Component Descriptions

The texts used to describe components in the material list are stored in the Catalog DB as text elements. The relevant part of the DB’s hierarchy is:

Storing text elements in the DB

where: ADTE to SDTE are detail text (DTEXT) elements and AMTE to SMTE are material text (MTEXT) elements.

Note: Both sets of text elements normally exist at the same level, as shown, although the DTEXT and MTEXT elements will often be in different sections (SECT) or categories (CATE).

Text elements are created as described in Catalogs and Specifications Reference.

For example:

NEW DTEXT 17

NEW MTEXT 17

NEW BMTE

Each component description is split into two (optionally three) parts:

• The geometric description, for example, 90 degree butt weld elbow

• The material description, for example, ASTM A-234

• Optional attached text, for example, UDA and/or other attribute settings (defined by the ATTEXTS command)

Isodraft will assume that the RTEX attribute of a DTEXT element contains the geometric description and that the XTEX attribute of an MTEXT element contains the material description.

Thus the material list description

Note: The values of the DTEXT attributes can be set to an expression, enabling the text to be parameterized. When the attribute is queried in Isodraft, the expression will be evaluated and the actual value will be output.

Attached text allows the user to append text defined by an expression (typically the setting of one or more UDAs or other attributes) to the descriptions of elements whose GTYPs comply with a predefined selection rule. The syntax to define the text and its associated rule is

ATTEXts expression ON selection_rule

The description shown on the isometric will be RTEX + XTEX + ATTEXT. The ATTEXT syntax may be used as often as required, each expression being evaluated and appended to the description whenever the selection rule returns a True result.

The command ATTEXTS NONE cancels all current ATEXT rules.