Discover how to use the redline tool in Navisworks, an essential tool for annotating and marking up 3D models effectively. Learn how to create and save viewpoints, add freehand notes, and use various redline tools such as text, draw, erase, and others with the metalgate.nwd model.
Key Insights
- The redline tool allows users to make on-screen annotations, usually freehand, which are saved within viewpoints. To add a redline, a user must start with a viewpoint.
- The redline panel offers several options for marking up a viewpoint, including adding text, drawing, erasing, and changing colors or line weights. Each tool has a unique function and use.
- Redlines are two-dimensional and disappear once a user navigates away from the viewpoint they are saved in. They only reappear when the specific viewpoint is reselected. Changes made to redlines, including erasures, overwrite the previously saved annotations.
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Welcome back to the Navisworks video series. In this video, I'll be covering the Redline tool, and we'll be using the Meadowgate.nwd model. Once you have that file open, make sure that your Saved Viewpoints are open. Mine was just auto-hidden, so if you don't have the tab there, go up to the Viewpoint tab, and in the Save, Load, and Playback panel, select the Saved Viewpoints Dialog Launcher and that will come up and hopefully be docked.
With redlines, we're really continuing to talk about Saved Viewpoints. A redline is an on-screen note that's usually freehand, and those notes are saved within the Viewpoints, so you have to be sure that you are starting with a Viewpoint when you start to redline. So let's walk toward the sign and focus on it for this portion of the video. I'd like you to get to a position where it's almost centered, and once you reach that point, you can hit the Save Viewpoint button and name this Viewpoint "Sign."
So right now, we are in a Viewpoint—we’ll see that our Viewpoint is selected. Go to the Review tab, and the second panel—the one next to your Measure panel—is your Redline panel. We have a few options for what we can redline or draw on this Viewpoint. The first one is Text. Text works like this: you don’t actually draw a text box—you just click, and when you click, you can type whatever you want in the dialog box. We’ll see that whatever we typed will be displayed starting from the bottom left of where we clicked.
Where I'm holding the cursor right now is where your text will be positioned. It’s important to note that this text is two-dimensional and treats the window as if it’s two-dimensional. What I mean is that if I were to walk forward, those redlines would first disappear and would only reappear if I selected the "Sign" Viewpoint—the one where those redlines are saved.
We can also use the Draw Redlines, and that’s a Split button. The top of the Split button is the previously used tool, and the bottom displays all the tools that we can use. Let’s start with the Cloud tool. It works in a clockwise direction—you click for every cloud arc, and to finish, just get near the starting point. If you deselect the tool or move your cursor away to another tool, it will close automatically.
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If you make a mistake, you can use the Erase tool, which works by using a crossing selection. If you cross around all the items you want to erase, it will remove them. You can also change the color of your redlines before you draw them. For example, if I draw an Ellipse, I can’t change the color of that Ellipse afterward—there’s no way to select it. But I can draw another one by changing the color or line weight beforehand and then drawing a new one.
The Freehand tool is a one-to-one motion tool. As I hold down the left mouse button, it will draw in every position that I move the cursor while holding the button. The Line tool is a Point-to-Point tool, just like the Measure Point-to-Point tool. I can click, then click again, and it will draw a line between those two points. The Line String tool allows you to click multiple points, and it will continue following your inputs until you choose a different tool or use the Erase tool. Select the Erase tool, and then the Arrow tool will allow you to draw an arrow Point-to-Point.
If I want to point at the sign, I simply click, click—and those are the basics of the Redline tool. Keep in mind that whenever you have a Viewpoint selected and the redlines for that Viewpoint are visible, anything you do to them will be saved. If I erase those arrows and then navigate away from that Viewpoint, when I come back to it, those arrows will be gone.
So keep in mind that they’re only saved as long as you don’t erase or modify them. As simple as that was, that is the Redline tool. Thanks for watching this video.
I will see you in the next one. Thank you.