Clash Detection – Re-locating Models In Navisworks

We know that Navisworks is a very powerful tool for collaboration, combining models and clash checking amongst other things, but for the clash checking to work correctly and accurately the appended models need to be in the same location. By this I mean origin location and rotation angle.

If they are not in the exact same position, we need to be able to change the origin and/or rotation for each appended file. Thankfully Navisworks allows us to easily do this.

If I start by opening structural and architectural models to say, run a clash check.

When we look in the scene view ocasionally the may come in at different locations. This is going to make clash checking very difficult if not imposible.

The solution for this, is to use Units and Transform. Right clicking on either of the appended files gives us a menu where we will find Units and Transform.

By getting the units and transform information for both files we can see the Origin and Rotation for the two files are different, so I need to reset either the Architectural or Structural file.

For this example, I will reset the Architectural file to match the Structural file, so re-setting the origin and rotation to 0.

You can now see my Architectural file has re-located to match the Structural file so I can now perform an accurate clash check and use any of the other Autodesk Navisworks tools correctly.

Hope you found this tip useful. Thanks for reading. If you’d like to learn more baout how to use this software, we invite you to have a look at our Navisworks training courses which are available in our Autodesk Certified Training Centres.

To request a quote of more information, please follow the link below.