Trimble Business Center

I prepare all of our data to be utilized on either SCS900 or Siteworks. I think the ability to name the linework is very useful for field crews because they can then have a better way of knowing what they are selecting, however, the process for naming linework in Business Center is not the quickest, (besides the "name lines uniquely" found under the categorize function).

My issue with this is that the process is not super smooth, tedious and time consuming especially on larger projects and as a result I do not always use it. Please refer to the video. 

I would like to see an addition to the "Name Objects Function" to name objects based on their layer (have an option to overwrite current name or only name unnamed objects). I think this would speed up the process . 

I agree. The naming of lines is the #1 complaint from the field guys that I got if we forgot to do it and hopefully will be improvised in TBC.

I do this using Standardize Layers - if the object is not named it takes the layer name as you move them from the Engineers Crazy Layer Name to one that Site staff can understand - this works pretty well and does pretty much what you are asking for. A Name Objects by Layer command sound like a Macro for someone to write for TBC v5 (Just Announced).

Watch this space ...

Alan

So Pat - There are two things that you could do here

1) Your isolate layer function works to show the data on a layer - CTRL A to select All and have the properties Pane open - if the data selected is all lines - the Name field should be either empty (if all lines are unnamed) or Varies (if some do and some do not have names. You can select the name field in properties Pane and change it for all selected data items. If you are pcking non line objects (objects that have different element types, you can use the CAD View Filter (Turn it on in advanced View Filters) and turn off the CAD Object types you dont want to select (Text, Blocks etc) and then when you do CTRL A you will only select Line Items. This agreed takes a while, - if before you start the Isolate Layer you have all the linework that you want to name visible, you may also want to Hide Layers that are switched off (in VFM you can do that to reduce the list of layers to just the layers that are visible - that would also make it faster (agree still a macro command to do this would be an improvement and fastest approach

2) To get the Layers that you have you have likely used Standardized Layers to take imported data on CAD Layers that have poor names - and place the objects on Layers with names that you want to have. In this process, Standardize Layers can rename the objects as well as it moves them to new layers and it names them with the name of the target layers. I do this all the time and it works pretty well because i want eveything named and layered before I start doing Data prep or Takeoff work.

I still agree that a command to rename on mass would be great and useful and likely not a tonne of work

Alan 

1. Thank you. I think this will be a great help. 

2. I agree that the standarized layers does help but there are a couple or cases where this does not work. I am also not sure if I like the uniquely name portion because it adds the numeric character and in the field data software this bloats the list of picking lines by name, literally adding every line to the list of the field software. 

1. If you have blocks. Blocks tend to screw this up especially if all of the subentities are not on the same layer.
   1. Side Request: I think it would be beneficial to have an option in the standarized tab to:
      1. "Explode blocks" This would explode all blocks selected, grab all components, and relayer to the standarized layer chosen. (and name)
      2. "Relayer Block and Components" Select the block and its components and relayer to the standarized layer (and name). This would still keep the intent of the block, sometimes you don't want them exploded into potentially hundreds of pieces, but also allow the BC user to clean up their file and organize more logically.
2. If you start to copy linework
   1. I have two portions of my model, the 2D and the 3D. All of the 2D data goes on my layout layers that end up in the field. First part is to organize this and clean it up. Then I take this and copy to my 3D layers. My 3D data goes on my 3D-... and this is what I use to build my model from. When you start to copy and manipulate I usually keep the name blank, I should probably get in the habit of naming these more because they do have the ability, but when I am designing and tweaking this is not my concern or priority unless it is to distinguish Building in or Building out.
   2. Within each option you have the chose to name. Maybe there could be a way to default the name to the layer and then the user could override. But I would probably still prefer to leave these blank and mass rename later because the only reason I am concerned with mass renaming is for the field crews. The only times I really use naming for my own purposes in Business Center is for special cases where I have linework close to each and I am trying to distinguish differences (EP left, EP Right, Building In, Building Out). 
3. If I select line P-EP (5) that doesn't mean anything to me and won't to the field crews. I could no end up with 30 different P-EP lines. I would rather keep this sort and sweet especially with the new utilities module because the names of these runs have more value, DR-CB23 to DMH24. (I will attached a video later showing this in more detail). 

It looks like SCS900 and Siteworks do not roll up entities with the same name but this will be a request I will make to their team.

There was a macro created to address this. It works very well.I highly recommend it.

TML - AssignNameFromLayer