Containment Palette

Overview

The containment palette (sometime also called Model Tree) has functionality for displaying and editing the containment structure of the model. Containment is characterized by:

1. A tree structure, where a container can contain other containers and elements.
2. Every container or element can only be contained by one container. This is different from groups because one container or element can belong to any number of groups.
3. Spatial containers (like buildings and building storeys) don't usually have any geometry of their own. Instead, they are used for organizing the model.
4. Element containers (like element assemblies or walls containing wall parts) don't usually have any geometry of their own. Instead, they are used for organizing the model.
5. Spaces are a special case because they typically have geometry of their own and contain elements.

Containment is useful for providing a basic structure for models with names people can easily talk about.  For example that the topic of the discussion is the 'interior walls on the 2nd floor of building A'. But like any other hierarchy they pre-define a viewpoint. Groups are better for organizing models when there are many different, often overlapping ways for organizing. A model may have for example building storeys, construction sections, apartments, takt areas, sub-contracts etc. and handling all these can't be accomplished via containment. 

Trimmer Mode

When the application is in Trimmer Mode the Containment palette shows the names of all excluded objects as strikethrough. If all objects with object collection are excluded the collection is also shown as strikethrough.

When the application is not in Trimmer Mode the objects are hidden - it is as if they didn't exist at all.

Toolbar

Filter

Typing in a text filters the contents of the properties palette based on the Name -column (the first column).  The filtering uses contains -logic. Changing the Name column to 'Default Property Value' allows filtering using the default property value.

The background colour of the filter box changes when a filter is active and the filter can be cleared from the x-icon in the filter box.

Options

Name Column changes the logic for grouping the objects shown in the Containment palette. This does not change the containment itself, only how objects in each branch are grouped. If the model has a meaningful default property for each object class the 'Default Property Value' option gives a much more meaningful result than the default object class -based view.

Show Value Column displays the value column (second column) that shows the value of the default property of the object, or  the object class if Name Column is set to 'Default Property Value' 

Hide Empty Containers hides all empty spatial containers from the palette.

Rename Palette renames the Containment Palette. Prefixing the palette name with \\ removes the Containment-prefix from the palette name.

Speak, when turned on, allows other palettes can react to selections made in the Containment palette, e.g. highlight the selected objects in the 3D window. The action taken by the other palettes is decided in those palettes, for example the 3D window can select, isolate or reveal.

Other

Reset sets all options back to their default values.

Right-Click-Menu

New Building Storey is only visible for Buildings. It adds a new Building Storey into the selected Building.

Edit Building Storey is only visible for Building Storeys. It opens a dialog for editing the properties of the building storey.

Colorize colorizes objects in the child nodes of the selected container. For example colorizing a Building sets a different color for Building Storeys in the selected building.

Clear Colors removes the current temporary colors.

Collapse Children collapses the child nodes of the selected node. For example collapsing the children of a Building collapses the Building Storeys in the building.

Drag and Drop

From the Containment palette

• Dragging a node drags the node and all objects below the node. For example dragging a Building Storey into the Properties palette drags the Building Storey object and dragging the same into the 3D palette drags all objects in the building storey.

Into the Containment  palette

• Dragging objects on top of a container node moves the dragged objects into that container. Note that new containers cannot be created like this, the target must already be a container to accept new objects.

Within the Containment palette

• Dragging a node on top of a container node moves all objects below the dragged node into that container. Note that new containers cannot be created like this, the target must already be a container to accept new objects.