How-To Guide
Exporting a Sectioned Model
The Selection Exporter cuts your model down to what's inside the section box and writes it back out as IFC, NWC, or NWD. The result is a far smaller file — and you can strip properties, colors, and transparency on the way out if it needs to be lighter still, or cleaner to share.
Hide anything you don't want exported
Anything hidden in Navisworks is left out of the export. Right-click in the Selection Tree and use Hide, or Hide Unselected to keep only what you've picked.
This is the first of two ways to cut the file down, and it works at the item level — drop a whole discipline or a single piece of equipment.
Turn on sectioning and set your box
Content that falls outside the section box is excluded too. The exporter reads only what is inside the box, so set the extents to cover exactly what you want to keep.
Push the box out past the limits of the model. The box always applies, so there is no "no box" option — an oversized box is how you export everything.
Set the sectioning mode to Box
On the Sectioning Tools tab, set Mode to Box. Plane sectioning will not drive the export — it has to be a box.
Then size the box around what you want. Use Move, Rotate, Scale, or Fit Selection to snap it around a selection.
Open the exporter
On the C8 Data Toolkit ribbon tab, click Selection Export.
Set your export location and name
Export Location at the top of the settings dialog sets a default folder for your exports — click Choose Folder and pick where the files should land.
Export Name below it does the same for the filename.
Choose your output formats
Under Output Formats, pick IFC, NWC, NWD, or any combination. Tick more than one and you get all of them from a single run.
Decide what data rides along, then run it
Export Properties, Export Colors, and Export Transparency each control whether that data survives into the new file.
Turning properties off shrinks the file further, and it's the way to hand someone a model without the data sitting behind it. Click Run when you're set.
Let it run
The progress window walks through the phases — scanning model items, clipping geometry, then saving each format you asked for. It's stripping out everything you hid and sectioned away, which is exactly why the finished file comes out smaller.
Export time varies with model size and machine. Multi-gigabyte federated models on a slow machine have taken over an hour and still finished successfully. Start with a small file to gauge your system, then work in a different application while the big ones run.
Read the report card
When the export finishes you get a report card: total time, pieces exported, how many were found in the box, and the size of the file you just made. Below that are the details — scan and processing time, how many pieces were fully inside the box versus clipped at its edge, triangle and fragment counts, how much was filtered out as outside, and a geometry error count. The path to each file it wrote is listed at the bottom.
Geometry errors above zero is the line worth a second look — it means some geometry couldn't be processed.
If something looks wrong
| Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|
| Content missing from the export | It was hidden, or it fell outside the section box. Unhide it or resize the box and run again. |
| Sectioning has no effect | Mode is set to Plane. It has to be Box for the exporter to read it. |
| Pieces exported is lower than expected | Check "Found in box" on the report card against "Outside filtered." Most of the model is sitting outside your box. |
| File is still too large | Hide more content, tighten the box, or turn off properties, colors, and transparency. |
| Export is taking a very long time | Expected on large federated models. Let it run — it can take over an hour on a big file and still complete. |