The program "x_drawer" was developed to help Tekla Structures users in creating drawings of assembly for the most typically constructions: beam, column, brace.

x_drawer can give you an assembly drawing in three ways:

• using an existing drawing. Open the drawing created by Tekla and push the 'create' button. x_drawer will recreate the drawing.
• using selected drawings in the drawing list. For each selected drawing in the list, the program will recreate all views and dimensions.
• using selected parts in the model.

To get an assembly drawing with minimum manual editing, you should:

• take in account the main part of assembly (“Main part” tab page)
• prepare and set file attributes for the views, cut sections and other drawing objects (“File attributes” tab page)

Main part of an assembly

 All the dimensions and cross sections start their creation from the main part. So, if the main part was chosen wrong, the dimensions will be incorrect. To find out the main part of the assembly → select part in the Tekla Structures model and inquire assembly.

Typically the main part is the biggest part in the assembly, all other parts are welded to it.

If Tekla shows (highlights in red) incorrect main part, and you do not want to reset a new main part (to prevent renumbering), you need to put to x_drawer part’s position the position of the main part

 In some cases, the main part consists of the several parts. Welded I-beam is made from plates, welded
together. So, you need to put all positions of parts (web and flanges) to x_drawer.

In some cases, the assembly contains several main parts: frame, truss, double column.

Advice to use

To understand what means each parameter in x_drawer -> change it, and look at sketch group box. All changes
will be highlighted in blue.