AUGIWorld Magazine November/December 2007

Ready… Get Set… Properties! Property Set Definition, Part 1 Ever wondered where is the starting point to create nice schedule tables and schedule tags for various objects such as doors, windows, walls, and so on? Love to create those colored floor plans? Yes! Property Set Definition is the key. It is simply a collection of object properties. Property set definition is used not only for schedule tables, but also for: • Creating schedule tags • Creating classification definitions • Creating display theme styles Now, before teaching you how to create a property set definition, I offer an overview of property set definitions, hereafter referred to as PSD. Every object, particularly AEC objects such as walls, doors, spaces, and so on are rich with property information and most of them are not visible unless you attach the created property sets to the objects. Examples are gross area, net area, gross volume, net volume, material, and fire rating of a wall. If you carefully watch the above example, ‘fire rating’ is the odd guy out. This is because all the other properties are already within the wall. They can be extracted automatically, but the fire rating needs to be keyed in manually. This shows that PSDs are of two major types: Automatic and Manual. The question is: Why are all these property sets not visible or usable straight away? Why am I expected to create a PSD? Imagine a class with 100 students, but you select only 10 out of them to represent your class for a fashion show. Maybe for another event, you select 10 different students. A wall or a door has many properties to choose from, but you only want the selected ones for use or display. Let’s start by creating a PSD for a wall. While doing so, we will understand many other features of PSD. • Create a new drawing. • From the ‘Document’ menu, select ‘Scheduling’ – ‘Property Set Definitions’. The command line equivalent is ‘AecPropertySetDefine’. • The Style Manager opens up. Note: Some of you will see PSDs already in existence. This is because you created a new drawing based on a template. • On the left pane, right click on ‘Property Set Definitions’ and select ‘New’. • Type a meaningful name (e.g., ‘For walls’ or ‘Walls’). See Figure 1, next page. • On the right pane, click ‘Applies to’ tab. You will be surprised to see a whole list of objects from which you can extract data. This includes AutoCAD® objects as well. Watch carefully that you have two radio buttons on top, so that you can create PSDs for objects or object styles. Let’s select ‘Objects’ in this case. • As our aim is to create a PSD for walls, check ‘Wall.’ • Having selected wall, click the ‘Definitions’ tab. This is the place where you start adding a property definition. Remember what I said earlier, the two major types of PSD are Manual and w w w. A U G I . c o m AutoCAD Architecture Overview Creating a PSD 36 http://www.AUGI.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AUGIWorld Magazine November/December 2007

AUGIWorld Magazine November/December 2007 Table of Contents The CAD Manager Education & Training Finance Training Google Earth: Now Showing in AutoCAD Civil 3D Get Your Input Here A Good First Impression, Part 2 Share and Share Alike Who's Using Revit MEP? Ready… Get Set… Properties! On the Back Page: The Brazilian Model

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