Hagerman & Company, Inc. Technology Bulletin

Autodesk Navisworks object enablers

By Matt Niemeyer,
AEC Solutions Engineer
Hagerman & Company
St. Louis, MO
 
I have had several calls about Autodesk® Navisworks® not recognizing certain objects when you open a DWG file that was created in AutoCAD Building Systems 2007, AutoCAD MEP 2008, or AutoCAD MEP 2009. Objects are most often displayed as proxy graphics. Sometimes a message is shown stating that the object enabler is missing.

In order to convert the objects, Autodesk Navisworks needs to have the correct object enablers loaded. This is not a new concept for Autodesk products and has been the case since the first vertical product was developed. You need to install the corresponding object enabler, regardless of whether the AutoCAD application is installed or not. This applies to all AutoCAD-based products released in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

The delicate part of this process is knowing which ones need to be installed. If you are running Autocad MEP then you need to load the MEP object enablers, right? Sort of. The MEP object enablers build on the Architecture Object enablers, so you have to have the Architecture object enablers installed first. The AutoCAD® Architectural Desktop or AutoCAD® Architecture object enablers must be configured with Navisworks first in order for the AutoCAD ABS and AutoCAD MEP object enabler installers to recognize that Navisworks is installed on the computer.

Now that you have the order correct, make sure you have the correct version. If you want to see ABS 2007 objects then you need to install the Architectural Desktop 2007 object enablers and then the ABS 2007 object enablers.

Again, it doesn’t matter if the software is already installed on the machine. You will still need to install the object enablers for Navisworks.

If you have already tried some of these and are not getting the desired results, follow the steps below. Again, make sure you are using the correct version of the object enablers.

  1. Uninstall the MEP object enablers and the Architecture object enablers if they are already installed.

  2. Download and install the object enablers in the following order:

    1. AutoCAD Architecture/Architectural Desktop object enabler:
      See list below

    2. AutoCAD MEP/Building Systems object enabler:
      See list below

    3. Any other 3rd party object enablers for Autodesk products

  3. Open Navisworks.

  4. Click Tools menu > Global Options > File Readers > DWG/DXF/SAT.

  5. Set the DWG Loader version to the version of the software you are loading.

  6. Exit Navisworks.

  7. Delete any NWC cache files associated with your model.

  8. Start Navisworks.

  9. Open your model.

For 2007 files

Architectural Desktop Object Enabler 2007

Autodesk Building Systems 2007 Object Enabler

For 2008 files

AutoCAD Architecture 2008 Object Enabler

AutoCAD MEP 2008 Object Enabler

For 2009 files

AutoCAD Architecture 2009 Object Enabler

AutoCAD MEP 2009 Object Enabler