Timeliner

This tutorial was originally created by Michael Smith and updated by Kevin R. Miller.
Modified 04/26/2016

Timeliner is used to show building animation and checking for clashes that would occur as the project is
constructed.

To start this tutorial, in the Navis Dataset/Timeliner folder, open the NavisAligned 2014.nwf file.

Creating Search sets

Search sets allow you to search through the model whereas Selection sets only allow predefined objects to be
found. The benefit of the Search set over the Selection set is that as different models are used, searching the new
model for objects will be more inclusive than a selection set would be.

1. Select Find Items on the Home ribbon.

2. The first search set that will be made for this tutorial is the roof.

Select a component of the roof and look at its name in the Selection Tree.

If the Selection Tree is not open, on the Home ribbon, select the
Selection Tree tool to open it.

If the selection tree is docked on the left side of Navisworks, select the docked Selection Tree and pin
it open.

As different roof elements are selected, the naming systems varies quite a bit.

To locate all the roof objects in the model, on the Find Items palette, on the right portion of the palette, make the
Category Item, the Property Name, the Condition Contains, and the Value Roof. (It may be beneficial to widen
the Category, Property and Value columns in the Find Items palette.)

Uncheck Match Case.

Press Find All.

This selects every object that has Roof in it name. If you look carefully, you will notice that the roof drain are
also selected as well as all the objects contained in the Mechanical_Roof.nwc file. So maybe too many things
have been select.

On the Find Items palette, on the left column select the Arch.nwc file. By selecting the Arch file, it will only
perform the search for the one model rather than all the models. This can be useful in some instances. Now
press the Find All button again and notice the differences.
The Match Case box should be uncheck, then press Find All.

Go to Sets palette on the left of the screen (if not visible, go to the View Ribbon, Windows and checkmark Sets)
and right click in the Sets palette and select Save Search. On the search set that is created, right click and name
the search set Roof. Now any time the entire roof needed to be selected, left click on the Roof search set.

Search Set -- Below Grade Concrete

Move the View Cube so you can see the underground portion of the model and select a footing.
On the Find Items palette, in the Search in portion of the palette, select the Conc model and make the selections
as shown in the graphic below.

The plus sign in the Category column is added by right clicking and selecting Or Condition as shown in the
graphic below. Using the “or” logic in this example, an item must be Concrete- Cast-in-Place and a GB or
Concrete- Cast-in-Place and a DP. This makes it so that only grade beams or drilled piers are selected.

Press Find All.

On the Sets palette, save the search set as Footings.
To gain a little more experience in creating search sets, create the following search sets.

Make search sets with the following names, make sure they are named exactly as seen:

Model Category Property Condition Value Set Name

Arch.nwc Item Name Contains interior wall Interior Walls
Steel.nwc Item File Name Contains Steel Steel

Now export these search sets to an XML file. The benefit of exporting these search sets is that in future projects,
you don't need to recreate them. Rather they can be imported into the project as you will see in the Timeliner
tutorial.

To export the search sets do the following:

On the Search Set palette, select the Import/Export tool .

Select Export Search Sets, The location of the file should be where the Navisworks dataset is located.
Name the file Custom Search Set.xml and press Save.

Importing Search Sets

There are other search sets that have been created that you can import for this tutorial.

To import the Search Sets on the Search Set palette, select the Import/Export tool select Import Search Sets
and select the Navis Dataset\Timeliner\search sets science building.xml file.

Linking Files
Once Search Sets have been created they can link automatically to Activity names from a spreadsheet. For the
autolinking to occur, the Name in the CSV file must be the same as the Search Set Name in Navisworks. The spreadsheet
(csv file) can also contain dates which will help drive the schedule. For this tutorial, a csv file is already created. Take a
second to open the science schedule.csv file contained in the Timeliner folder. The headings of each column align the
data fields with the Navisworks fields. The dates contained in the CSV file are that start and end dates that will be used
for Navisworks.
Timeliner

If the Timeliner palette is not shown, On the Home ribbon select Timeliner . If you need to close the Find
Items palette to make more room on your monitor, feel free to do
so.

Data Sources

Select the Data Sources tab.

Press the Add button, and select CSV import and select the
science schedule.csv.

On the Field Selector window make the selections as shown in the

graphic.

Select OK.

Rules

Click the Task tab and select Auto-Attach Using Rules tool.

Now select New.

1. In the Rules Editor window select Attach Items to Tasks.

2. In the bottom portion of the window, ensure that Name, Selection Sets and Ignoring are in blue text. Press
OK
Press the checkbox for the rule just created.

Press the Apply Rules button and close the Timeliner Rules window.

Data Sources

Select the Data Source tab. Right click on the New Data Source file and select Rebuild Task Herarchy and
then right click and select Synchronize.

On the Tasks tab, left click the first box under Task Type and select Construct. Now reselect the first task and
all the tasks below and select Fill Down. The task window should look like the image below.
 If the Attached column is blank, then the Rules didn't apply correctly. Go to the Rules and press the
Apply Rules button again to see if will correct the Attachment on the Tasks tab. If that doesn't work, you
can do either of the approaches below to fix the problem.

1. If you see the Search Sets on the Search Set palette, but it isn't Attaching correctly, do the
following:
• Select the first Search Set that isn't attaching on the Sets palette.
• On the Find Items palette, in the Search in: area, select/highlight the model that should
be associated with the search, ie ELECTRICAL.nwc.
• On the Sets palette, right click on Rough Electrical and select Update.
• After this is done for the various search sets, reapply the Rules that were previously
created.

2. If task was not connected to the building and you want to force a connection to the search set,
simply right click in the Attached column and select the set you wish to attach.

Simulate

All tasks, if named as shown above in the selection sets, are now linked to the project. Click the Simulate tab.

Press the Settings button and change the view to the Planned radio button.

Press the Play button to build the building.

For comments on this tutorial, please send them to kmiller@byu.edu.

Rotating the Model

If you would like to rotate the model during the simulation, there is an easy way to do this. In the tutorial below, a simple
rotation will be made from 3 different viewpoints.

1. Open the Saved Viewpoints menu and pin it open.

2. Navigate to the starting view of the rotation. For this view, starting below the
footings may be a good view to start with.
3. Right click on the Saved Viewpoints palette and select Save Viewpoint. Name
the first view point 10.

4. Move to the next view from which a Viewpoint should be made.

Name this Viewpoint 20.

5. The final Viewpoint name is 30.

 6. On the Saved Viewpoint palette, right click and Add Animation.

7. Drag the 3 viewpoint to the animation.

8. Rename the Animation to Timeliner Animation. It could be named anything, but that is the name that I selected.
9. On the Timeliner palette, select the Settings button.

10. On the Simulation Settings window, under the Animation heading, select Saved Viewpoints Animation. Press
OK.
11. Select the Timeliner Animation on the Saved Viewpoints palette.
12. Now play the animation on the Timeliner palette.

Sectioning the Model

To make it easier to see in the model during the animation, a section plane will be added to the animation.

On the Timeliner palette, make sure the timeline slider is all the way to the right. This will make it so the complete
building is visible.

On the Saved Viewpoints palette, select viewpoint 20.

On the Viewpoint ribbon, select Enable Sectioning.

On the Sectioning Tools ribbon, select the Current Plane as Plane 6. If the Gizmo isn’t visible, select Fit Selection and
also toggle the Move tool.

Grab the Red Square of the Gizmo and

move it to the right so more of the
building is visible.

On the Sectioning Tools ribbon, select

Save Viewpoint. On the Saved
Viewpoint palette, name the new
viewpoint 25 and drag it just below 20.

Unselect the Move tool so the Gizmo disappears.

Now orient the view to look similar to this.

Right click on Viewpoint 30 and select Update

On the Timeliner palette, drag the timeliner tool to the left so it is at the beginning of the animation.

Now play the Timeliner Simulation.