Tutorials PartCraft help Walkthroughs
Make a variant pack from your configurations
Build every configuration of a part, or a chosen few, in one go as STEP, IFC, DWG and a preview each, with a table of their parameters and the part as one library item with its variants.
Written for PartCraft 0.7. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
What you'll do
Hand over every size of a part at once: one STEP, IFC and DWG file and a picture for each configuration, a table that says what each one is, and a library item that puts all of them on one page.
You need a part with configurations first (see Configurations and design tables). A configuration that turns a feature off, such as a plate with and without holes, becomes its own variant.
Steps
- Open the part. On the Parameters tab, find Configurations.
- Click Variant pack….
- Tick the configurations to build (all are ticked) and the files to write: STEP, IFC, DWG, a preview, and the library item.
- Click Make the pack. The status line counts the variants as they are built; your part is not changed.
- One zip downloads:
<part> variants.zip.
What is in the zip
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
<name>.step | The configuration as a STEP solid. |
<name>.ifc | IFC4, one element with the built body and the part's parameters as properties; the value is that configuration's own. |
<name>.dwg | The front, top, right and isometric views as a drawing sheet at full size. |
<name>.svg | An isometric line picture of it. |
variants.csv, variants.json | The parameter table: each variant's id, name and value of every parameter, the features it turns off, its files, its volume and its size. |
<part>.item.json | The part as one library item with its variants (see below). |
README.txt | What was made, the notes below, and anything that was not built. |
Files are named by the configuration. A configuration that fails to build (a feature that cannot be made with those values) is left out of the files and the table, listed in the README and in a message after the zip is saved; the others are still written.
Good to know
- STEP is exact when the exact kernel is on in your build. Without it the STEP is faceted (flat triangles), and the README says so.
- DWG is the drawing sheet, not a 3D model. Its lines come from the mesh, so a curved edge is many short lines.
- The library item carries one body and one footprint per variant, in the library's own axes: Z up, the front toward −Y, and the insertion point at the middle of the back at the bottom. The plan is each variant's bounding rectangle. An item is limited to 8 MB, so a very heavy variant becomes a box of its size and the README says how many.
- The part's active configuration is the item's default variant.
- Ports (connection points for pipes and ducts) are not set from PartCraft.
Put the variants on a library page
Upload <part>.item.json at Library › Upload on the site. Choose its category, license and your credit line, and it becomes a LibraryCraft item with its variants. In BimCraft, placing it asks which variant, and Swap offers the others. The page where visitors choose options, see the 3D and download a variant is a staff preview for now: it is not open to the public yet.
From the command line
node tools/partcraft-cli/partcraft.mjs variants plate.partcraft.json --out-dir plate-variants
node tools/partcraft-cli/partcraft.mjs variants plate.partcraft.json --only "Small,Large" --formats step,preview --zip plate.zip--only names the configurations, --formats any of step, ifc, dwg, preview, --no-item leaves the library item out. It writes a folder, a zip or both and exits 1 when a variant could not be built. See Scripts and the command line.