Working in SDS2

The Fablnx app works beside SDS2 as well as Tekla Structures. It is the same app, the same sign-in and the same screens: you trace your sheets in Fablnx, and the building goes into the job you have open in SDS2 Modeling.

Connect to your job

1. Install the Fablnx app as for Tekla (see Inside Tekla Structures). One install works with both programs.
2. Start Fablnx. It adds itself to SDS2 the first time it runs.
3. Start SDS2 and open your job in Modeling. If SDS2 was already open when Fablnx installed or updated, close SDS2 and open it again.
4. Open your project in Fablnx. The chip at the top shows the SDS2 job's name.

If the chip says No job is open in SDS2 Modeling, open the job in Modeling, or restart SDS2 if you have just installed or updated Fablnx. A model action that says SDS2 is not connected means the same: open SDS2 Modeling and the job, and Fablnx connects by itself. Fablnx also starts on a computer with SDS2 and no Tekla.

Fablnx works with the one job open in Modeling. To work in another job, open it in Modeling.

Tekla Structures and SDS2 both open

If both programs have a model open, Fablnx asks which one to work with: the model chip at the top reads Tekla or SDS2? and lists the two models. Pick one. Until you do, Fablnx does nothing in either model. While both stay open, click the chip to switch. Fablnx remembers your choice when you reload the page, and asks again only when the chosen model closes.

Push a sheet

Pushing works as it does in Tekla — see Your first model.

1. Open a scene and Validate it.
2. Push it. The preview names SDS2 and says what will be added, changed and removed.
3. Read the report. It names each member that was skipped and why.

A push puts into the job:

• Beams, columns, braces and joists, with their sizes and grades.
• Double angles and double channels, as one double member with its gap.
• Curved beams, rolled to the radius on the sheet.
• Grid lines and levels, as SDS2 erection views named like the grid line or the level. A level that has the same name as a grid line gets level after its name. A radial grid comes in as its lines through the centre, and as construction circles for its rings.
• The connection type at each beam end from the sheet's design: shear tab, end plate, clip angle, or SDS2's standard connection.

Process the job to design the connections

Fablnx sets each beam end's connection type, but SDS2 designs the connections when the job is processed. Run Process in SDS2, or Number model in Fablnx's bill of materials. The push report reminds you.

Push again whenever the sheet changes. A repeat push changes only what moved.

Student and education licences limit a job's weight

SDS2's student licence will not open a job whose steel is over its weight limit. On such a licence, push one sheet at a time and check the tons in the bill of materials first.

Read the job back

Fablnx reads the members, grid lines and levels in your job, so World and the validation of the next sheet see what is really there. If grid lines already in the job disagree with the sheet, validation stops the push and tells you which.

Your corrections are kept

• A member you change in SDS2 is kept. The next push does not move it back and does not delete it. It is listed as held, and the copilot can copy your correction back into the sheets.
• Steel you model yourself in SDS2 is never touched by a push.
• If a member is already in the job at the same place, Fablnx uses that member instead of adding a second one.

A push meant for one job is refused if another job is open.

Select between Fablnx and SDS2

• Locate in Fablnx selects those members in SDS2 and zooms to them.
• When you select members in SDS2, Fablnx shows the same selection.
• Hovering a row and Paint in SDS2 highlight the members in SDS2.

Bill of materials, fit-up, reports and the 3D model

These work with SDS2 as they do with Tekla:

• Bill of materials lists the job's assemblies, parts and bolts. Number model runs SDS2's Process: it gives the piecemarks and designs the connections.
• Fit-up runs a clash check in the job and explains each clash. Members SDS2 already connects are not reported. Process the job before you check it.
• Reports in World run SDS2's reports that need no selection, over a scope you pick. Run a report that asks you to select members in SDS2 itself.
• Model shows the job in 3D.
• What is it made of? in World lists the selected member's parts, bolts and welds.
• Detail on a designed connection sets that connection type on each of its beam ends. SDS2 designs them when the job is processed.
• The copilot can check the bolts at each processed beam end against the design.
• Add to questions sends a picture of the SDS2 view with the question.

See a sheet in SDS2

In SDS2 on a sheet saves the drawing in your job folder, in a folder named fablnx-underlay, at the sheet's level. To see it under the model:

1. In SDS2 Modeling, open Import/Export → Model. The Reference Model Manager opens.
2. Click Link to New File and pick the sheet's .igs file in fablnx-underlay.
3. Click OK in the IGES options. The sheet's lines show under the steel.

You link a sheet once. When the sheet changes, press Refresh on its row in the Reference Model Manager. The file stays when you leave the sheet or close Fablnx; clicking In SDS2 again stops updating it. The sheet's text is not shown; its lines are. A linked sheet does not add to the job's steel weight.

The copilot knows which program is open. In SDS2 it pushes, reads the job back, keeps your corrections, selects and zooms, reads the bill of materials, processes the job when you ask, checks for clashes, lists reports and saves or removes a sheet. It tells you when a task is Tekla only.

After an update

The Fablnx app updates itself. When it does, restart SDS2 so that SDS2 loads the new version.