Tekla – New Capabilities with Curved Construction

Tekla Structures is a powerful software and design tool for BIM. While the software itself has seen many changes over the years, we couldn’t get more excited about the latest release, Tekla Structures 2019, which introduces new ways to handle curved construction.

These new changes which were released in March of this year, allows our team at National Steel Detailing to better create construction arcs, polycurves and circles. Tekla allows our designs to be more accurate than ever and gives us greater command over our images and layout.

Construction Arcs

Construction arcs can be simply created by picking three points in the 3D space in the model. The Construction object/Arc command can be found in the Edit tab, and you can specify which set of points you want to elect. You can choose the start, centre and end point or opt for a point elsewhere on the arc. Construction lines can also easily be edited to an arc by dragging the arc symbol at the midpoint line. You can also change it back by deleting the arc midpoint.

Construction Polycurves

The Construction object/Polycurve command is also located in the Edit tab and allows you to create objects with straight and curved segments. The contextual toolbar will enable you to switch between the two segments with a simple click of the mouse button to complete the polycurve.

Construction Circles

Circles are now easier to create than ever thanks to the Construction object/Circle command which now replaces the two commands, Circle using centre point and radius, and Circle using three points. Thanks to the contextual toolbar which will appear following the Circle command, you can now select three points to create the construction circle. You can also vary the line type through the property pane.

Offset Values to Copy Arcs, Polycurves and Circles

Circles, arcs and polycurves can now be copied via the offset values you specify in the direction that you need. You can easily adjust the radiuses as necessary by the offset values placing them exactly where you want at any given time.