CONTENTS
Introduction
Every CupixWorks 5.0 project is built from three things: a structure, some content, and the links between them. The structure is the Skeleton — the site, buildings, and levels that describe the built world. The content is a set of Design References, extracted from the design files you upload. Mounting is what connects a piece of content to a place in the structure.
This article covers the whole of project setup, in the order you work through it.
How a Project Is Built
Where Setup Lives
A project opens on Apps, which lists the SiteViews and add-ons the project uses. Setup lives on the other side of the sidebar.
The left sidebar has two groups. Apps holds Apps, Captures, and Analytics — the day-to-day surfaces. Admin holds Activity, Skeleton, Library, Work Areas, and Configuration. Three of those five are where a project gets set up:
- Skeleton — the built world: site, buildings, and levels, and where they sit on the map.
- Library — every design file in the project, and the Design References extracted from them.
- Work Areas — the zones you draw, such as safety areas or inspection routes.
Aligning a Design Reference happens in an editor that opens over the page from the Library. You close it to come back.
Design References
A Design Reference is the content the product extracts from a design file. It is not the file itself. The Library shortens it to DR in its column headings.
- A Building Information Modeling (BIM) model produces a 3D BIM reference.
- A drawing file produces one Drawing reference per page you extract.
- A Work Area Set is also a Design Reference — the zones you draw are mounted the same way BIM models are.
That last point is worth holding on to. Work Area Sets are not a separate system with its own placement rules; they appear alongside BIM models in the same mount dialog.
The Setup Lifecycle
A Design Reference moves forward through three states: Draft, Aligned, and Activated. The editor shows them as a status rail on the Properties tab, and the editor footer repeats the current state.
- Draft — extracted, not yet positioned.
- Aligned — positioned against a coordinate frame.
- Activated — approved for use in the project.
Mounting is a separate decision that connects a reference to one or more places in the Skeleton. A reference can be Activated with nothing mounted. Mounting it does not by itself put it in front of app users — that is what Publishing to the Apps covers, later in The Skeleton.
The Properties tab of either editor gathers all of this in one place. The status rail runs across the top, a Mounts section lists where the reference is attached, and the flags sit below.
What Changed From 4.0
| In 4.0 | In 5.0 |
|---|---|
| One origin per project, so each building needed its own project. | Each building carries its own origin, so a campus fits in one project. |
| A different workflow for each file format. | One Library for every supported format. |
| A revised file meant re-uploading and re-aligning by hand. | A new version is recorded against the source file, and you choose when to apply it. |
| The same drawing uploaded once per floor. | Mounted to as many levels as needed from one dialog. |
| Work areas belonged to a single level. | A Work Area Set is a Design Reference and can be mounted in many places. |
| A fixed admin sequence. | A tree you edit in any order, in whatever order the design files arrive. |
The Skeleton
The Skeleton is where you describe the built world and anchor it to the map. The page has three panes — a node tree on the left, a map in the center, and the properties of whatever you select on the right.
Three actions sit in the header: Mount DRs, Activity, and Setup Status. The project's coordinate system appears as a small code beside the Project Skeleton title — 4326 is WGS 84 — with a pencil to change it.
What a New Project Contains
A new project is seeded for you. It contains a Site, one building named Default, and one level inside it also named Default. Nothing has to be configured before you start — rename what is there, or add the next building beside it.
Reading the Tree
The Site sits at the top, holding a Drawings group and a Work Area Sets group. Buildings sit below it. Each building holds its levels, and each level has its own Work Area Sets group. The number beside a group is how many items it holds.
+ Add Building sits above the tree; + Add Level sits at the bottom of each building.
Where the Project Sits on the Map
Two properties place the project in the real world, and they sit on different nodes.
- Select the Site to see its Address and its PCS Origin & Bearing — latitude, longitude, altitude, and an angle clockwise from true north. This is the project's own origin on the map.
- Select a Building to see its BCS Origin & Bearing. That is X and Y in metres relative to the project origin, plus an elevation and an angle clockwise from the project's +Y axis. Change it with Edit BCS Origin & Bearing.
Give a building an offset and its pin moves on the map while the project origin stays put. That is the change that lets a campus live in one project: every building carries its own origin rather than sharing one.
The map has a compass, a True North and 2D toggle pair, and a 3D button. Its legend names what the markers mean, including CRS anchor and BCS anchor.
Levels
A level carries a Base elevation (in BCS) and a Height. Both are steppers, and the height defaults to 3 metres.
Note: Base elevation is kept in lockstep with the Level Datum that is created automatically on each level. Aligning a Design Reference's Level Datum in the Design File Editor updates the level's elevation too.
Mounting Design References
The tree is not only a description of the building. It is also the set of places content can attach to. Mount DRs in the Skeleton header opens the Mount Design References dialog.
The left side lists every Design Reference in the project. Each carries a type badge — 3D BIM or Work Area Set — and a count of how many targets it is mounted to. The right side lists the mount targets, grouped by building, with a Select all for each group.
Mounting is a link, not a copy. One reference can be mounted in many places and they all share it. A count like Mounted to 15 targets tells you at a glance which references are being reused across the project.
BIM models and Work Area Sets are mounted from this dialog. A Drawing is mounted from its own editor, on the Properties tab.
Publishing to the Apps
Mounting puts a reference in the Skeleton. It does not put it in front of anyone.
Select a mounted reference in the tree and its properties panel carries a Published toggle. That toggle is what exposes this instance to the Cupix apps — SiteView, SiteInsights, DeltaBIM, AssetAtlas, WorkOrder, TwinField, and Capture.
Three things have to be true before an app shows a reference:
| To do this | You need |
|---|---|
| Mount it | Aligned |
| See it in the Skeleton | Activated, and mounted to that node |
| See it in the apps | Activated, mounted to that node, and Published on |
Note: Publish is set per node, not per reference. Mount one drawing to eight levels and you get eight independent Published toggles. In 4.0 a single switch on the file governed every location at once, so turning it off for one floor turned it off everywhere.
The toggle stays disabled until the reference is Activated.
The tree gives you the answer at a glance. A mounted reference carries a Mounted chip on its row; once you publish it, that chip reads Published instead.
The Library
The Library is where every design file in the project lands, and where the Design References extracted from those files are managed.
Adding Source Files
Start by getting the design files in. + Add New offers three routes: upload files, Connect from Autodesk ACC, or Connect from Autodesk Forma. The upload dialog takes several files at once, and each becomes its own Library entry.
Supported formats are listed in the dialog: RVT, NWD, IFC, SKP, DWG, PDF, PNG, JPEG, and TIFF.
Note: DXF is not in that list. Convert to DWG first.
The Inventory
Everything you have added shows up in the inventory. Each row is a source file, and the columns tell you where it is in the pipeline:
- Status — Ready, or Processing while the file is converted.
- Source — how the file arrived, for example Upload.
- Ver — the source file's version.
- Mount — an Unmounted chip until the file's references are placed.
- Design Refs — Awaiting extraction until you extract something from it.
Above the table there is a search box, a Format filter, and a chip showing how many files are still unmounted.
From Source File to Design Reference
Uploading a file does not create content. Extraction is a separate step and you choose what comes out of it.
Open the file to reach its editor. The left panel has two tabs — DRs and Source. The Source tab shows the structure of the file: for a PDF, that is its pages. Select a page and use + Extract Drawing (DR), and the new reference appears under it as a Draft.
From there you switch to the DRs tab to align it.
Aligning Design References
Aligning positions a Design Reference against a coordinate frame. Drawings and BIM models use different editors, and they align in genuinely different ways.
The Design File Editor
The drawing fills the middle of the editor, with a unit selector and zoom controls above it. The right panel has Properties and Alignment tabs.
On the Alignment tab you first choose a Coordinate Reference Frame — BCS, PCS, or CRS. Then you choose how to align:
- Direct placement — set origin, scale, and rotation manually. The origin prompt reads Pick the point in the drawing that maps to Building (0, 0). Pick on canvas lets you click that point rather than type coordinates.
- Anchor-based (Solver) — pick points on the drawing, link each to an anchor, and let the solver compute the transform.
Either way, the last step is Mark as Aligned.
Anchors
An anchor is a named point that alignment can be measured against. The crosshair button in the editor toolbar opens the Anchors panel.
Anchors are grouped by frame — BCS, PCS, and CRS — with a count on each tab. You add a new anchor into whichever frame you are looking at. Every project starts with a PROJECT ANCHOR under CRS, geo-anchored to a latitude, longitude, and altitude. On the canvas, anchors appear as labelled markers.
When you choose anchor-based alignment, an Anchor scope selector appears so you can say which building's anchors to solve against. Add one or more mappings under Points to Anchors, then Solve Transform.
Note: If the building you scope to has no point anchors yet, the panel says so and the solver stays disabled. Add an anchor first, or use direct placement.
The 3D BIM Editor
BIM models open in their own editor. The left panel has Viewpoints, Levels, and Work Area tabs, and the footer repeats what the model is mounted to, the working unit, and its status.
On the Alignment tab, ORIGIN (BCS) offers two ways to place the model:
- Manual Selection — pick faces or grid lines to set the origin. The result reads back as the grid lines and face you picked, and a slider rotates the model around the Z axis.
- Shared Coordinates — inherit an already-aligned model's position.
Shared Coordinates is how a repeated building gets placed. Align the first model, then have the others inherit from it rather than aligning each one by hand.
Reusing an Alignment
Most projects align the same plan over and over. A tower has one floor plate repeated twenty times; a townhouse row repeats one unit. Aligning each copy by hand was the 4.0 way of working.
In 5.0 you align one Design Reference and hand that alignment to the rest. Apply alignment to others opens a dialog with two panes.
- Source — the reference whose alignment you are copying. Each row carries an Aligned or Not aligned chip, so you can see which ones are usable.
- Target DRs — the references that will receive it, grouped by source file with a Select all. A target that is already positioned is marked Aligned · will overwrite.
Choose a source, tick the targets, and press Apply.
This is the move that covers a whole building from one alignment. A nine-page plan set becomes nine drawings; align one, apply it to the other eight, then mount each drawing to its own level.
The dialog states the rules on the panel itself. Position, rotation, and scale propagate. Anchors do not — each target keeps its own. Targets must be the same kind as the source, so BIM to BIM or drawing to drawing.
Do not confuse this with mounting. Applying an alignment copies a transform from one reference to another. Mounting takes a single reference and places it in several spots at once.
Activating
The Properties tab carries the status rail and the model's geo-reference. A Shared Coordinates block shows latitude, longitude, altitude, and bearing.
Below it a toggle reads Adopt Survey Point as the Building's geo-reference (BCS ↔ CRS). That is how a model's own survey point becomes the building's position.
A Mount section on the same tab shows where the model is mounted, with an Edit action.
Note: Deactivating a BIM model, or switching Published off on a node, prompts you first. Both stop SiteInsights tracking and turn off 4D BIM features.
Work Areas
A Work Area is a zone you draw on a plan — a safety area, an inspection route, a managed zone. In 4.0 a work area belonged to a level and could not leave it. In 5.0 a Work Area Set is a Design Reference, so it is drawn once and mounted wherever it is needed.
Sets and Areas
The Work Area Editor lists Work Area Sets on the left, with + Add Work Area Set above them. Expand a Set to see the individual areas inside it, and use + Add Work Area to add another. Each row has an eye to hide it and a padlock to lock it.
The Reference Drawing
A Set is drawn over a reference drawing, chosen from the Drawing selector above the canvas. Show reference plan turns the underlay on and off, and a 3D toggle switches the view.
The drawing is a backdrop for authoring. It does not decide where the zone ends up — mounting does that, separately.
Drawing a Zone
Add an area and click each corner of the zone on the canvas. The canvas toolbar carries undo and redo, a grid toggle, a snapping toggle, and zoom controls.
Cut-outs are added from the Void section of the area's properties with + Add Void.
Edits accumulate as you work — the header shows Unsaved changes until you press Save.
Appearance and Flags
Each area has a colour, set as a hex value with a swatch, and an Opacity slider. Elevation and Height control how it sits in 3D, and height defaults to 3 metres.
Two flags sit below: Visible, and Lock Transformation for when a zone is finished and should not be dragged by accident.