In this session, we are going to set task types. In Navisworks, each task has a task type associated with it. Task type determines how model elements attached to the task are displayed at the start and the end of the task. Let us take a look at our example schedule, there are five task types: “Laying out,” “Binding formwork,” “Installing rebar,” “Grouting,” and “Removing formwork.” So, we need five task type definitions. Go to the “TimeLiner” window and select the “Configure” tab. Delete the predefined task types. Then click on the “Add” button to add five new task types. Then we enter their names according to the schedule: “Laying out,” “Binding formwork,” “Installing rebar,” “Grouting,” and “Removing formwork.” Then let us take a look at the simulation appearances for the task types. Each task type has five “Appearance” fields: “Start Appearance,” “End Appearance,” “Early Appearance,” “Late Appearance,” and “Simulation Start Appearance.” “Start Appearance” determines how the elements will look at the start of the task. “End Appearance” decides how the elements will look when the task is completed. “Early Appearance” defines how the elements will look if the task is started before the planned time. "Late Appearance" determines how the elements will look if the task is started after the planned time. Finally, "Simulation Start Appearance" specifies how the elements should be displayed at the start of a simulation. Click on one of the simulation fields; in the drop-down menu, we can see that the available simulation appearance options are: “None,” “Hide,” “Model Appearance,” and “Appearance Definitions.” “None” means the appearance of model elements attached to the task will not change; “Hide” means the elements will be hidden; “Model Appearance” means the elements will be displayed as they are defined in the model; and “Appearance Definitions” allows us to choose predefined or custom appearances we have added in the list of “Appearance Definitions.” In the example schedule, only planned start date and planned end date are available, so we do not have to assign simulation appearances for “Early Appearance” and "Late Appearance." Now, let us assign the "Start Appearance," "End Appearance," and “Simulation Start Appearance” for every task type. You may choose simulation appearances by your preference. Here, for example, we would like to assign each of the first four task types a color with 90% transparency for the "Start Appearance" and use the same color with 0% transparency for the "End Appearance." We choose the yellow color for "Laying out," green for "Binding formwork," blue for "Installing rebar," and red for "Grouting." For "Removing formwork," because the construction is completed after formwork is removed, we prefer to select "Model Appearance" for the "End Appearance" of "Removing formwork," and select purple with 90% transparency for its "Start Appearance." Then we select “Hide” for the ”Simulation Start Appearance” for every task types. However, in the drop-down menu, blue is not a predefined option, so let us add an appearance definition first. Click on the "Appearance Definitions" button. Click on the "Add" button twice to add two definitions, and enter their names: "Blue" and "Blue (90% transparent)," respectively. Then in the "Color" field, double-click the color to open the color selector. Select the color of blue and do the same for the other definition. Then we use the slider in the "Transparency" bar to set the transparency level to 90. Click on "OK." Now we can assign simulation appearances according to our plan. Then we go to the “Tasks” tab, click on the pull-down menu of “Task Type.” You can see the five task types we’ve set up previously. Let us select a proper task type for each task. For example, we set “Binding formwork” for the “3F-Binding beam formwork” task. Now please practice the same procedure to complete the task type assigning work.
