[EN] Getting Started

🏁 Start Switchboard from Cadwork

In Cadwork, Open a new file with your own init - or open the target file swb_target.3d - and click the Switchboard Icon.The right menu now shows Switchboard commands.

Click the "🏁Start Switchboard" button. The Switchboard window opens. On the top Right, the "Target file" is set to your current Cadwork File.

All attributes, material and colors from the target file are read and can be use as a target for the attribute mapping. The Target File is always the file from which Switchboard is started

On the left of the switchboard window, a checklist reminds you of the different steps to follow. The first step is done, you can check it!

📤 Send Data from the Extern file

Open the extern file in a separate Cadwork window. We advise you to create a copy of the external file before opening it because the file will be modified by switchboard.

Click the Switchboard button from the Cadwork extern file. From the right menu, activate "📤 Push Objects to Switchboard table" and select the objects you want to send to Switchboard.

In the Target Table, on the left panel of the Switchboard table, you now see these objects.

Use the table to sort, group and filter objects

The Target Table can be used to sort, group and filter objects

Search objects

When you click on the search icon above the table, you can search for a specific attribute value.

Sort objects

To sort objects alphabetically, click on the column header or right click and select "Sort Ascending", "Sort Descending".

Group objects

To group objects by attribute value, pick an attribute column header and drag it in the grouping field just above the table. Dragging more than one column header will create groups and subgroup depening on the header order, you can create as many groups as you want.

To get rid of a grouping, simply drag the group label out of the grouping field. You can also right click on the column header and click "ungroup"

Filter

Click on the filter icon on the column header you want to filter. You can define filter rules, for example to see only the beams with a height > 160.0 mm.

Create Attribute Mapping list

On the bottom of the Switchboard window, you can expand the "mapping" view. This view allows you to define mapping pattern to convert from the extern set of attributes to your own set of attributes.

To add a mapping pattern, select one extern key and one target key and click the "Add Mapping" button. In the current example, we will transfer Extern "Name" to Target "Name" and Extern "Material" to target "Material". But you can transfer from any extern key to any target key, for example, from "Group" to "Subgroup"

Once you selected the keys and added the mapping, you can define value mapping. Here, you can map any extern NAME value to a new value. For example, we can add "new" at the end of every names.

For Cadwork Attributes like material, you can not define a free string, you have to select one of the material values from the TARGET file.

Once you have defined the mapping pattern, you can save it to use it later using the "Save mapping" button. To load a pattern previouslmy saved, simply click the "Load mapping" button.

Map Attributes in the Table

To run the mapping, click the "Map Attributes" button. This will map the attributes of all the objects in the table using the active mapping pattern. If you only want to map a few objects, select them in the table (you can select multiple objects using Control or Shift click, like in Windows) and click "Map selected objects".

In the current example, we select two elements and map them. They now appear on the Right Table with different attributes as defined in the mapping pattern. The Right table can be manipulated in the same way as the left table (sorted, filtered, etc.)

Update Attributes in the Cadwork External file

Go back to the external cadwork file and click the Switchboard button. In the right menu, activate "📥 Pull from Switchboard Table"

In Switchboard, click the "Send to Cadwork" button. The Attributes of all elements in the Target Table are now being updated in Cadwork. In the bottom of the Cadwork window, you see the prompt "Exported file to [...].3dc". Material and color of these elements is also updated.

Import Converted elements to the Cadwork Target file

Go back to the source cadwork file and click the Switchboard button. In the right menu, activate "📦 Import Elements". The elements in the previously exported .3dc file are automatically imported in Cadwork with updated Attributes, Materials and Colors as defined in the mapping pattern.

You can now continue using this file.