Construction Assemblies

Construction assemblies are assigned to each line item and define what a wall/roof/floor/etc. is composed of. Learn how to view, create, edit, and save construction assemblies in xStar.

Why do I need a custom assembly?

xStar ships with a database of prebuilt construction assemblies and components that you can use in your projects. These construction assemblies cannot be edited. However, in many cases, you will want to customize these assemblies with a different structure, insulation, or finish as you explore design tradeoffs and refine your design.

Creating assemblies

Custom assemblies are always editable and can be created in 3 ways:

1. Copy an existing assembly.

2. Assemblies are automatically imported when loading xStar (*.xsb) files.

3. xStar may automatically create an assembly when it generates a design from a Revit® project.

Creating assemblies by copy

Editing assemblies

Changes to assemblies are instantaneous. If a user changes an assembly or component in one project, the changes will be reflected in all designs that use that assembly or component in that project, as well as any other project/design where that assembly is used.

If you want to edit an assembly without affecting other designs where the assembly is used, copy the assembly before editing, then swap the new assembly in for the original.

Saving assemblies

The Assembly Library is a database of assemblies and components that can be used in any xStar design. Each user starts with a default library of xStar assemblies, which is stored locally for each user.

As a user creates and edits assemblies, they are automatically saved to the Assembly Library. Note that over the course of an xStar session, some of the created assemblies may have been imported from a *.xsb file or created by xStar.

To avoid polluting the local Assembly Library with undesired assemblies, when closing the project, the user is asked if they want to remove any items from the Assembly Library that were imported or created during the session. Note that any assemblies that already existed prior the the xStar session will not show up on this list for removal, even if you made changes to them.

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