2.14 The “Surface treatment” tool in Tekla Structures

The “Surface Treatment” tool allows creating various types of surface treatments of the structure elements, thus influencing the parts marking. Surface treatment is a separate object with its unique properties set.

 Let’s examine all the tools of the “Surfaces”

2.14.1 The “Surfaces” tool in Tekla Structures

The “Surfaces” tool creates finishes of any arbitrary shape at the surface of a part. A surface finish can be also described by thickness.  

Create a plate with dimensions of  1000 x 500mm and a thickness of  100 mm. Set up the plate’s class at 6 for a further better visual representation.  

Now let's proceed to create a surface finish. Rotate the view to the

The algorithm for using the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to selected

1. Make sure all operations are canceled or press the Esc key.
2. Enable the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to selected area” tool.
3. Select the first starting point of the surface pattern.
4. Select the second X-axis point of the surface pattern.
5. Indicate the part surface.
6. Subsequently indicate the points of the surface polygon.
7. To finalize creating the surface finish polygon, press the Space key or the mouse wheel button.
8. To disable the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to selected area” tool, press the Esc key.

Note that the object created is not a plate, but the surface finish of

Go to the "Surface properties" window by double-clicking on it.  Find the “Thickness” field and set up its value at 50 mm.

Make sure the “Type” field is set up at the “Tile surface”

 

Indicate the pattern type as “ Mauerwerk_3” and press the

So now you can see that the pattern was successfully applied to the model.  The pattern overlay direction can be modified by moving the points which were indicated when creating the surface. Let’s select one of these points and move it by using the  Ctrl+M hotkey combination.

The direction of the pattern changed. It is not a random pattern but an adjustable template with customizable steps, line thickness, and other parameters.

Exercise toggling between various pattern types.  

Each pattern is specified by a definite geometrical overlay dimension.

 

Get back to the "Attributes" tab  ( relevant for older TS versions) or the “Pattern” section (relevant for newer TS interfaces). Switching the “Type” field value to the “Special mix”  allows changing the surface color.

TS v2021 allows color-coding without modifying the “Pattern type”

Thus a pattern or a color can be applied to an object's surface. Other surfaces finish properties will be examined when getting to the "Creating statements" chapter.

2.14.2 The “ Surface treatment to part face” tool in Tekla Structures

This tool creates finishes for the whole face of a part.

Copy the plate from the previous exercise and delete the surface finish

Rotate the view to 3D to see the faces of the part.

The algorithm for using the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to part

1. Make sure all operations are canceled or press the Esc key.
2. Enable the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to part face” tool.
3. Select the first coordinate origin point of the surface pattern.
4. Select the second point indicating the X-axis direction of the surface pattern.
5. Indicate the part surface at which the pattern is to be applied.
6. To disable the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to part face” tool, press the Esc key.

Now create the surface treatment for the plate's side.

2.14.3 The “ Surface treatment to all faces of part” tool in Tekla Structures

This tool creates finishes for the whole surface of a part without separately

Create one more copy of the plate and delete the surface treatment off

The algorithm for using the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to all

1. Make sure all operations are canceled or press the Esc key.
2. Enable the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to all faces of part” tool.
3. Select the object.  
4. To disable the “Surfaces - Surface treatment to all faces of part” tool, press the Esc key.

Thus all faces of the plate have a surface treatment.

2.15 Views in TS

A view itself is the workspace where the model or its part is rendered in a required projection.  At the same time, several views can be activated.  Adjusting settings of the views can be done simultaneously or separately. When working with the TS models you should, first of all, get a clear understanding of the fact that an open model might have no views, which does not mean that the model is empty.

Now intentionally close all the views of the model. Refer to the below:

In most cases, when opening a project created by another user, you might see that the editor looks just like in the picture below. But it does not mean that the file is empty. There are just no views in it.

Create a view to see the model.