How to Use Templates for Generated Drawings in BricsCAD BIM

Quick answer: BricsCAD BIM’s templates for generated drawings live in the Support folder at C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Bricsys\BricsCAD\V26x64\en_US\Support\Bim\Sections (run SUPPORTFOLDER and browse to Bim > Sections; the AppData folder is hidden by default). As covered on this hub’s BIM sections page, _SectionSettings.dwg‘s section entity templates use hard-coded names (_Section, _Elevation, _Plan, and so on) that must never be changed.

Understanding the Created Layers

1. Open the millimeter template BIM-mm.dwt and save the drawing.
2. Draw two 500x500x400 boxes, one slightly behind the other.
3. Put the first box on Layer1 (green) and the second on Layer2 (red).
4. Create a BIM section aligned with the first (green) box’s front face, cutting through its middle but not through the second (red) box.
5. Generate and open the section drawing.
6. Check the Layers panel: three groups generate, Background, Boundary, and Fill. For the sectioned green solid: Boundary_Layer1 (the section’s boundary), Fill_Layer1 (its hatching), and Background_Layer1 (unsectioned subentities like vertices), all inheriting Layer1’s color. Since the red solid isn’t sectioned, only Background_Layer2 generates, inheriting Layer2’s color.
7. Drag the Cavity Wall, Brick composition from the Compositions panel onto the green box. Set LEVELOFDETAIL to 1 or 2 to display the ply materials, the same variable covered on this hub’s BIM ply editing and compositions pages. A composition always takes priority over a solid’s own layer color once assigned.
8. Double-click Cavity Wall, Brick in the Compositions panel; it’s made of four plies, each with its own material, and each physical material has its own hatch pattern for floor plans and sections, plus a separate one for elevations.
9. Assign the Concrete, Reinforced composition to the red box.
10. Update and open the section.
11. Run PURGE on the layers to remove unused ones. The same three categories (Background, Boundary, Fill) reappear, but the second part of each layer name is now the physical material’s name instead of the box’s original layer name, for example Background_Facing Bricks_Hand-formed, Boundary_Insulation_Polyurethane Foam, Fill_Supporting Wall_Brick.
12. Set the section’s Generate elevation fill property to On to add an elevation hatch, the same property covered on this hub’s elevation hatch page.
13. Update the section.
14. The second box’s outline is now hatched, and a new Elevation_Concrete_Reinforced layer appears.

Understanding the BRX_2D Layers

Confirming the layer prefix system covered on this hub’s custom window and door creation page, whether a 2D symbol replaces or supplements a component’s actual 3D solid section depends on its layer:

• BRX_2D_ or BRX_2D+_: added to the section block without analytical hidden line removal (HLR) when the section plane intersects the component, meaning this geometry can never be occluded by other geometry (a table’s top symbol on BRX_2D_, for example, can never hide parts of chairs beneath it, even if it geometrically should). Without intersection, it goes through HLR instead.
• BIM_2D_SECT_ or BIM_2D_SECT+_: added only when the section plane intersects the component, always through HLR, useful for a different representation when sliced, like stairs.
• BIM_2D_BACK_ or BIM_2D_BACK+_: always added, always through HLR, solving the table-and-chairs occlusion problem the BRX_2D prefix can’t handle.
• A + suffix adds the 2D symbol to the 3D solid section; without it, the 2D symbol replaces the 3D solid section entirely.

Worked example, adding 2D entities:

1. Open BIM-mm.dwt and save the drawing.
2. Drag the Furniture Bookshelf component from the Furnishing Elements category of the Library panel (LIBRARYPANELOPEN).
3. Show and isolate the BRX_2D_Symbols layer; a symbol displays at the bookshelf’s insertion point.
4. Show all layers again (LAYUNISO) and make a section through the bookshelf.
5. Generate and open the Plans drawing.
6. With the Boundary_BRX_2D_Symbols layer on, only the symbol draws on the plan, not the real section, because it’s attached on a plain BRX_2D layer, which replaces rather than adds.
7. Return to the 3D model and open a copy of the bookshelf (see BMOPENCOPY).
8. Hide the bookshelf itself and make sure BRX_2D_Symbols is on.
9. Delete one of the cross symbol’s lines.
10. Optionally draw extra 2D lines on BRX_2D_Symbols.
11. Save the drawing.
12. Back in the original 3D model, run BMINSERT, browse to the saved bookshelf file, click OK, and choose an insertion point.
13. Regenerate and open the section (widen the viewport if needed).
14. The second bookshelf shows the adapted symbol.
15. Draw a wall in your 3D model and insert the Door Ext Plain door into it.
16. Repeat steps 3 through 5, but use the BRX_2D+_Swing layer instead.
17. The generated plan shows both the door swing symbol and the actual door section together, since the + suffix adds the symbol rather than replacing the section.

Customizing Hatch Colors and Line Weights

1. For objects without a composition (as seen above), Fill, Background, and Boundary layer colors and line weights copy from the 3D model’s own layer properties.
2. For objects with a composition, default colors instead come from the template found by running SUPPORTFOLDER and browsing to Bim/Sections/_SectionSettings.dwg.
3. Open that drawing.
4. In the Layers panel, every possible layer for every material in the library is listed, each with its own color and line weight. Changing and saving these changes the default color or line weight used in future generated drawings, fully customizable per line type (Fill, Background, Boundary, or Elevation) and per material.

Customizing Hatch Patterns

1. Open the drawing from the layers procedure above.
2. Open the Compositions panel.
3. Double-click the Cavity Wall, Brick composition.
4. Hatch patterns for its materials are changeable here.
5. Double-click the Facing Bricks, Hand-formed row; the Physical Materials dialog opens on that material (also accessible directly via BLMATERIALS).
6. Go to the Appearance tab.
7. Under Section, double-click the hatch pattern.
8. Choose a new standard section hatch representation; it applies to every composition using this material.
9. Under Elevation, double-click to change the elevation hatch appearance too (determined by the outermost visible material of a composition). Note: this representation isn’t a template and won’t carry over into new drawings, since the Physical Materials dialog only defines representation within this specific drawing. To store it permanently, build a compositions library drawing instead, attach your compositions to small cubes and set each material’s hatch appearance the same way described above.
10. Run BIMPROJECTINFO to open the BIM Project Info dialog.
11. In the Project DB tab, switch the database from Embedded to External; you’ll be asked to save it as a BSYSLIB file, CompositionsTemplate.bsyslib, for example, confirming the Embedded/External concept covered on this hub’s BIM Project Info page with a concrete worked example.
12. To use that database in a new drawing, switch its database to External too and select the same BSYSLIB file.

Customizing Tags

For customizing tags per entity type across all section drawings, see the Create the source data for a BIM entity type, Customize tag blocks, and Edit the source data to customize BIM Tags for all section drawings procedures on this hub’s BIM tags page. To change tags in just the current drawing, see that page’s Customize tag blocks for the current drawing only procedure instead.

Customizing Call-Out Blocks

Source files for call-out blocks and the section tracker live in the same Bim\Sections subfolder as everything else.

1. Run SUPPORTFOLDER and browse to Bim > Sections.
2. Edit _SectionSettings.dwg to customize the call-out layout and section tracker blocks.

When a drawing generates, its call-out blocks come from this source file; when a BIM section updates instead, the existing call-out blocks already in the target drawing are used (run BEDIT to choose one to edit directly).

Customizing the Sheet Set Template

Sheet set templates live in C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Bricsys\BricsCAD\V26x64\en_US\Templates, worth noting this uses the AppData\Local path rather than the AppData\Roaming path seen everywhere else in this hub.

1. To edit an existing template: either open it directly (File > Open, choose .dwt under Files of type, edit, and save), or double-click the DWT to open a copy as a DWG, modify it, and Save As a DWT back into the templates folder.
2. To start from scratch using a wizard, follow the general Creating a drawing procedure, then save the result as a DWT in your sheet set templates folder.
3. A DWT saved there appears in the New Wizard, and can be selected as the template for generated drawings in the Project Browser panel’s sheet set setup.
4. Build a title block with sheet set properties for every layout in your template (see the separate procedure on using sheet set properties in a title block). A DWT can also store layers, colors, line types, hatch patterns, blocks, text styles, dimension styles, and page setups.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does a table’s 2D symbol sometimes fail to hide chair geometry beneath it in a section? If it’s on a plain BRX_2D_ layer, that geometry can never be occluded by other geometry, use BIM_2D_BACK_ instead if you need that occlusion to work correctly.

Does customizing a material’s hatch pattern in the Physical Materials dialog carry over into new drawings automatically? No, that dialog only defines representation within the current drawing; build a compositions library drawing and switch to an External project database to make it reusable.

Where do sheet set templates get stored, and is that different from other BIM templates? Yes, sheet set templates use AppData\Local, while most other BIM templates and settings covered elsewhere in this hub use AppData\Roaming.

What happens to a section’s call-out blocks when the section is updated rather than newly generated? The existing call-out blocks already in the target drawing are reused, rather than being recreated from the source file.