General Settings
Before beginning with the creation of the structural model you should address the Settings - These cover 3 main areas:
- Global - Where you can preset global standards and settings - these settings will override all AutoCAD and BricsCAD settings
- The bottom buttons allow you to edit the various libraries and filters, and clash control settings
- 3D Model - These settings will determine how the model is presented and viewed
- Dynamic data - This allows additional properties to be created to supplement the properties already offered by Parabuild
If you are in any doubt as to which settings should be modified, then you could safely accept the defaults - they are all generally in accordance with Best Practice.
Settings for Workshop Drawings
This means setting up the scales, sheet sizes, text fonts, dimension styles etc… Once done the settings may be saved as defaults, so for each project it will only need to be done once.
All these parameters are accessed through the Sheets Manager by clicking on the Settings button – here we can adjust the settings for Bills of Material, CNC output, Workshop Drawings and General Arrangement Drawings.
There are 6 main headings, which include:
- General- Where you can change the sheet format and scale, organize the columns for the bills of material, and edit the settings for DXF and DSTV files.
The sheet formats are contained in template files, where you can add or delete text fields, rename the fields, rearrange them, and add your own or the company’s identity or logo. - Bills of Material - Where you can create or erase a new bill, determine a folder where the bill will be stored and retrieved, and change the name and settings. By selecting a Bill Type from the dropdown list and clicking on the Change Settings button, you can customize the bill type from the dropdown list by modifying the Formatting Options which include:
-
- Global options for that particular bill type
- Column Order
- Column Sorting
- Sub-Totals Format
-
- Plates
- Members
- Assemblies
- GA Views
The last 4 share the same settings format, where each heading has three sub-headings:
- Part – where you can change the shortening options of the side-views as well as configure the extra section views and end plate views
- Views - where you can configure all of the views that should be drawn on the sheet
- Default Dimensions – These are Dimensions that Parabuild draws automatically on the workshop drawings of plates, members and assemblies.
Phases
Large projects may need to be divided into phases so that each phase will conform to the planning schedule.
By dividing into Phases, it's possible to determine in advance which parts of the overall project need to be fabricated and delivered to site in a specified sequence.
In Parabuild, it's possible to split any project into any number of phases.
The the default phase is set at 1 - This can be adjusted in the Global Settings dialog - any adjustment made here will define the phase for all following component parts of the structure.
If for example, a structure comprises of multiple levels, with the levels to be built in succeeding phases - it will be necessary to adjust this default setting for each phase.
You can change the Phase for individual components by adjusting the Properties of objects.
