right side of your screen. Note that this
browser also displays the constraints and
parameters that we created earlier

79. Right-click the FrameThickness parameter

and click Create design table.

80. Currently the design table is empty. The

easiest way to configure this design table is
in a spreadsheet editor. Right-click the
design table and click Export.

81. Save it as a .csv file somewhere easily

accessible, and open this .csv file with a
spreadsheet editor like Excel.

82. The .csv file has two empty columns. The

left-most column (DesignTable_1) will
contain the names of the possible
configurations, whereas the right-most
column (FrameThickness) will contain the
possible values of the FrameThickness
parameter. In this simple case having both
columns the same would make the most
sense (i.e. the name of the configuration
equals the value that the parameter will be).
Fill in some values that make sense, for
example as shown in the image on the right.
This will mean that the frame thickness can
only be chosen between 15 mm and 52.5
mm in increments of 2.5 mm.

83. Save the .csv file and go back to BricsCAD

and in the Mechanical Browser, right-click
DesignTable_1 and click Replace. Now
select the file you just edited.

84. Select the design table and under

Parameter you can now change its Value to
any of the values you included in the .csv
files.

85. (Optional) turn its Exposed property to Off.

14 Combining multiple parameters in a design

table
It is possible to combine more than one
parameter in a design table. For example, maybe
there are only certain combinations of Width and

78
 Height of the window possible. You can define
these combinations in a design table.

86. Select both W and H parameters (by

holding down ctrl and left-clicking them
both), right-click and choose Create design
table.

87. Using the same steps as before, we can

export this design table and open it in a
spreadsheet editor. Now the file contains
three columns: one for the names of the
configurations, and two for the parameter
values for W and H.

88. Fill in some values that make sense, as

shown in the image on the right. Thus, only
the combinations of W and H that are listed
in the .csv file will be possible.

89. Back in BricsCAD, replace DesignTable_2

by the .csv file you edited. Now under
Parameter you can change the Value to any
of the preset combinations.

90. Rename DesignTable_2 to Window Size.

You can now save this component in your library

by opening the Components Panel and clicking
CREATE COMPONENT. After dragging and
dropping this new window into another drawing,
you will see the parameters FrameThickness
and WindowSize in the component’s properties.
Now you can easily select the sizes of these two
parameters from the drop-down list that
appears.

15 Parametrizing an object automatically

After parametrizing this window object, you
might agree that constraining and parametrizing
an object is not straightforward. Luckily there is
a command that will do most of the work for us.

91. Open Chair.dwg

92. In the Parameters Panel you can see that

there are no parameters or constraints in
this drawing.

93. Select the chair solid

94. Launch the PARAMETRIZE tool

(Quad: in the Constraints tab)
95. The Parameters Panel now shows a set of
parameters and constraints that were
automatically defined.
96. Animating each of these parameters lets us
understand what they do exactly:

Length_X_Y changes the width and depth

Length_Z changes the overall height
p_1 controls the seat thickness
p_2 controls the leg thickness
ratio_1 controls the ratio between seat
height and overall height.

79
16 Changing the parameters and constraints
This first suggestion of parameters and
constraints is very useful, but maybe we want to
define our parameters differently. For example,
we want our width and depth of the chair to be
controlled by two separate parameters, instead
of one combined parameter Length_X_Y:

97. Close the Parameters Panel

98. Select one of the side faces of the chair

99. A distance constraint icon should show.

Click it.

100. Now two editable dimensions should be

visible: click the one that says Length_X_Y

101. A parameters manager pops up, showing

the expression of this distance constraint,
and the value of this expression. This is
actually a subset of the Parameters panel,
showing only the constraints and
expressions that are relevant in this
situation. If the parameters panel were
open at that time, this floating manager
would not appear.

102. We want this distance constraint to be

controlled by a new parameter: right-click
the parameters manager and click ‘New’

103. Give the new parameter a name (e.g.

‘Width’) and an expression (e.g. 500)

104. Now change the Expression of the distance

constraint (the top row in this parameters
manager) to be this new Parameter ‘Width’.

105. We can again animate this parameter to see

whether our changes were correct.

106. Select the front face of the chair, and click

the distance constraint icon.

107. Open the parameters manager by clicking

the editable dimension that says
Length_X_Y

108. Change the name of Length_X_Y to Depth

109. Note: all of the steps in this section could

also have been done using the Mechanical
Browser. However the method explained
here is a more visual method, easier to
understand.

80
17 In this section we’ll let the height of the chair
be controlled by two absolute value
parameters instead of an overall height and a
ratio.

110. Select the top face of the chair seat

111. Click the distance constraint icon, and then

the dimension that gives the distance
between the top face of the seat and the
bottom face of one of the legs

112. We see that the height of the chair seat is

controlled by an expression: the overall
height of the chair (Length_Z) multiplied by
a certain ratio (ratio_1). This is a rather
confusing way to represent this height, so
we’ll create a new parameter: ‘Height_seat’
with a value of 480

113. Now change the expression of the distance

constraint to be this new parameter
Height_seat

114. Select the top face of the chair backrest

115. In the parameters manager, change the

name of Length_Z to Height_backrest

116. Animate these two parameters to check the

results.

117. Note: The parameter ratio_1 has now

become obsolete; it is no longer used in any
expressions, so we can delete it.

18 In a final step, we can rename the parameters

p_1 and p_2 to have more appropriate and
recognizable names. In this case, p_1 could be
renamed to Thickness_seat, and p_2 could be
renamed to Thickness_leg. This way, the
parameters are more easily recognizable when
editing the chair’s dimensions.

81
Drawing documentation advanced

This module explains how to advance your sheets and schedules and how to use templates to customize
your future generated drawings.

1 Open starter files

118. To begin, open the following file: Master.dwg

from the Exercise folder in the ‘Drawing
documentation advanced’ folder. This project is
the project we made during the ‘Drawing
documentation basic’ module.

2 Open the Project Browser

119. The PROJECT BROWSER should be

populated with a set of 12 sections, 6 sheets, and
3 models.

120. Inside the project folder, you will find an extra file:
a .projectroot file. This file links together all of
these drawings and sheets. In the following
sections, we will keep using the Project Browser to
navigate and manage our project and the
associated documentation.

3 Check generated drawings

121. To see the result drawing of the section Ground

Floor, right-click Ground Floor, and select Display
View in the flyout menu.

122. The floor plan displays the cut through

representation of the windows and walls, with
different hatches for each ply of the wall, as well as
the furniture symbols and some automatically
placed tags. We will discuss in detail how these
different elements are created in the next steps of
this module.

4 Understanding the layers that were created

If you take a look at the LAYERS PANEL in the

Ground Floor drawing, you will find that an entire set of
layers was created to structure this drawing. They are
mainly grouped into three groups: Background,
Boundary and Fill.

The way this is set up is as follows:

123. Imagine having two objects in your 3D model, each

on their own layers: Layer1 and Layer2.

124. A section plane is cutting through the object on

Layer1 (the green object in the image on the right).
The section plane is not cutting through the object
on Layer2 (red object in the image).

82
125. In the resulting section drawing, some layers will be
created for the green object: Boundary_Layer1 for
the boundary of where the section plane slices
through the object (indicated with a red line in the
image on the right). A Fill_Layer1 layer will be
created containing a hatch of where the section
plane cuts through the object. Finally, a
Background_Layer1 layer will be created that
contains subentities (e.g. vertices of solids) that are
not sliced by the section plane: in this case, the
vertices indicated with a yellow line in the image on
the right.

126. For the red object, only one layer will be created.
Since the section plane does not cut through this
object, only a Background_Layer2 layer will be
created. Thus, the section result will look like the
image shown here.

127. This logic is extended when a physical material is

assigned to an object. Take a look at the

COMPOSITIONS PANEL in Building

2.dwg. Double-click Cavity Wall, Brick, this
composition consists of 4 plies, each with their
own material. Each physical material is associated
with a hatch pattern, which will be shown when
creating a floor plan or vertical section.

128. When a physical material or composition is applied

to an object, this material name will overwrite the
name of the layer which the object is on, when
creating the Fill_, Boundary_ and Background_
layers in the resulting section drawing. So let’s say
you have an object on Layer Wall, and it has a
composition that consists of two plies: Brick and
Insulation.
Instead of creating Fill_Wall, Background_Wall and
Boundary_Wall, it will create the layers Fill_Brick,
Background_Brick, Boundary_Brick, Fill_Insulation,
Background_Insulation and Boundary_Insulation.

129. For objects without a composition, the colors of

the Fill_, Background_ and Boundary_ layers will be
copied from the layer in the 3D model.
For objects with a composition, the default colours
and line weights are set by a template found by
typing in SUPPORTFOLDER and browsing to
Bim/Sections/_SectionSettings.dwg. Thus, it’s
possible to create your own templates for material
colors.

130. The way these Fill_, Background_ and Boundary_

layers are set up can be controlled in the drawing
that contains the section planes; i.e. Building
2.dwg in this case. Open this drawing and type in
SECTIONPLANESETTINGS in the command line.
This will open the drawing explorer in the Section
Planes tab. Here you can control per section plane
how certain types of lines are plotted, and on which
layer they are created. This should give you full
control over which layers are created and what
your generated 2D drawings will look like. We will
not go into full detail here, but it is worth exploring
the different options and settings if you want to
create templates for your own workplace.

83
5 Understanding the created BRX_2D layers

In the drawing with the generated 2D sections, open the

LAYERS PANEL . In the search bar, type in ‘BRX’.

You can see that there are a couple of so-called BRX_2D
layers. We already met them in the ‘Drawing
documentation basic’ module, but we will explore them
further here.

Note that objects on BRX_2D layers will only be

displayed in a section result if the section plane is
parallel to these objects.

You can create your own BRX_2D layers in custom

objects, so long as they have the correct syntax: BRX_2D_
or BRX_2D+_ as a prefix.

131. Open Building 2.dwg.

132. Activate the horizontal floor plan section by

double-clicking it.

133. In the dining room, highlight one of the chairs and

in the Quad, click OPEN A COPY .

134. In this drawing, you can see that there are a layer
BRX_2D_Symbols, containing some polylines and
splines. Thus, when creating a horizontal section,
this chair will not be represented by what it looks
like as a 3D model, but by the polylines and splines
that are on this BRX_2D_Symbols layer.

135. Change the representation of the chair to your

standard. Make sure to put your symbolic
representation on the BRX_2D_Symbols layer and
to not use regular Lines, as these will not be
displayed upon section generation.

136. Save this copy of the component by hitting the

button Create Component, in the COMPONENTS

PANEL , while nothing is selected. Give it a

name, for example, Design chair 2, and a category,
here Furnishing Elements.

137. Go back to Building 2.dwg.

138. Replace the old chair with the new one by selecting

the chair and clicking REPLACE from the

Model tab of the Quad. Click Enter to fetch the
new component from a file. Browse to the
C:\ProgramData\Bricsys\Components folder. This is
the folder where new components are stored that
are made via the Components Panel. If you browse
to the Furnishing Elements folder, you will find the
Design chair 2 component. Select this dwg to
replace the chair with.

139. Now save Building 2.dwg.

140. Click Update on the Ground Floor section in the

Sheets tab of the Project Browser and then click
Display View. You will now see that the
BRX_2D_Symbol has changed to the new
representation.

84
6 Updating section hatch patterns

When changes are made in the 3D drawing, these

changes can be easily updated in the 2D section result.

141. Open A-100.dwg.

142. Check out the created plan view Ground Floor.

Notice the different hatch patterns in the section.

143. Go to Building 2.dwg.

144. Open the COMPOSITIONS PANEL and

double-click Cavity Wall, Brick

145. Double-click the hatch pattern of the Facing Bricks,

Hand-formed

146. In the appearance tab, double-click the hatch

pattern and change it to ANSI33

147. Click OK to close the compositions dialog

148. Save this drawing

149. In the Project Browser, right-click Ground Floor

and click Display View.

150. Right-click it again, and this time click Update. You

should see the changes you made in the 3D model
being reflected in this 2D section as well; the hatch
pattern of the facing brick is updated to ANSI33
instead of the default hatch pattern.

7 Tagging building elements

The command BIMTAG allows you to manually

or automatically add tags on section results. However if
the property ‘Generate Tags’ of the respective section
plane is on, the tagging will happen automatically upon
generation of your section. Which has happened in our
sections.

151. If the setting would be off though you can go to

the Quad, under the Model tab, click TAG

and press Enter.

152. You see a bunch of Multileaders on your sections.

To understand which information those
Multileaders show, type MLEADERSTYLE in the
command line. This opens up the Drawing Explorer
in the Multileader Styles tab.

153. Select the _WallTypeStyle; it gives you a preview of

what the tag will look like. We will change the tag
style so it contains different information and has a
different appearance

85
 154. Change the Type from ‘Straight’ to ‘None’. Now it
won’t have a line connecting the building element
and the tag itself

155. In the Content tab, you see that the Source Block is
called _WallTag. Close the drawing explorer.

156. In the command line, type BEDIT and choose to

edit the _WallTag block definition

157. Select the WallType Attribute Definition, and in its

PROPERTIES PANEL change the ‘Tag’ value

from WallType to Composition

158. Copy this Attribute Definition and paste it a bit

lower. Change this new Attribute Definition’s Tag
value to Quantity/Thickness (see image on the
right)

159. Delete the rectangle

160. In the floating Block Edit toolbar, click the BCLOSE Note: the syntax to be used is as follows:

@PropCatName/@PropName. If "/" delimiter is not present in the tag, "BIM"

AND SAVE icon, or type BCLOSE in the
category is assumed.
command line and choose the Save option
Base property name should be separated from the child name with ":"
161. Highlight the viewport containing the floor plan
character, e.g. mass/ucs elevation:minimum.
again

162. In the Quad, under the Model tab, click UPDATE

SECTION

163. The wall tags should now have a different

appearance: they should show the composition
name as well as the thickness. The box and the
leader connecting it to the building element should
no longer appear.

164. Note: these block definitions and multileaderstyles

are saved in a template drawing in the support
folder. Type in SUPPORTFOLDER and browse to
Bim/Sections/_SectionTag. Thus, it is possible to
create your own templates for tag styles, using the
same method as described above in the template
file.

8 Adding dimensions

165. Open the Plan – Building 1 – Ground Floor

section drawing.

166. Go to the Annotate tab and select DIMENSION

from the Dimensions category.

167. Click a line (without snapping to a point) of the wall

that is dimensioned in the image to the right.

168. Click again to place the dimension’s text

somewhere in the neighborhood of the wall.

169. Save the file A-101.dwg.

170. Open Building 1.dwg and clip the horizontal

section.

171. Drag the wall, indicated in the picture to the right,

by 1000 mm. To do this, hover over a face of the

wall and click DRAG from the Model tab of

the Quad. Then move the cursor out of the little
room into the big room, type in 1000 and hit Enter.

86
 172. Save Building 1.dwg.

173. Go back to Plan – Building 1 – Ground Floor.

174. Click on the viewport and click UPDATE SECTION

(Quad: Model tab).

175. The dimension line adjusted itself according to the

new length of the wall.

176. If you want to add some more annotations, you can

do so, but in this training, this was the last type of
annotation that we discussed.

177. You can customize and save dimension styles in the

Dimensions section of the Drawing Explorer. You
can go there by typing in DIMSTYLE in the
command line.

178. Note that if you want to store dimension styles for

future drawings you can do so by adding them in a
.dwt template file. The process of adding things to
a template file will be discussed in one of the next
steps.

9 Inserting title blocks and sheet list tables

179. Go to the file A-100.dwg.

180. Open the Drawing Explorer - Blocks dialog by

typing in XB in the command line.

181. Double click the Title block.

The Drawing Explorer dialog closes and the block
is attached to the cursor.

182. Click at the lower right corner of the paper sheet

in the layout.

183. Define some Project properties in the SHEET

SETS PANEL .

184. Save the drawing. Normally the fields are now

updated automatically.

185. If the fields would not update automatically, you

can go to the Annotate tab, select the Title block,
then click the UPDATE FIELDS tool button ( )
in the Text tab under the Fields drop-down.

87
 186. Now let’s insert a sheet list table.

187. A Sheet List table can be inserted on any sheet of

the sheet set.

188. Right-click the sheet set name in the SHEET SETS

PANEL and choose Insert Sheet List

Table in the context menu.

189. Specify a point in the drawing to place your table.

190. Fill in the numbers of the sheets by going to each

individual sheet in the SHEET SETS PANEL .

Run the UPDATE FIELDS command onto the
table to regenerate the table.

191. Note that if you want to store the title block for
future drawings you can do so by adding it in a
.dwt template file. The process of adding things to
a template file will be discussed in one of the next
steps.

10 Adding view labels and callout blocks

192. We will start by adding a view label.

193. Go to the file A-100.dwg.

194. Select the sheet view A-100 in the SHEET SETS

PANEL and click on the plus in front of it.

195. Right-click the sheet view you want the view label
block to be inserted for.

196. Choose Place View Label Block in the context

menu.

197. Click on your sheet to specify an insertion point.

198. Enter to accept 1 for the Scale factor of the block.

199. Enter to accept 0 for the Rotation angle of the

block.

200. The View Label block is inserted.

201. The Sheet Number, Sheet View Number, Sheet

View Title and Viewport Scale of the selected
sheet view are filled in automatically.

202. Select the sheet view A-100 in the SHEET SETS

PANEL and click on the plus in front of it.

203. Right-click the sheet view you want the callout

block to be inserted for.

204. Choose Place Callout Block > Number Bubble

in the context menu.

205. Click on your sheet to specify an insertion point.

206. Enter to accept 1 for the Scale factor of the block.

207. Enter to accept 0 for the Rotation angle of the

block.

208. The Number Bubble block is inserted.

209. The Sheet Number and Sheet View Number of the

selected sheet view are filled in automatically.

210. You can store the source files of various callout

blocks in a template.

88
 211. The template is located in the
..\Support\Bim\Sections subfolder of the Roamable
Root folder. By default this
is: C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\
Bricsys\BricsCAD\Vxx\en_US\Support\Bim\Sections.
You can easily access this file by typing
in SUPPORTFOLDER and browsing to
Bim/Sections.

212. You can edit these files to customize the layout of

the callouts and the section tracker blocks.

213. When a drawing is generated, the needed callout

blocks are created from the callout blocks source
file(s). When a BIM section is updated, the existing
callout blocks in the target drawing are used (type
BEDIT to choose one to edit).

11 Creating interior elevations

If you’re interested in interior elevations of a room, these

can be created automatically. This can be particularly
interesting for interior designers, or to make the layout
of wall plugs/light switches

214. Open Building 2.dwg

215. Activate the horizontal plan section by double-

clicking it

216. Highlight the living Room or select it in the

Structure Browser

217. In the Quad, under the Model tab, click DEFINE

INTERIOR ELEVATIONS
This should create an elevation for each wall, and a
floor plan of this room.

218. Open the STRUCTURE BROWSER and

under Sections, you should now find 6 Interior
Elevations and 1 Interior Floor Plan.

219. Select all 7 of these section planes and in the Quad

under the Model tab, click GENERATE SECTION

220. You can open the section results by clicking OPEN

MODEL while having the section planes

selected, or by opening the Project Browser. This
should now contain a new sheet displaying these
interior elevations.

221. Rearrange the section results so that they fit on the

sheet. These interior elevations work the exact
same way as the sections and plans we created
earlier, so everything about the layer setup and
updating changes etc. also applies here.

89
12 Creating Drawing Customization templates

You can set up Drawing Customization templates which

you can apply to selected viewports on sheets. These
templates are helpful to ensure certain graphic
standards are applied uniformly across different set of
drawings, and across other projects, based on your
desired entities’ BIM properties and their values. It can
also be useful to check if the 3D model elements and its
metadata have been correctly created. For this training
exercise, we will create a template to filter and apply
bespoke graphics to highlight External Walls and Doors
on a floor plan.

222. Open Building 2.dwg and A-102.dwg

223. On the side panel, turn on the DRAWING

CUSTOMIZATION PANEL to access the

interface.

224. Click to create a new template. By default, the

template is named “New Customization” with the
text highlighted.

225. Rename the template to “External Elements

Strategy” whilst the text is being highlighted. Once
done, hit Enter to save and apply the name.

226. Click the newly created template tab to begin

defining its customization settings. The first step
into the template brings you to the Entity
Customizations, where you will define how your
desired element should appear in the customized
drawing.

227. Click to create a new entity customization

template. Similar as before, the template is named
“New Customization” with the text highlighted.

228. As this template will contain the customization

settings for external walls, rename the template to
“Wall - External” whilst the text is being
highlighted. Once done, hit Enter to save and
apply the name.

229. Repeat Steps 6 and 7. For the second template,

rename it to “Door – External”. Hit Enter to save
and apply the name when done.

230. Create a third template and rename it to “Others”.

This is a general entity customization setting that
could “blanket” apply to other entities or
parameters outside what have just been specified.
This is helpful especially to “tone down” the
presence of any unrelated or unimportant entities
you do not wish to the reader to pay attention to.

231. With 3 entity customizations to consider, that gives

you an idea how many different styles will have to

be created. Go to to access the STYLES tab.

232. To create a new style, click at the bottom

right of the panel and a new STYLES template tab
will appear.

90
233. By default, the tab is named “Style”. Rename it to
“Red” whilst the text is being highlighted as shown.
After you are done, hit Enter to save and apply.

234. Repeat Steps 11 and 12 for the 2 other styles.

Rename the 2nd and the 3rd Style templates as
“Blue” and “Grey”. Now you should have 3 styles
in total.

235. Click Blue to set its style settings.

236. Click its current Color value RGB: 255,255,255 to

edit.

237. In the Select Color dialog, click the Index Color

tab to access a range of pre-set colors. Click the ˅
button to change the index value from 255 to 5.
Alternatively, you could type 5 into the value box
or select a blue square with a value of RGB:
0,0,255. Press OK to apply the changes and exit the
dialog.

238. The color value should now be changed to Blue. Hit

OK in the Drawing Customization panel to apply
the changes to the style template.

239. To adjust the right colors for the Red and Grey style
templates, repeat Steps 14 – 17. However, choose
Index 1; RGB 255,0,0 and Index 9; RGB:
192,192,192 for the Red and Grey style templates
respectively.

240. With all 3 style settings set, click Back to return to

the previous page on the panel. It should bring you
to the Entity Customization page.

241. Click Wall – External tab to define its entity

customization settings.

242. Click Section Result Customization. As this

drawing customization template will be
implemented on a floor plan, walls taller than the
view plane, ie. 1000mm, will be appear as cut, like
in a section. Therefore, it is appropriate to change
the default value of the Intersection Fill setting to
an available Style. In the drop-down selection,
select Red.

243. As this style should also apply to External Walls

shorter than the View Plan height, select Red for
the Background value in its drop-down to enable
this function.

244. The main color of the affected entities has now

been set to Red, but any corresponding hatches
will remain as its default settings. In the drop-down
selection box for Appearance Override, select
Aluminium from the list, which as a material hatch
appears as a solid hatch. Now my External Wall
entities when cut will appear solid.

245. Ensure the Inherit For Plies box is ticked so the

settings also apply across those compositions with
multiple layers.

246. Click Back twice to return to the Entity

Customization page to resume setting up the rest.

247. Click Door – External tab to define its entity

customization settings.

91
248. Click Symbol Customization. In this drawing
customization template, the external doors will be
replaced with a desired symbol.

249. Click on the Select File tab to select a 2D symbol

drawing in dwg format you would like to replace
the door entity in the customized drawing.

250. In the dialog, choose Symbol – Circle in the

Starter files – Drawing Documentation
Advanced – Exercise folder. For best practice,
always transfer the symbol file to the relevant
Drawing Customization template folder within
Support Folder – Customizations. For more
information, please refer to the V21 Help Guide on
how to access customization templates.

251. As the default layer settings in the symbol file are

not defined or associated with any desired colors,
it is best to customize the symbol file based on its
layer names and with the styles created earlier.

Symbol – Circle.dwg contains 2D objects in 2

separate layers, therefore they would need to be
adjusted accordingly.

252. Click and when prompted with Symbol

Name Contains:, enter “BIM_2D_BACK_”. Hit OK
when done.

253. Repeat Step 31 and for the prompt, enter

“BIM_2D_SECT_”. Hit OK when done.

254. For both values of the new symbol layer

customizations, select Blue from their drop-down
values.

255. On the tree structure, click External Elements

Strategy to quickly return to the Entity
Customization page.

256. Finally, define the settings for the Others. Click

Section Result Customization.

257. Select Grey as values for the Background,

Intersection Boundary and Intersection Fill
fields.

258. When done, click at the top right-hand

corner of the panel to access the RULES.

259. Click to create a new Rule. Rename the rule

to “Walls” whilst the text is being highlighted. Hit
Enter when done.

260. Repeat Steps 38 and 39. Rename the second Rule

as “Doors”

261. Click within Walls. You will be prompted

with a selection of new functions to choose from.

262. Select Filter.

263. In the Edit Filter Parameters dialog, the default

values refer to a formula “Type (BIM) = Wall”, which
coincidentally corresponds with the desired filter
rule for the walls.

264. Repeat Step 41.

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265. Select Sub rule.

266. Rename the rule to “External” whilst the text is

being highlighted. Hit Enter when done.

267. Click within the SUB RULE.

268. Select Filter.

269. In the Edit Filter Parameters dialog, change the

Filter Property from Type (BIM) to Is External
(Wall Common).

270. For the Check Value (Boolean) field, choose True

from the drop-down selection to ensure a formula
“Is External (Wall Common) = True” is applied to
the filter SUB RULE for all Wall entities within the
model.

271. To end this sub-rule, click within the sub rule

and select Entity Customization.

272. In the drop-down selection prompt, choose Wall –

External. Hit OK when done.

273. Repeat Steps 44 – 46 but rename the new SUB

RULE to “Others”.

274. Simply repeat Step 51 and choose Others in the

drop-down selection prompt. Without any
additional sub-filters, this SUB RULE will now apply
to walls whose Is External (Wall Common) value
is False, i.e. Internal. Hit OK when done.

275. Repeat the actions from Steps 41 and 42, but this
time on the Door Rule.

276. In the Edit Filter Parameters dialog, change the

Check Value (String) value from Wall to Door,
such that the formula refers to “Type (BIM) = Door”,
to select all Door entities in the model.

277. Repeat the sequence of creating new sub rules as

you have done from Steps 44 – 54, whilst making
sure any relevant filter rules refer to Door entities,
i.e. Is External (Door Common) and that the sub-
rule for the External Door is paired with Door –
External.

278. Now your entity customizations, filter rules and

styles are set. You may click to exit the

settings and return to the Drawing Customization
homepage to prevent any accidental changes.

279. Click the A-102.dwg tab to view the sheet.

280. Ensure the PROPERTIES panel is turned on and is

displayed.

281. Select PLAN – BUILDING 2 – GROUND FLOOR

viewport and in the PROPERTIES panel, go to the
Drawing Customization property and select
External Elements Strategy from its drop-down
selection.

282. Hover over the selected viewport and select

UPDATE SECTION in the Quad under

Model tab.

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 283. You should see a refreshed viewport with the
graphical changes as per your Drawing
Customization settings.

13 Creating schedules

Let’s add some more schedules to the project, besides

the Door schedule we created in the ‘Drawing
documentation basic’ module. Step 1 to 9 are meant to
refresh your memory of how this is done. This time we
make a schedule of windows.

284. Go to Building 2.dwg.

285. In the Schedules tab of the PROJECT BROWSER

, click Add Schedule. A dialog pops up.

286. First, we’ll create a window schedule: Enter a name

(e.g. Building 2 – Windows). Select Building
2.dwg in the model field if it is not already selected.
In the Data Extraction Definition field, choose for
Windows (BIM).dxd (this file can be found in your
Supportfolder/Bim/Schedules). Choose an
appropriate name for the resulting drawing. This
will be another sheet, so you could choose a name
that is consistent with the sheet you created for the
plans and sections.

287. Click Next.

288. Tick off ‘Extract entities from blocks’. Click Next.

289. You can now select the properties you want. Click
Finish to accept the defaults of the .dxd file.

290. The schedule is now shown in the project browser,

but it is not generated yet.

291. Right-click the schedule name and click Update.

292. Right-click the schedule name and click Display

Schedule.

293. We see that both schedules have a column ‘Story’

showing. This is not very relevant, as the building
only has one story. So we’ll delete this field from
the Schedule. You could have done that by
deselecting this property in the creation process.
The way to do this afterward, however, is by
changing the Data Extraction Definition (.dxd file).
The files you’ve used are a set of default .dxd’s to
help new users on their way. However, every time
you go through the schedule wizard a new .dxd file
is created in your project folder, with your selected
settings. This is then used to create the schedule.

294. Right-click the Windows schedule in the Project

Browser, and click Properties…

295. In the .dxd field, copy the file path and past it in
your Windows Explorer. The file will be opened in a
text editor. It is the new .dxd in your project folder
that is opened.

296. A .dxd file is a readable file, so it’s possible to create

your own .dxd’s in a simple text editor.

297. Remove the line that says Story|Story|

298. Save the file.

299. Do the same for the Doors (BIM).dxd.

300. Update both sections; they should now not have

any Story information showing.
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14 Creating a Data Extraction Definition from scratch

The DATAEXTRACTION command will, just like the

Schedules wizard, make a new .dxd file with your
settings, but it will also make a .csv file with your data in
it.

301. Open Building 2.dwg.

302. In the Structure Browser, select all Furnishing

Elements.

303. Type in DATAEXTRACTION in the command line.

304. Uncheck the Extract entities from blocks box.

305. Check the Create Data Extraction Definition box,

and choose a file: name it “FurnishingElements.dxd”
and save it in your project folder.

306. Click Next.

307. Select All and click Next.

308. Check the three properties in the Furniture

Information category: Article Number, Cost, and
Manufacturer.

309. Click Next.

310. Click on the three dots next to the Output to CSV

field. Give in a new name for you .csv file and click
Save.

311. Click Finish.

312. This should have created 2 files: a .csv file

containing the results of the dataextraction
(basically the same as a schedule, but in an external
file), and a .dxd file. This .dxd file can now be re-
used for creating a schedule.

313. Open the .dxd file in a text editor. We can see 5

sections: Settings, Entity Types, Properties,
TableFormatOptions and SELECTION SET.

314. The Settings we will leave as they are

315. The Entity Types are chosen because of the

selection set we had active when using data
extraction. However, instead of explicitly choosing
which types (and handles, see later) we want to
extract data from, we will just replace the explicit
entity types by an asterisk (*), to define that we
want to extract information from all entity types.

316. The Properties we will leave as they are.

317. The TableFormatOptions we will leave as they are.

318. We can delete the entire SELECTION SET section,

because again we don’t want to explicitly define
which entities we’ll be extracting data from. We’ll
do this by adding a filter.

319. We can add a filter by adding a new section: The

section title is called [Filter]
The section content is
(Type == Furnishing Element)
(cfr. the .dxd files that are given as example in the
support folder, there a Filter on Door and Window
type is used).

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 320. Thus, the contents of the .dxd file should be as
follows:

321. Save this .dxd file in your project folder.

322. In the Project Browser, click Add Schedule and give

it an appropriate name (e.g. Building 2 – Furnishing
Elements). Select Building 2.dwg in the model
field if it is not already selected. In the Data
Extraction Definition field, choose for the .dxd file
you just saved. For the result drawing, choose a
new drawing.

Update the schedule and display it. You should now have
a new schedule, containing information about furniture
elements: Cost, Manufacturer, Article Number, Count
and BlockViewProperties.

15 Creating sheet set templates

323. The sheet set templates are stored in

the C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\
Local\Bricsys\BricsCAD\Vxx\en_US\Templates
folder.

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324. If you want to edit an existing template, you have
two options. Either you edit it directly, or you
make a copy.

325. To edit it directly, you can go to Open under the

BricsCAD icon, choose .dwt in the 'Files of type'
drop-down and choose the file you want to edit.
You can then make the modifications and save the
file.

326. To make a copy, double-click on the .dwt file you

want to copy. A new .dwg with this template will
open. Make your modifications and save your file
as .dwt. Save it in the templates folder to easily
use the copied template in a new drawing.

327. If you have saved the template .dwt to the sheet

set templates folder, you will see it appear when
you use the New Wizard to open a new drawing.
You will also be able to select it as the template
for the creation of generated drawings in the
sheet set set-up of the Project Browser.

328. What can you store into a template?

You can store the following things by using them
in your .dwt file:

a. Title block

b. Layers

c. Colors

d. Line types

e. Hatch patterns

f. Blocks

g. Text styles

h. Dimension styles

i. Page set-ups

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Point clouds

This module explains how to load point clouds into BricsCAD and work with them. It also shows you a 3D
model that was made based on point cloud data.

1 Open Pointclouds.dwg which is made from a

m template

2 Attach a point cloud

329. To begin we will attach a point cloud with

the ATTACHPOINTCLOUD command. We
can attach different formats including: .las,
.pts, .ptx, .rcp and .rcs.

330. Click ATTACHPOINTCLOUD .

331. Choose ‘from File’, by typing F.

332. Choose the Pump ptx file from your local

machine and click Open.

333. Uncheck all checkboxes in the Attach Point

Cloud window and hit OK.

334. Wait for the pop-up message that pre-

processing of the point cloud is done.
NOTE: the point cloud is being pre-
processed automatically, as well as cached
to you cache folder.

335. REGEN your drawing, by typing in the

command. Your point cloud should now
appear.

3 Change point cloud point size

336. Decrease point cloud point size, by clicking

the icon once.

337. You see that the points become smaller

and they don’t form a smooth drawing. So
if we increase the point size again, we see
a smoother preview.

338. Increase point cloud point size, by clicking

the icon twice.

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4 Change the amount of shown points

339. Decrease POINTCLOUDPOINTMAX, by

typing in this command and changing its
value to 500 000.
NOTE: when we want to decrease the
number of points that we see, for faster
visualization purposes, for example, our
image will still be relatively smooth thanks
to the bigger point size.

340. Increase POINTCLOUDPOINTMAX again,

by typing in this command and changing
its value back to 4 000 000.

5 Insert another instance of an already pre-

processed point cloud

341. Type in the command

POINTCLOUDREFERENCE.

342. Choose the pump.ptx from the list of pre-

processed point clouds present in your
cache folder.

343. Tick Specify On-screen and click OK in

the Attach Point Cloud window.

344. Now place the point cloud somewhere in

your drawing.

5 Clip the display of a point cloud

345. Make a section box around the part of the

pump you want to isolate.
NOTE: you can always rotate the section
box with the Manipulator.

346. CLIPDISPLAY the section box.

347. Orbit around the point cloud.

NOTE: you see that while you are moving
the points become a bit blurry. This is for
faster preview. If you stay still for a while
all the points will become visible.

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6 Measure a distance in a point cloud

348. Turn on ESNAP.

349. Measure the diameter of the pump for

example.
NOTE: you can snap towards points of the
point cloud to make this an easy job.

7 Draw a cylinder to start modeling the pump

350. Change your UCS by typing in UCS in the

command line and aligning it with your
section box.

351. Draw a cylinder using the CYLINDER

icon from the Primitives.

352. Specify the half of the diameter, that you

just measured, as the radius.

353. Snap to the other end of the pump to

specify the height.

8 Crop a point cloud

354. Unclip the section box.

355. Right-click on the Lookfrom widget and

select UCS instead of WCS and turn
Perspective off.

356. Click on the Back view icon of the

Lookfrom widget.

357. Go to the Insert tab and click CROP

from the ‘pointclouds’ section.

358. Select the pointcloud you just modeled

onto.

359. Choose R for Rectangular crop.

360. Draw a rectangle over the area you want

to crop out, for example the area where
you modeled your pump.

361. View your model in its context!

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9 View a 3D model modeled after a point
cloud

362. Open Church.dwg. In this file, you find a

3D model of a church that was modeled
after a point cloud.

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