Clash Detection

Modified 1/28/2014
This tutorial was produced by Kevin R. Miller and is copyrighted. Michael N. Smith, Todd Baxter
and Mark Hunter contributed greatly to this tutorial.
Before going through the tutorial, you must have Navisworks Manage 2014 installed on your
computer. It is also recommended that you have all the service packs installed as well.
This tutorial also assumes that you have downloaded the zipped data set and that you have
extracted the Navis tutorial data set from the downloaded file.
Open the Clash Detection Models Aligned file found in the dataset directory. For this tutorial,
the models have been sectioned into just the subgrade and first floor models. This makes the
data set smaller and more manageable. If all the floors were included, there could be so many
clashes that the amount of data could become overwhelming.

Navigating Navisworks
A few tools that will help you navigate around the models are the following:

Select
is a tool that can be used to select objects in the model. If you hold down the
CTRL key several objects can be selected. The Select tool is found on the Home ribbon.

Select Box
is a tool that allows several objects to be selected while dragging a box
around the objects. The Select Box tool is found on the Home ribbon by pressing the down
arrow under the Select tool.
Once an object or set of objects has been selected, the option
becomes
available allowing for turning off all the objects that are not currently selected.
Other useful navigation tools can be found on the Navigation bar. (It should be visible) If it

is not visible, go to the View ribbon and select Navigation Bar

are found on the Navigation bar.

. The tools below

Orbit
allows the view to be rotated by left clicking the mouse. Holding down the
center roller button on the mouse allows up and down movement.
Zoom Box
allows the view to be zoomed into the box created by left clicking
and dragging.
Walk
allows the view to walk to different areas of the model. Pressing the left
mouse button and moving the mouse up allows the view to move forward. Moving
the mouse left or right moves the view left or right.

Press the roller button and move the mouse either up or down moves the
view up or down.
Rolling the roller button changes the angle of the view. People that I have
talked with tell me that using the walk tool is the most common method used
to move around the model.

Adjusting Palettes
If you want several palettes to join together, making them tabbed. Select a palette by the top
bar and drag it on top of another palettes top bar and watch at the bottom of the palette for the
outline of a tab and then release the mouse. This will make it so the palettes take up less space
on the screen.
To separate them, grab the tab and drag it off the palette.
Options
To make Navisworks easier to use, some
of the program default settings need to
be changed. Make the following two
changes:
Press the Application button
, select Options, expand Interface
and select Display Units.
Change Linear Units to Feet and
change Decimal Places to 2. Press
OK.
Press the Application button
, select Options, expand Interface
and select Selection. Under
Highlight, ensure that Enabled is
checked, Method is Wireframe
and change Color to Pink. (This
makes what is selected standout).
The reason pink was selected is
because it is a color that is
typically not assigned to one of
the building systems and it
stands out.

If you dont want to see the green level line, on the View ribbon, unselect the Show Grids tool

.
Search Sets
Search Sets make it so you can export the clash tests and use them on future projects. This
reduces the setup time for projects that you will work with in the future. The Timeliner tutorial
will also work with Search Sets. For this tutorial, you will import the Search Sets to adjust the
appearance of the models and then create Search Sets to help with Clash tests. A Search Set was
created to select each model contained in this NWF file. The models contained in this project
include: Architectural, Concrete, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, and Structural Steel.

To Import the search set, go to the

Sets palette (Home ribbon, Sets,
Manage Sets).

On the Sets palette

,
select Import/Export
, Import
Search Sets and browse to the
Navis2013ClashDataSet folder and select ModelSearchSetsv2.xml. This Search Set helps in
selecting each model to clash.
If a consistent file naming convention is used, as updated model files are loaded, the same
Navisworks files can be used to verify that the clashes have been corrected.
Appearance Profiler & Workspace
If you use the Appearance Profiler you can create color defaults for different types of systems
based upon the Search Sets that were just imported. This profile then can be reused for each
project allowing for standardized colors to be quickly applied to the project. The Appearance
Profiler is found on the Home ribbon in the Tools area.
Adjust the settings in the Appearance Profiler to what is shown in the image to the right. To do
this, select the Set, change the color and select the Add button. Do this for each set.

RED
White
Gray
Yellow
Light Blue
Brown

Press the Save... button and name the file Appearance Profile Clash. These colors could now
be loaded for future projects.
Now press the Run button to apply the setting to the project. Close the Appearance Profiler
palette.
A second method of changing a color is to do the following. This method only makes the color
change for this project and needs to be performed on every project where you want to change a
color of a particular system.
Generally, it is a better practice to set the default colors that you want to use using the
appearance profiler above. To change the colors, right click on the various models in the
Selection Tree palette, select Override Item, Override Color.
Workspace
After using Navisworks a little bit, users tend to develop a layout of all the palettes that they like
to use. To save the layout that you prefer, on the View ribbon select Save Workspace, and the
palette that are open and their locations will saved.

The tabs highlighted above are the palettes that I use often. Using two monitors provides more
space for all the data on the various palettes to be visible at once.

Clash Detection

Creating Search Set for clash detection

For this tutorial we are working under the assumption that a clash between a light and a diffuser
can be ignored. To do this, we first need to create a Search Set for the Lighting Fixtures and then
a Search Set for the Diffusers.
A Search Set searches the model(s) for an objects property that you specify. One method to do
this is to walk around the model until you find the object that you want to find and then Select
the object. For this tutorial it doesn't matter which light you select.

Now zoom in so you can easily select a light

fixture, then select the light fixture.

Once the light is selected, on the Selection

Tree palette, it displays a few of the
properties of the selected object.

In the image above, it shows a tree structure of object properties for the selected light. Since we
want to select all the Light Fixtures, notice three levels up from the object is a group containing
objects named Lighting Fixtures.
This appears to be a grouping that should contain the light fixtures. Now I could either go
and manually select each fixtures or I could use a search set that would select all the
fixtures. Time wise, it is much quicker to use a search set.
To create Search Sets it is helpful to have three palettes open, Find Items, Selection Tree, and
Sets.
If any of the above three palettes are not visible go to the View ribbon, and under the
Window button, place a check mark next to the palette to make it visible. Then if the
palette keeps docking to the side of the program, Pin it open.
On the Find Item palette, in the Category column select Item, in the Property column select
Name, in the Condition column select Contains, in the Value column type Lighting Fixtures
and then unselect Match Case. Press the Find All button and it should select all the light fixtures.

If you do
not
highlight
any of the
models on
the left
windows,
the search
sets will be
more
reusable for
future
projects.

Now on the Sets palette, Right Click and select Save Search. Name the Search Set Lighting
Fixtures.

This process will be repeated below for the diffusers.

Try selecting a diffuser. Instead of selecting a diffuser, the ceiling is selected. Therefore,

Hide the ceiling. With the ceiling selected, on the Home ribbon, select Hide tool

With the ceiling hidden, a diffuser can be selected. Notice in the Selection Tree that there are,
Return, Supply, and Exhaust (below) diffusers in the model.
With three different types
of diffusers, three Search
Sets could be made for
each type of diffuser.
Rather than do that, only
create one Search Set
that covers all three types
of diffusers.
On the Find Items palette,
make everything the
same as the Lighting
Fixtures, except in the
Value column type
Diffuser (make sure that Match Case is not selected).
Press the Find All and then Right Click on the Sets palette and Save Search as Diffusers.

Don't forget to turn the Ceiling back on. To do this,

go to the Selection tree palette, navigate down the
SCIENCE Arch VOL1.nwc, Ceilings, Compound
Ceilings, ACT-1 tree structure until you find the
greyed out Compound Ceilings, Right Click on
ceiling and next to Hide you should see a check
mark. Select Hide and it will remove the check
mark, making the ceilings visible again.
Another way to do this would be to select Unhide
all on the Home ribbon.
To make the screen less cluttered, unpin the Sets and Selection Tree palettes for the next
section.
Making a Test
A Test is used to store setting for clash detection. By using a Test, settings are made that clash
one system against another system, such as mechanical vs structural.
Select the Clash Detective tab at the left side of the program window. If it is not there, on the

Home ribbon, select the Clash Detective tool

. Press the thumb tack at the upper right
corner of the Clash Detective tool to pin the window open.
Select the Clash Detective palette and then select the Add Test button.
In the Name field type Mech vs. Elect. Press Enter.

Rules
In the early stages of coordination, the clashes between diffusers and lights generally will not be a big concern.
As the coordination effort progresses, the lights and diffuser issues will be addressed. Rules provide a way to
ignore clashes that we don't want to examine. Another example of this might be clashes be floors/slabs and floor
drains.
Select the Rules tab in the Clash Detective palette and press the New button. On the Rules Editor palette, select
Specified Selection Sets. On the blue '<set>' text, click on the set and select the Lighting Fixture and Diffuser
sets that you created. Press OK. Be sure to place a Check mark in the new Rule.
In further discussions with experts in the industry, they do not like using rules, they would rather see all the
clashes. However, this has been covered in the tutorial to demonstrate how rules could be used.
Select

On the Select tab, do the following:

1.
In Selection A of the window,
select the Sets tab and select
Mechanical. In Selection B of the
window, select the Sets tab and
select Electric. This selection tells
Navisworks which
files/models/Search Sets to clash.
Clash test include the following:
Surfaces - Default
Centerlines
Points
Self Intersecting is typically
turned off unless you are concerned
with a system clashing with itself.
An example of a system clashing
with itself would be a mechanical
pipe clashing with a mechanical
duct.
In the Run Test box at the bottom of the window, make sure the Type: is Hard in the drop down
box. For the tolerance 0 is a typical setting.
Press the Run Test button.

Viewing Clashes

After the clash test has run, a list of clashes

appear.
Highlight all the clashes and right click and select
Group Select Clashes
, Not
the New Group tool. Name the group Initial List.
Make sure all the clashes are now grouped under
the Initial List group.
In the Display Setting flyout window on the
middle right of the Clash Detective palette is the
Isolation portion of the window, select Dim
Other.
Also place a check mark in Highlight all
Clashes.
Some users prefer to select Hide others
rather than Dim Others. This is a personal
preference, play around with both to
determine which method you prefer. For
the Hide Other option to be effective, the
clashes must be in a folder and you
highlight the folder to show all the clashes
in the folder.
By diming the objects you understand the
surroundings of the clash. This makes it easier to evaluate the clashes to determine if the clashes could be
grouped together, identify important clashes, and recognize unimportant clashes. You may also want to play
around with the isolation settings to see which one you prefer.
If the bottom portion of the window is not showing, make sure the Items arrow is pointing down.
Use the Walk tool and navigate so you can see most of the clashes.
After walking around the model, it appears that the Cable Tray causes the biggest clash with the mechanical
system, followed by the Unistruct supports for the cable tray. The clashes between the diffusers and lights do
not show because they were excluded from the test by the Rule that was created.
Now orient the model to the Top view on the view cube and make it so that project north is at the top of the
screen. By doing this, everyone will understand the view they are looking at and not get turned around in the
project.
The colors in the graphic below may be a different color. If everything is the same color it is because both Item
1 and Item 2 are selected in the Highlighting box. Unhighlight Item 1 and Item 2.

Grouping Clashes
Focusing on the big clashes as groups instead of treating them as individual clashes will make
coordination meetings more efficient. In this tutorial project, clashes such as the cable tray with
the HVAC ductwork seems to be a big area of concern. Doing a quick count along the cable tray,
there are approximately 90 clashes between the cable tray and the mechanical ducts. In working
with the design team and the subcontractors, it would be better to view this as either 1 or 4
clashes along the cable tray area rather than 90 different clashes.
If you view it as 1 clash, the idea would be that potentially, you could make an overall
adjustment to the cable tray and correct the problems. If you view it as 4 clash areas (as shown
below), you would be working from the understanding that each area needs to be examined
closer to determine the best solution for each area. This tutorial will proceed as if there are 4
clashes along the cable tray.

Check Highlight all clashes and Select Item 1 and Item 2.

Select Clash1 and

then reorient the
view to the top. If it is hard to identify where clash 1 is,
temporarily uncheck Highlight all Clashes and then you can see
the clash.
Recheck Highlight all clashes. Zoom in to the area shown in the
graphic to the right.
The clash is between the Mechanical duct and the cable tray at the
right end of the building.
There are multiple clashes in the area. Instead of considering each
an independent clash, consider the clashes around clash 1 as one
group of clashes.
Clash Group 1

On the Home ribbon, change the select tool to Select

Select one of the vertical round ducts. (see figure to the right)
To select the additional objects in the view to the right, hold down the spacebar and drag a box around all the
objects in the view to the right.
Hold down the CTRL key and also select the cable tray.
On the Clash Detective palette,
change the filter to Exclusive.

Now in the Clash Detective

palette, the only clashes that are listed are from the objects that are currently selected.
Select Clash5 in the list. Notice that it changes the view. To go back to the view we were just at, select Undo
twice. This will take you back to the view we were just at.
On the Review tab, select the Draw
Elipse tool and circle the conflicts.
Also on the Review tab is the Add Tag
tool. Select the Add Tag tool and add a
comment to the cloud. The comment
could be something like Consider
lowering the cable tray.

Remove Clash5 from the Initial

group

Now with the remaining clashes shown in the Initial Clash folder, change
the status to: Reviewed
Change the Clash filter to None. Both
Highlighting Item 1 and Item 2 should be
selected. In the Highlight area, change
the color to Use Status Color.

Now as you look at all the clashes, the clashes in the Orange color still need to be dealt with, while the light
blue clashes have already been dealt with. The only exception to this is Clash5 which has been moved out of
the Initial group still shows in orange.
Clash Group 2
Now drag a selection box around all the clashes in the next area that you
want to work with. To select the cable tray, hold down the CTRL key and
then select the cable tray.
Change the Clash Detective filter to Exclusive. Now in the Initial folder
all that is shown are the clashes from the current object selection.

Select Clash3 and then press undo twice to orient the view to the top and make
North up.
Markup the Duct and the cable tray area and the conduits with and Ellipse and
then Tag it.
Ungroup Clash3 and change the status of the other clashes to Reviewed

Unfilter the clashes and repeat the process for the last two groupings along the cable tray.
Clash Group 3 & 4
Repeat the above processes for groups 3 and 4.
By following this process, in the coordination meeting you can focus on the groups of clashes that need to be
address rather than viewing each individual clash.
Misc. Clash Group

There still are several miscellaneous clashes left. They are mainly lights, diffusers and flex duct clashes. To
make this go quicker, Im going to group them essentially as 1 clash as shown below.

Report
Now that the clash areas are identified, we want to generate a report to share this information. On the Clash
Detective palette, select the Report tab.
The first report that we are going to create is a Viewpoint report. To do this make the report options look like the
image below.

Press Write Report and this will create several saved viewpoints.
If the Saved Viewpoints window is not open, make it visible by going to the View ribbon, select the Windows
tool and place a checkmark to the left of Saved Viewpoints.
On the Saved Viewpoints palette, expand the Mech vs Elect folder. Expand the folder.
The Navisworks file could now be saved as an NWD file and shared with others to review the clashes.
To save an NWD file, from the Application

button, select Save As and change the file type to NWD.

By saving the file as an NWD file, others will be able to use the file natively in Navisworks, including
Navisworks Freedom which is a free download, so they can go and review the clashes to find solutions prior to
the coordination meeting. The coordination meeting the will be more effective if all the participants have
identified solution prior to the meeting.
Another report that could be generated is a Tabular HTML report. Play around with the various Content
categories that could be included in the report.

Please send your feedback or comments, to Kevin Miller at kmiller@byu.edu