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New to ASD... and will be using automatic drawings???

12 REPLIES 12
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Message 1 of 13
tedmail
3082 Views, 12 Replies

New to ASD... and will be using automatic drawings???

Hello all,

 

I am new to ASD and am glad I waited until this release being I would have thrown it away from the sounds of it from a couple years back.  However, we are a decent size steel fabrication shop that deals with many odd ball jobs, but also many basic structural and the like.  So getting the structural jobs out is handy, but my real task ahead of me is to make it work for the odd ball railing, stairs, awnings, and other miscelaneous architectural quality projects.  I am going to try and keep this group in the loop on how I am going so that maybe we can solve some of the gaps we still have with ASD.

 

Currently I have ASD 2012 and will be talking about the STEEL module exclusively.  I am currently tryng to find the best ways to build a 3D model and assign families, names, possitions, assemblies, groups, schemes, etc so that when it comes time to do a printout, that it should happen rather efficiently.  My dims and text styles and all are finally up to par, and I notice I will always tweak these a bit before sending to the printer or finalizing the layout, but the layout of the cuts is still a bit funny right off the bat.  I also have not been too succesful in getting it to work on anything with more than 5 simple elements per assembly.

 

I know there is not much in tutorials on this software, but hopefully we can get a decent walk-through of how to create a full drawing set done in here soon.  I'll keep you guys posted on all I learn, and thanks for your help in advance!

12 REPLIES 12
Message 2 of 13
jad.dellel
in reply to: tedmail

Hi Ted,

Do you know this link : http://www.robotoffice.com/asd/

I hope It will be helpful for you.

Cheers,

-----------------


Jad DELLEL
Sustainability Success Manager - Autodesk, Inc.

Message 3 of 13
tedmail
in reply to: jad.dellel

I have.  I still have more of a learning curve to go.  Right now I have it producing drawings close to the way we would produce our 2D shop drawings.  They really do look nice and doesn't change much from what the shop is familiar with.  In fact it only adds to it, because it spits out dimensioned and tagged ISO and custom views.

 

But I am still having to start a new drawing in metric, with none of my families I like to use and such.  There are a lot of places you could stop setting up your drawing and call it a template, however.  And that is what I am going to have to play with for a while before I figure out how to create an efficient one for the diverse work we do.

Message 4 of 13
Andrew_Sumich
in reply to: tedmail

Hi Ted,

 

We are looking at using ASD and was wondering how it was going for you?

We do a lot of Achitectural / Structural Steel (It's got to look good as well as function.

No Std portal frames / perlins etc...

Mainly CHS and pin Joints and Diablo connections with a lot of curves.

Do you think ASD would be any good for us?

 

Your thought's would be apreciated.

 

 

Cheers

 

Andrew

Message 5 of 13
tedmail
in reply to: Andrew_Sumich

I must say, I had used this platform a bit in their early development years and was not too impressed, however, I am becoming very impressed with what I am getting out of it now.  Very clean and quick views and printouts.  Once you figure out what you are doing in here, it becomes pretty handy.  But the learning curve is huge.  If you are able to drop what you know about line drafting and approach this as a modeling program, you will do a lot better.  I'm a 15 year veteran of line 2D line drawings with extensive 3D modeling background, and when it comes to drafting now, it's all the 3D background I am using.  The 2D line art skill is only need to set up the automatic drawings.

 

As far as the automatic drawings go, I can't get them to do a one shot drawing production as our products sound as diverse as yours.  It's hard to produce a template for what we do.  However, I have set it up to kinda overkill on what I need and then dumb it down before producing the actual layout (or printout as this calls it).

 

It also needs a bit more development on the user defined profiles.  I have not been able to produce hollowed extrusions very well, but it has more than the basics already available in the libraries they provide.

 

I wouldn't suggest this for a large company unless you have a very skilled autocad professional.  I would suggest this for small shops where the drafter where many hats and adapts to new programs well.  I have been learning this over the last month and been very blessed to have a somewhat simple project with basic shapes, welds, bolted connections and the like.  I haven't attempted the offset ecliptic stair yet (the toughest model I could throw at it), but it's handling the structural with ease.

 

Our biggest reason for making this jump was the push for BIM in a lot of new bids.  We needed a platform that would handle that and then we looked at what extra stuff we could get for the same pricing.  This designer suite covered everything and is very powerful.  Like I said, lotsa learning curve if you are coming from vanilla CAD, but well worth it as the trade will leave you in the dust if you don't start 3D modeling soon.

 

As for time saving, none on original drafting/modeling, however when it comes to do sheet creation, this shaves of hours.  If things get modified, you can update the model and force the printouts to update to the current model.  Material lists and all.  I have also become a huge fan of the extra info we get when we finish a model and are able to printout the material lists with weights, lengths, cuts, and all sorts of goodies.

 

No errors in output as of yet, either.

 

Hope this helps and sorry so winded, but this is even a condensed review....  😉

Message 6 of 13
Andrew_Sumich
in reply to: tedmail

Thank's for that Ted.

It's good to get a view on someone using the product. There is'nt a lot of information out there for ASD as much as Ive been searching. A pitty as it seems like such a powerfull / useful tool.

I do quite a bit of 3D modeling at present but in Vanilla Acad.

Normaly pretty good at adapting to new stuff and figuring things out. (found that with Autodesk Showcase, another good product with little doucumentation. although getting better)

The hardest thing will probably be convincing my Boss to try something new as he is a bit of a "tecnophobe"

Will probably download the 30 day trial and give it a go first.

Currently have the Std Design suite with Acad Showcase Alias Design and Mudbox 2012 so will hopefully look to upgrade subscription to Std designer suite"

 

Again, Thanks for your input.

 

Cheers,

 

Andrew

Message 7 of 13
benniebadenhorst
in reply to: tedmail

How do you create your own, or modify existing templates? I want a front, left & right view of the column, but they only give me a front right & top view

Message 8 of 13
lucis29
in reply to: benniebadenhorst

I've made a movie for you. Hope it helps:

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/3lBtlNUdm

 

I don;t know why there are some lines on the screen.

 

P.S.: I found an older one:

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/OhSs1KhL

Message 9 of 13
kristopuleshi
in reply to: lucis29

Hi everybody !!

I'm new to ASD (steel module) and my question is this :

Is it possible to get plan/elevation view of each plan/elevation(axes) and attach document to them in order to produce plan/elevation drawings ??? (for example I'd like to print the second floor plan, or the B-axe elevation).

Maybe my question is basic but I would appreciate very much any help..ThanksSmiley Happy

Message 10 of 13
Tony_Gibbs
in reply to: tedmail

Hi Ted

 

I am in a similar situation to you with regard to the type of work I perform. i use ASD for small to medium size jobs. I love using ASD because of it's simplicity and the drawings come out looking so profesional. i quickly learned that a few templates are not going to cover all my situations, so I started to create more and more drawing templates. I now have a very extensive arrangement of templates. I am now producing very good drawings for almost all my situations. I do have to tweak some drawings but generally its only a scaling issue.

i always produce my member and assembly drawings without dimensions and then I dimension manally as I have a lot of pride in the final drawins that go to the fabricator. I did spend a lot of time initially trying to perfect the dimention templates but found that because there were so many different types of members to dimention it was almost immposible to get a properly dimentioned drawing and then considering the editing time required to get the final product  I decided it was quicker and less frustrating to dimension manually.

 

Regards Tony

Message 11 of 13
kristopuleshi
in reply to: tedmail

Hi Tony !
Could u please help me?!! Im new to asd that why i am askin this kind of question :
Is it possible to get plan/elevation view of each plan/elevation(axes) and attach document to them in order to produce plan/elevation drawings ??? (for example I'd like to print the second floor plan, or the B-axe elevation).
Maybe my question is basic but I would appreciate very much any help..ThanksSmiley Happy
Message 12 of 13
Tony_Gibbs
in reply to: kristopuleshi

Yes it is very easy to do what you want. You will need to know how to run the procedure but it is no problem to create any drawings of your 3D model

 

regards

 

tony

Message 13 of 13
kristopuleshi
in reply to: tedmail

So could u please indicate me in few words the procedure??

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