Where to start with ADT

[Anonymous]

We have ADT in our office, but like many others, I suspect, we don't really use it. It was purchased prior to me arriving here, with the idea that it is AutoCAD for Architects.

I wanted to slowly introduce ADT to the office on their existing projects and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. I thought we could get our feet wet with using some symbols, door or room tags or a column bubble. And I come face to face with the irony of ADT and their "all-or-nothing" attitude. As far as I can tell, you can't just plop a door tag on existing lines and arcs and fill in attributes, like you could with "AutoArchitect" and Softdesk. No, you have to pick a door. In order to have a door, you need walls! Same with a room tag, you need to pick a space! Or a grid for column bubbles! Come on, give me a break! We have existing Vanilla AutoCAD drawings here.
This attitude makes it impossible to implements ADT for existing projects. We would have to redraw the whole bloody project just to use some of the symbols. Why can't they be more flexible and allow non-ADT objects to be tagged by filling in attributes.
As things stand, I can never see us using ADT in the office, for the implementation is so steep.
I'm very open for suggestions and advise how to soften the implementation and make the switch easier, so please advise.

[Anonymous]

I can fully understand your feeling of frustration. I started a whole new office jumping straight into ADT (3.3) with a new Boss, New job description (a whole lot different to what i had been doing) and ADT. My suggestion would be to get people using walls and doors 1st. There are a few learning issues with cleanups & display reps, but walls & subsequently inserting doors is pretty basic stuff. You should also read up chapter 5 of paul aubin's "mastering ADT". Its all about drawing management principals and you will need to get everyone up to speed with that or they'll be frustrated - but once you get your head around constructs, views etc its worth it. Theres a free download of chp 5 on his website. Many,many people have recommended paul's book. Once you get a grip on walls & doors and things such as setting display reps for 1:100 scale, detail scale & ceiling plan you'll wonder why you weren't using it sooner - also ADT2005 allows you to install common tools & stuff to a server location so everyone uses the same standard. To give u an example - my old office to prepare a sketch plan drawing with solid colour for the shop areas, solid hatch to the walls etc we would end up with 3 drawings - a base drawing of the plan then another dwg with the solid colours & then 3rd drawing was title block sheet that everything got xreffed into. Of course you know what happens when a doors or a wall moves - editing the 2 base drawings back and forth etc. now draw a wall - insert a door (cuts the wall & htaching 4 u) then set display representation - what do u want cd or presentation - i'd use ADT solely for walls, doors & windows if nothing else - its just so much faster then manual autocad. by the way - you can insert doors without having a wall - you just hit return when it asks you to pick the wall and it will then insert un-anchored door. u have to trim the wall of course but you can insert a door tag and then schedule from that anyway - i hope this encourages you - first thing i'd do if i was you - by Paul's book and read it up Regards Ken Along with "JEMCAD" wrote in message news:10630750.1090241557407.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum1.autodesk.com... > We have ADT in our office, but like many others, I suspect, we don't really use it. It was purchased prior to me arriving here, with the idea that it is AutoCAD for Architects. > > I wanted to slowly introduce ADT to the office on their existing projects and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. I thought we could get our feet wet with using some symbols, door or room tags or a column bubble. And I come face to face with the irony of ADT and their "all-or-nothing" attitude. As far as I can tell, you can't just plop a door tag on existing lines and arcs and fill in attributes, like you could with "AutoArchitect" and Softdesk. No, you have to pick a door. In order to have a door, you need walls! Same with a room tag, you need to pick a space! Or a grid for column bubbles! Come on, give me a break! We have existing Vanilla AutoCAD drawings here. > This attitude makes it impossible to implements ADT for existing projects. We would have to redraw the whole bloody project just to use some of the symbols. Why can't they be more flexible and allow non-ADT objects to be tagged by filling in attributes. > As things stand, I can never see us using ADT in the office, for the implementation is so steep. > I'm very open for suggestions and advise how to soften the implementation and make the switch easier, so please advise.

[Anonymous]

The tags and annotation can't be used like this because they are functioning in a totally different way than blocks with attributes. ADT is not just a collection of blocks to be dropped into a drawing, it is a completely different way of producing architectural drawings. That being said if I were at your firm I would start getting into ADT by using walls windows and doors to draw your floorplans then once you start getting comfortable with these basics you can start to look at some of the other features like tags and schedules, generated section/elevations, roofs and slabs, renderings, etc....Starting with the basics will give you a good understanding of the interface and how drawings are intended to be put together using ADT. Most of all invest in some training or at least a book or two so you don't have to go down this road alone. Jeff Hanson "JEMCAD" wrote in message news:10630750.1090241557407.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum1.autodesk.com... > We have ADT in our office, but like many others, I suspect, we don't really use it. It was purchased prior to me arriving here, with the idea that it is AutoCAD for Architects. > > I wanted to slowly introduce ADT to the office on their existing projects and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. I thought we could get our feet wet with using some symbols, door or room tags or a column bubble. And I come face to face with the irony of ADT and their "all-or-nothing" attitude. As far as I can tell, you can't just plop a door tag on existing lines and arcs and fill in attributes, like you could with "AutoArchitect" and Softdesk. No, you have to pick a door. In order to have a door, you need walls! Same with a room tag, you need to pick a space! Or a grid for column bubbles! Come on, give me a break! We have existing Vanilla AutoCAD drawings here. > This attitude makes it impossible to implements ADT for existing projects. We would have to redraw the whole bloody project just to use some of the symbols. Why can't they be more flexible and allow non-ADT objects to be tagged by filling in attributes. > As things stand, I can never see us using ADT in the office, for the implementation is so steep. > I'm very open for suggestions and advise how to soften the implementation and make the switch easier, so please advise.

[Anonymous]

JEMCAD, is your work commercial or residential?

BTW, yes it is a learning curve but ADT is a strong long-term platform to work with. Stay active in the discussion groups and look for 3rd party books and applications that can greatly ease the process. Lots of good people and help in this group.

[Anonymous]

First you convince the boss the ADT's 'different' production look and feel is a good idea: I suspect like most offices a lot of in-house developed looks and feels and methodology is built-in. That's too hard a nut to crack without the leverage Mr. MoneyMan in your office can provide. Once he is convinced and dictates his will, everyone else will follow more or less and your task would be so much easier. Or trade them all in and save your company a fortune next upgrade cycle by sticking with plain-jane AutoCAD 2006. -- Dean Saadallah Add-on products for LT http://www.pendean.com/lt --

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, many people have recommended Paul's book, so that's where I think I'll start. Then ease them into ADT with new, small projects, starting with walls, doors and windows. We do mostly entertainment, interiors and some residential. Don't have too many straight walls in our designs, they like this curvilinear stuff.

Hearing from you I think this is possible, and I'll be jumping into it soon. Thanks again for your valuable input.

[Anonymous]

I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned "training". The best way to get people up and running is to have them attend an out-of-house or in-house training session put on by a good experienced trainer. Yes this is not cheap as it could be 2 or 3 days. But is a wise investment in helping minimize the also expensive lost productivity while stumbling around in the dark trying to learn a new software that doesn't do things in lines and blocks. When new upgrades come out our company has typically sent a core group to training then had that group help set up ADT to the way we do business then, after all is set up, everyone else is trained and the new product put into service. ADT does take some getting used to and some rethinking on how things are done, but ask anybody that's been on it for 6 months to go back to those old lines and blocks and you'd hear the scream half way across the continent! "JEMCAD" wrote in message news:13231040.1090338971971.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum2.autodesk.com... > Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, many people have recommended Paul's book, so that's where I think I'll start. Then ease them into ADT with new, small projects, starting with walls, doors and windows. We do mostly entertainment, interiors and some residential. Don't have too many straight walls in our designs, they like this curvilinear stuff. > > Hearing from you I think this is possible, and I'll be jumping into it soon. Thanks again for your valuable input.

[Anonymous]

I mentioned training in my post. I will elaborate, in our office of 7 people and no budget for training what we did was send 2 of us for the training for 3 days. This gave the 2 of us a pretty good handle on how things worked and then we slowly introduced concepts to the rest of the office. We became the "point men" for any questions, problems, etc... It would have been nice to have all of the office trained but it is usually just not feasible. Jeff Hanson "Gary Whitehill" wrote in message news:40fd8286$1_1@newsprd01... > I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned "training". The best way to get > people up and running is to have them attend an out-of-house or in-house > training session put on by a good experienced trainer. Yes this is not > cheap as it could be 2 or 3 days. But is a wise investment in helping > minimize the also expensive lost productivity while stumbling around in the > dark trying to learn a new software that doesn't do things in lines and > blocks. When new upgrades come out our company has typically sent a core > group to training then had that group help set up ADT to the way we do > business then, after all is set up, everyone else is trained and the new > product put into service. > > ADT does take some getting used to and some rethinking on how things are > done, but ask anybody that's been on it for 6 months to go back to those old > lines and blocks and you'd hear the scream half way across the continent!

[Anonymous]

Actually you can place a door/window with out the walls, and have a stand alone door or window, then you can use the adt provided tags, and generate the schedules. I've done it on several occasions with older drawings that have had a millwork changes. when you insert the door adt will ask for you to select a wall, space boundry or return, Hit return and you'll have a stand alone door or window. triming the line work below can be a pain but it does work. Paul "JEMCAD" wrote in message news:10630750.1090241557407.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum1.autodesk.com... > We have ADT in our office, but like many others, I suspect, we don't really use it. It was purchased prior to me arriving here, with the idea that it is AutoCAD for Architects. > > I wanted to slowly introduce ADT to the office on their existing projects and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. I thought we could get our feet wet with using some symbols, door or room tags or a column bubble. And I come face to face with the irony of ADT and their "all-or-nothing" attitude. As far as I can tell, you can't just plop a door tag on existing lines and arcs and fill in attributes, like you could with "AutoArchitect" and Softdesk. No, you have to pick a door. In order to have a door, you need walls! Same with a room tag, you need to pick a space! Or a grid for column bubbles! Come on, give me a break! We have existing Vanilla AutoCAD drawings here. > This attitude makes it impossible to implements ADT for existing projects. We would have to redraw the whole bloody project just to use some of the symbols. Why can't they be more flexible and allow non-ADT objects to be tagged by filling in attributes. > As things stand, I can never see us using ADT in the office, for the implementation is so steep. > I'm very open for suggestions and advise how to soften the implementation and make the switch easier, so please advise.

[Anonymous]

First, understand the task. ADT is an incomplete system out of the box and requires an enormous amount of work up-front before you can put pen to paper. Fully understanding the application is the CAD manager's job and this doesn't happen over night.

Take the training course.

Then start using it yourself on a smaller project, one you can handle yourself. If you are unable to answer questions from the other users, they will lose faith in the application.
Once you realize what is involved in customizing ADT to suit your office needs, you will have an appreciation for the amount of work needed before anyone else uses it. If you are the only person doing this, it will take many weeks.

[tom]

I'd also recommend Paul Aubin's Mastering ADT Book but also strongly recommend that you get a copy of his other book - Implementing ADT. While it's written for ADT 3.3, it has also proven to be very helpful to us as we rolled out ADT 2004. It's written from the CAD Manager's perspective and contains a wealth of information about why ADT works the way it does and the options you have to accept the out-of-the-box version or to customize. There is also an excellent section on Named versus Color-based plot styles.

My experience echoes the other responders. Start with walls/doors/windows and don't worry about sections and elevations. Also, start with the "standard" wall type that has no specific material designations and whose thickness can be designated on the fly. This reduces the complexity of wall cleanups and produces drawings that "look" like regular drawings - 2 lines make a wall.

Also - work ADT yourself on a project so that you run up against the problems that your coworkers eventually will. To be a good CAD manager and advocate for ADT you need to be one step ahead (at least) of most of the rest of the staff and you need to be able to entice them to keep learning the new material by showing them the benefits of making the effort.

In my case, when it came time to roll out ADT 2004 I hired a bright, young architect (with no previous ADT experience) to do nothing but work through the program with me, customize the settings, set up templates and office standards, etc. We kept Aubin's books open next to him at all times and cross checked Aubin's and Autodesk's materials with our own experience as we went. It was a two month project but worked out great. He had no preconceptions about how ADT "should" work nor did he suffer from the problem many AutoCAD veterans have of feeling a loss of productivity as he learned the program. We were than able to demonstrate the use of the product to the rest of the staff using our own projects, our own office standards for graphics, text styles, etc. Compared to our rollout of ADT 3.3, this approach was far superior and the "cost" to the office for this young man's salary was negligible relative to the time saved for the rest of the office by having templates and standards already configured for their use.

Further staff training will always be required to learn more about the program but this approach got us over the initial hurdle of having a program we could actually have everyone start using.

Good luck - it's worth the effort.

[Anonymous]

As with others, I can’t emphasis good training enough.

However, one thing I don’t see mentioned in this thread is a misconception you have regarding what can be tagged. While the out of the box tags use the out of the box property set definitions for door tags, by editing your property set definition you can also tag any entity type or only those of your choosing. So in fact, you could use ADT to tag the doors in a drawing where the walls and doors were drawn with just p-lines. Next, you can add p-lines to your schedule style and filter for only those on a layer you put your door leaf on. Next, tag only the door leaf, assuming it’s just one line. If you use a rectangle for the door leaf maybe you could just tag the swing line. But make sure you isolate the swing line on a unique layer. Then you can filter for only the entities on the swing line layer for scheduling. Other wise you’ll end up with a schedule with a lot of question marks “?” for un tagged p-lines. (smile) Now I wouldn’t recommend this approach. However, it could be done.

I think you’re better off starting only new projects in ADT. Start by getting comfortable with walls and doors. Then, start tagging and scheduling.

- Mark