Job responsbility between engineers and Cad Tech

[Anonymous]

I would really like to hear how are the tasks between engineers, and cad tech being divided in your shop?

I am a licensed PE, and has been working in the field for the last 10 years, and has always been fluent with CAD, and has always have good relationship with CAD tech.

I have recently started a new job with the City, which is still used to the old ways - i.e. Engineers are doing "red-ling" with a red pen, on the stack of papers that the CAD prepared. But the upper management is finally catching on the technology wave, and that's why they hire me to implement Civil 3D, and implement this "new relationship" with CAD tech..

The idea of having an engineer in the CAD drawing, creating live alignment, profile, x-sections, and creating labels for them are a foreign concept - NO JOKE! They have been "drafting" in alignment, profiles, and x-sections!!!! There were no LDD data that I could find in the network!!

I ran into a lot of territorial issues, and Civil 3D makes things a lot more complicated than LDD... as all the annotation that I am learning so far is being done by Styles...so if my CAD tech doesn't want to learn style, then there is really not much he could do..besides cutting sheets, and creating viewports?

The old ways of Engineers own the design elements, and the CAD tech own the Paper space is no longer quite true, or is it? Because if the PC labels on the alignment is overlaping with the stationing... he can't just "move" the text? It will have to be updated through style... and he doesn't want to learn style...

Any advised? How is this line being defined at your shop? And any suggestion of what area I should let him do, so he will feel less "threated"

Please advice.
Grace

[Anonymous]

Great post Grace.
Everybody, at least in my experience, is struggling with this one.
I'm struggling with it, my users are struggling with it and my management is struggling with it. Crap even my consultants are struggling with it.
It's a big change and the goal is to be the windshield and not the bug.

[Anonymous]

Before this one gets out of control, my consultants struggle way better than we do. But buy em a few beers and they will tell you they struggle. 😉

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the future Grace. The Drafter is not what it once was. With
model based design, their job description is becoming a little muddy.

Matt

[Anonymous]

Hi Grace,

Some thoughts.

The general aim of the Civil 3D software is that
the Designer creates a set of design objects each of which has a display style
"ready to plot", that is when the design is complete all you need to do is
plot.

When this finally happens there will be almost no
remnant of the currently conventional role for a drafter.

Obstacles on the way to this
happening:

• Locked in, inflexible work assignment practices
  with inflexible staff.


• Locked in, inflexible CAD standards which
  essentially reflect an automation of hand drafting, rather than a rational
  method of transmitting design intent from the Designer to the Tenderer, site
  Setout Surveyor and the site Foreman.  Note much of this issue
  arises in the training of the potential users of the drawings who can readily
  develop habits of finding data in the drawings in a particular relative place
  in the drawing and in a particular presentation style.


• The reality of Civil engineering projects is that
  they are vastly variable and is it near impossible to program for everything
  to appear sensibly in a style.


• The reality that even engineering drawings can
  have "artistic style" which makes them highly legible and understandable or
  confused and cluttered.  No-one would doubt that practising CAD drafters
  are far more likely to excel in this area compared with an Engineering
  Designer.  However with a well setup style set for standard objects like
  cross-sections, profiles, alignments, points, parcel labels etc. the time
  involved in applying this "artistic style" has potential to be quite
  small.


• AutoCAD text objects and Civil 3D styled labels
  cannot recognise text overlap/drawing clutter and automatically adjust for
  it.


• AutoCAD line types are still oriented around
  mechanical/architectural paper drawing practices and are inadequately flexible
  for Civil presentation.

If I was a CAD drafter, I would be taking classes
in fine arts and 3D presentation, so that I could command a premium in the role
of an information displayer with a view to using design data such that not only
the Tenderer, site Setout Surveyor and the site Foreman can use the data,
but others such as Managers, Politicians, the General Public can picture the
project accurately enough that they know what they are doing when making
decisions about it.

--

Laurie Comerford
CADApps

href="http://www.cadapps.com.au">www.cadapps.com.au

href="http://www.civil3Dtools.com">www.civil3Dtools.com

<Grace Kane> wrote in message
href="news:5698239@discussion.autodesk.com">
size=2>news:5698239@discussion.autodesk.com
size=2>...

I would really like to hear how
are the tasks between engineers, and cad tech being divided in your
shop?

I am a licensed PE, and has been working in the field for the last
10 years, and has always been fluent with CAD, and has always have good
relationship with CAD tech.

I have recently started a new job with the
City, which is still used to the old ways - i.e.  Engineers are doing
"red-ling" with a red pen, on the stack of papers that the CAD prepared. 
But the upper management is finally catching on the technology wave, and that's
why they hire me to implement Civil 3D, and implement this "new relationship"
with CAD tech..

The idea of having an engineer in the CAD drawing,
creating live alignment, profile, x-sections, and creating labels for them are a
foreign concept - NO JOKE! They have been "drafting" in alignment, profiles, and
x-sections!!!!  There were no LDD data that I could find in the
network!!

I ran into a lot of territorial issues, and Civil 3D makes
things a lot more complicated than LDD... as all the annotation that I am
learning so far is being done by Styles...so if my CAD tech doesn't want to
learn style, then there is really not much he could do..besides cutting sheets,
and creating viewports?

The old ways of Engineers own the design
elements, and the CAD tech own the Paper space is no longer quite true, or is
it?  Because if the PC labels on the alignment is overlaping with the
stationing... he can't just "move" the text?  It will have to be updated
through style... and he doesn't want to learn style...

Any
advised?  How is this line being defined at your shop?  And any
suggestion of what area I should let him do, so he will feel less
"threated"

Please advice.
Grace

[petrocat]

Grace,
We are a fairly small company doing civil site and municipal work. We really haven't had to change much of our old workflow. We have roughly split our drafting up along these lines: The surveyor brings in the point file. An EIT or Cad Tech does the professional connect the dots, creates breaklines and the surface, and maybe adds preliminary alignments in the Exist/Base file. The Engineer or EIT or Design Tech creates a Design file with all the proposed alignments/ profiles/ corridors... Then the Cad Tech does any additioanl labeling and plan sheet layout. While this is a general work through, some engineers spend more time in the process while others prefer the "redline" approach. We are small enough that this approach can be kept pretty fluid and adjust for each engineer. For most of what we do anyway the dynamic labeling is not mature enough to really do everything that we want it to do or we find some things just as easy to do with Mleaders or Mtext with Fields. We are still more efficient and cheaper than most firms around us. It'll really depend on how flexible your engineers are. Most of ours like it, though the sometimes they get too busy to learn everything about styles. Just show them how easy it is to draw the alignment and create a profile by layout and they'll be sold.
I sometimes get the feeling that many new C3D users expect the software to replace all of the conventional CAD drafting (pline, lines, arcs, mtext, leaders, dimensions) that has been done in the past. I just don't think that this is realistic. Every situation is different.

[Anonymous]

Here at our shop The Main role of the engineer is to give the Cad Users a good starting point to begin the "conceptual Final design" That design gets a once over by the Engineer for the project and any areas that need changing are highlighted and a reason is given.

Once the Road design is finalized and lot grades are done the Engineers take that info and begin storm design using Civil 3d and HydroCAD. Once they have all areas met the horizontal/Vertical storm network is handed off to the Project Designer. Then the Horizontal Water and Sanitary layout is put into Civil by the Designer. A cursory review is then done and the vertical is started.

Once all aspects are designed, the individual page layouts are started. This is actually the most time consuming part. However, using label styles works great for annotating the same object in several package sections without multiple labels.

Tell your people to get on board or find another ship. 😛

[Sinc]

We are simply finding that the old lines are becoming obliterated. We still do some of the old division of work, but not much. For example, I may take care of the trickier parts of projects, then turn them over to a more-junior person. But more and more, we are getting to the point where people need to be fluent in both the domain space and in the technology in order to be truly useful.

Our junior people who are the strongest in CAD are all progressing toward becoming PEs or PLSs, and are not simply CAD techs anymore. The PEs and PLSs who can't quite get the hang of the new technology are being relegated to management, and are starting to do little but go to meetings, deal with clients, and write proposals for new work. They also oversee projects, and there are still the times where their experience is also critical, but they do less and less of the "actual work" if they can't pick up the technology.

Of course, this is just continuing a trend that started a long time ago. The current needs make it more important to have a well-qualified person, but we need fewer of them. Back in the mid-80s, we had an office with more than twice as many people that turned out less than half the work we do now.

[Anonymous]

You might even be able to reduce that number further
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20405745/

sinc said:
>Back in the mid-80s, we had an office with more than twice as many people
>that turned out less than half the work we do now.

[Anonymous]

Grace
You need to build an area of trust with your drafter/tech and make them understand that their skills need updating on a constant basis. the fact that you are trying to do this is a plus and not a minus. We drafters/ techs ( I am a drafter ) should be increasing our skills so that our employers and potential employers see us as an asset to the work productivity of the job. Some engineers that I have worked with have particular ideas about what they see or want but have a tendancy to speak down to us or dismiss our preceptions as irrelevant. When a drafter has worked at a job for some time they tend tos see or know things that are overlooked by some people, conversly we also tend to not know everything and should listen to those with the degrees. In the end if this person does not want your advice on becoming stronger in their skills then they should be replaced with someone who is progressive and willing to take direction. I constanly push my union and management to allow me to update my skills with Civil and MEP Programs and am told that we do not need these in our work area ( natural gas utility ) and when I ask why no resonable explanation comes my way.

[annw2]

20 years ago, I can remember the surveyors doing a data dump and watching line work appear on the screen. At least we don't seem to be the only firm where all we get are points. I started a description key file with 6 whole codes to remember as a start.

Our L.S. INSISTS that the only proper way to model is with points only and NO breaklines. Sometimes the contours even match up with field conditions.

The boss designs with red lines on paper. Our other designer CAD drafts as red lines on paper.

The CAD staff refuses to use contour label function and label everything 'manually' some times at the correct elevation.