Selection and search sets from property rules

One pass over the model

Since version 2.8.0 the grouping engine reads the model once per rule and buckets the elements by value, instead of running one Navisworks search per distinct value. On typical models grouping runs about twice as fast and uses roughly half the memory. Values read from the model are remembered for the session, so editing or re-running a rule on the same property is near-instant.

Since version 3.0.0, a rule set reads the model once for all its rules, and a rules file once for the whole file: importing six rule sets into an 11,000-element model went from 30 seconds to 2 seconds. Long runs can be cancelled from the progress bar. A cancelled grouping leaves the previous state in place, and a cancelled import keeps the rules imported so far and reports how many ran.

Search sets that follow the model

Save all in the Group Elements pane asks whether to create search-based or static selection sets. Search sets are built from the whole chain of rules above each group, so predefined, value-list and numeric-range rules produce search sets that update as the model changes. Substring rules fall back to static sets per branch, because a value-OR cannot nest in a flat Navisworks search.

Property cache

Cache Properties reads every item once and keeps the categories, properties and distinct values in memory. Save Cache writes it to a JSON file and Load Cache installs it on another machine without rescanning. With a cache in place the custom text, custom numeric and list-of-values dialogs, the QTO Report and Import Properties open with their category and property lists already filled, and Analyze properties for the whole model no longer rescans the model. A demo cache ships with the plugin's demo files.