Customizing Specification Feature Naming and Numbering

Civil engineering design involves a lot of structural elements, such as pier, deck, ... During the design, you can give customized names and/or numbering to these elements, to identify them, so that the names generated by different users comply with the company's know-how and business rules.

This task shows you how to:

Naming/Renaming Specification Features

You can rename specification features and associated publications, based on naming rules.

The Capture Component Specifications command involves components, object types, specification patterns, specification features, specification sets, and input patterns. The names of these elements are made of two parts: the naming (nnn) and the numbering (.1), for example: nnn.1. You can modify the naming or numbering only, or both.

You can customize naming rules with business rules in Data Setup.

  1. From the Civil Engineering section of the action bar, click Capture Component Specifications .
    The Capture Component Specifications dialog box is displayed.
  2. Select a Type (Deck Segment for example).
  3. Choose an Object Type (Global Bridge for example).
  4. To display a preview of the selected object type in a side panel, click Template Helper .
    A template viewer opens next to the Capture Component Specifications dialog box and displays the shape of the object type and axis systems.

    In the Helper, you can move and zoom in the object type. Click again the same input and the object type moves back to its initial position.

    To close the Helper, click or Close or

  5. Create a specification feature or a specification set by selecting a pattern.
  6. To display the Capture Component Specification options, click Show Preferences .
  7. In the Customize Naming and Numbering section of the options' panel, enter a naming format in the Name format box.

    The naming format is a string consisting of three specific expressions and any other characters valid for publication names. These three specific expressions are:

    If the type of a specification feature is Door, with the naming format "My_%t_Out", the specification feature name will be: "My_Door_Out.i".

    If the Name format box is cleared and, if a business rule has been set, the resulting naming is %N. If not, it is equivalent to %n.

    In the Preview name area, you can check if the name of the created/renamed specification features is compliant with new customized naming rule.

    The default name of the specification feature is:

    • If no object type is applied to the specification, its name is that of its type.
    • If an object type is applied to the specification, there are two cases:
      • If the object type does not have the configuration, its name is that of the object type.
      • Otherwise its name is composed of: object type(configuration).
    • Numbering follows the default feature numbering.

  8. To validate the specification features naming, click Rename.

    The Rename command allows you to modify the names of specification features and by default, their publication names are modified as well.

    You can customize some behaviors at the top of the Capture Component Specifications dialog box:

    • When you create a new specification feature, clear the Enable the creation of publication option to deactivate the creation of the publications.
    • If the Disable confirmation to modify publication names option is cleared, a message appears asking you to confirm the renaming of the publications as well.

Renumbering Specification Features

You can renumber specification features and associated publications.

  1. Select or specify First Number.
    If checked, First Number applies to the first specification feature in the Renumber and, the Rename and Renumber actions. Otherwise, the first number is ignored.
  2. Specify Step.
  3. To renumber selected specification features and associated publications, click Renumber.

    If the First Number check box is selected, numbering starts with the first element. Otherwise, the number for the first element remains unchanged.

    Note: During the specification feature creation, the naming rule applies to newly created specification feature, and the First Number in the numbering rule does not apply to them.

Renaming and Renumbering Specification Features

You can rename and renumber specification features and associated publications, based on naming and renumbering rules.

  1. From the Civil Engineering section of the action bar, click Capture Component Specifications .
    The Capture Component Specifications dialog box is displayed.
  2. Select a Type and choose an Object Type.
  3. Create a specification feature or a specification set by selecting a pattern.
  4. To display the Capture Component Specification options, click Show Preferences .
  5. In the Customize Naming and Numbering section of the options' panel, enter a naming format in the Name format box and specify the First Number and Step.
  6. Click Rename and Renumber.
    The selected specification features and/or the associated publications are modified according to the rules described in the sections above.