BIM Software Tip: How to Use the Navisworks Appearance Configurator
The Appearance Configurator allows you to create custom appearance profiles based on sets (search and selection sets) and property values. These profiles can then be applied to color-code objects within your model, helping to distinguish system types and visually identify their statuses. You can save the appearance configuration file as a DAT file and share it with other Autodesk Navisworks users.
The appearance configuration file selector lets you define criteria for object selection along with their appearance settings. Objects can be selected based on property values or by using search and selection sets within Navisworks files. Selecting by property values offers greater flexibility because search and selection sets must first be added to the model and are typically designed to cover specific areas, such as elevations, floors, or regions.
For example, if your model has five floors and you want to select all objects related to “Cold Water,” you would need to create five separate “Cold Water” selectors—one for each floor. However, if you use a feature-based approach, a single “Cold Water” selector can cover all floors, as the search will include all relevant parts of the model, including any additional features from external databases (if available).
There is no limit to the number of selectors you can include in an appearance configuration file. However, the order of selectors is crucial because they are applied sequentially from top to bottom. If an object matches multiple selectors, each subsequent selector will override the object’s appearance set by the previous one. Currently, once a selector is added to the list, its position cannot be changed.
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