Product(s):	OpenBuildings Designer
	Version(s):	2023 and Connect Edition
	Area:	Structural Design

Problem

When placing Tapered Concrete or Timber members from our ProjectWise managed workspace, there are no entries under the Parametric Shapes group to place Rectangle or Circle shapes. Instead, only the User Shapes group is populated.

Solution

Concrete and Timber members don't directly use MBD databases like Steel members, but instead load the available User Shapes and map legacy Rectangular and Circular shapes to ProStructures shapes to populate the Parametric > Rectangle and Circle groups. This mapping process uses the ShapeMapping-Parametric.xml file located in the applicable \Dataset_Name\Data folder but also requires a "source" XML file from which to map. In this particular case the managed workspace was missing the configuration variable STRUCTURAL_SHAPES (undefined) which by default points to that legacy shapes XML file(s). Therefore, the Place Concrete and Place Timber placement tools could not generate a list of Rectangle and Circle shapes. The same issue would occur if the STRUCTURAL_SHAPES was defined but pointed to a non-existing XML file or one that did not include any mappable shapes. 

In order to resolve this issue, the STRUCTURAL_SHAPES variable first needs to be defined in either a new or existing CSB and must be available when OpenBuildings Designer is launched. 

In the Value Type drop-down list choose the ProjectWise Document option so you can navigate to a legacy XML file in your managed workspace that contains the Rectangle and Circle shapes required for your project's Concrete and Timber members. 

Once complete and OpenBuildings Designer restarted, the Parametric > Rectangle and Circle groups should be populated with the shapes mapped from the legacy XML file.