An Outstanding New Feature in SMC 9.7: Federated Floors

A federated model usually consists of multiple files from various disciplines such as architectural, structural, plumbing, HVAC, etc.  These individual files contain floors which may not always have the same name.  For instance, in the architectural model, the first floor may be named “Level 1” while in the mechanical model, it may be named “Floor 1 – Mechanical.”  Furthermore, there may be additional floors in the mechanical model for interstitial space to allow for mechanical systems.

In version 9.7 of Solibri Model Checker (SMC), we are introducing the Federated Floor feature.  This is based floors located and defined in the architectural model. Components in models of other disciplines are mapped to these Federated Floors based on their elevation.  Therefore, if you have an air register in your mechanical model located on a floor named “Level 2 – Interstitial,” between the ceiling of Floor 2 and slab of Floor 3 of the architectural model, that air terminal will have the Federated Floor designated as “Floor 2.”

This allows for much simpler identification of floors of components.  For example, in version 9.6 of SMC, in order to isolate all components of Story 1, you would need to expand each file in the model tree view, multi-select the corresponding story from each discipline model, and click the Set to Selection Basket  button:

In SMC v9.7, there is a new Federated Floors hierarchy in the Model Tree.   Now, to isolate all components on a specific floor, click the Switch to Federated Floors icon  in the model tree, and simply select that specific floor before clicking the Set to Selection Basket  icon.

The navigation map of the 3D view now only lists the names of the Federated Floors.  Below is an image of the navigation map in SMC 9.6 after clicking the Floor button.  The list includes floors that correspond to locations named from the structural model in addition to the architectural floors names.

Below, SMC v9.7 cleans up this list by only displaying the Federated Floors of the model, which eliminates confusion while switching between stories using the navigation map.

The Federated Floor relation is a property found under the Location property group in SMC.  When creating your own rulesets, this makes it simple to filter components by their federated floor without the need to filter each floor from multiple models when their names don’t match or there is defined interstitial space.

The Federated Floor feature will relate every component to a Floor from the architectural model.  Here, you can see that this column doesn’t have a direct relation to a floor in the structural model as the Containment Relation directly relates the component to the building.  However, the Federated Floor of this column, is Story 1 from the architectural model.

You also have the ability to override the value of the Federated Floor.  Below is a “Building Skin” component that resides on the “Building Skin” floor of the architectural model.  Its Federated Floor is automatically set to “Parking 1.”

You can quickly override this by right-clicking in the Info View and selecting “Show in Custom Relations.”

The Custom Relations view automatically opens.  To set the building skin to Story 1, select the building skin component in the left hierarchy tree, and click Set to Selection Basket.

With the component set to the selection basket, select Story 1 in the hierarchy tree, and click the Relate To  icon.

The Building Skin object is ‘unrelated’ from Parking 1, as indicated by a line through that listing and is now related to Story 1.  Story 1 is now its federated floor.

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