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Message 1 of 3
eviele
151 Views, 2 Replies

Minimal Cad Standards

We had some down time so I did a few things to help with the cad management in this office (we use ADT3.3). Now, things are ramping up to breakneck speed and I'll be put on a project full time (yeah, I'm only an occasional cad manager for 30 drafters and a half-baked one at that). What I'm wondering is this; what simple tools have I forgotten to add that are a requisite for good cad management?
Here's what I've done: web enabled standards manual easily accesible by all, custom dictionary, networked pc3 and ctb files, custom layer key, dimension styles, room and department space tags, room finish schedule, custom user profile, file naming standard, file structure standard, x-ref procedure, wall, window and door styles...what else? Ummm...well, we have no standards for title blocks or pagesetups just yet, we have very little automation as i'm a lisp and script idiot....i can't think of much else (we plan on utilizing the scheduling power of ADT3.3 as much as possible, but I'm gonna help set it up as a team needs it). I feel like we've hit a plateau with the standards, a period where we need to pause and make sure everyone understands what's all ready there. We also need to make sure they're implementing the standards (I've downloaded the Cad Manager extension to help with that). So can you guru's think of a few quick things I should add in the next week to the standards template, or manual that I've forgotten? Some cad standard staple that I'm blatantly overlooking? Thanks in advance for your comments....e.
2 REPLIES 2
Message 2 of 3
Anonymous
in reply to: eviele

training, display configurations, text styles, methods of annotation, i.e.
keynoting verses just text call outs, window assembly styles, sharing files
with others (when to use Object Enabler verses AecObjExplode), Space Styles,
multi-view blocks...

that should get you started again.

cj follmer

"eviele" wrote in message
news:f0c9495.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> We had some down time so I did a few things to help with the cad
management in this office (we use ADT3.3). Now, things are ramping up to
breakneck speed and I'll be put on a project full time (yeah, I'm only an
occasional cad manager for 30 drafters and a half-baked one at that). What
I'm wondering is this; what simple tools have I forgotten to add that are a
requisite for good cad management?
> Here's what I've done: web enabled standards manual easily accesible by
all, custom dictionary, networked pc3 and ctb files, custom layer key,
dimension styles, room and department space tags, room finish schedule,
custom user profile, file naming standard, file structure standard, x-ref
procedure, wall, window and door styles...what else? Ummm...well, we have no
standards for title blocks or pagesetups just yet, we have very little
automation as i'm a lisp and script idiot....i can't think of much else (we
plan on utilizing the scheduling power of ADT3.3 as much as possible, but
I'm gonna help set it up as a team needs it). I feel like we've hit a
plateau with the standards, a period where we need to pause and make sure
everyone understands what's all ready there. We also need to make sure
they're implementing the standards (I've downloaded the Cad Manager
extension to help with that). So can you guru's think of a few quick things
I should add in the next week to the standards template, or manual that I've
forgotten? Some cad standard staple that I'm blatantly overlooking? Thanks
in advance for your comments....e.
>
Message 3 of 3
Anonymous
in reply to: eviele

You don't sound half baked at all. It sounds like you’re well directed individual who has done quite a thorough job so far. Give yourself a raise. Setting up ADT 3.3 cad standards is no little job. Everything you’ve done so far I would say is absolutely essential. You can continue to build upon your standards as you have the time.

I feel those title blocks are very important to setup correctly now.

The plotting page setups should also be addressed as soon as you can get to it. I’ve setup our environment to read the page setups from a single drawing, which resides on the network. Updating or adding page setups in one drawing is really a must.

This routine is really nifty and it’s free from microsol resources. http://www.microsolresources.com/support/default.htm

ftp://microsolresources.com/public/autocad/psetups.vlx
“PSetups - Freeware for automatically importing the latest page setups when any drawing is opened in any version of AutoCAD 2000, 2000i and 2002. Updates existing page setups. Download PSetups.vlx. Open any version of AutoCAD 2000, 2000i or 2002. Enter AppLoad at the AutoCAD command prompt. Add PSetups.vlx to the list of applications in the Startup Suite. It will run and tell you that there are missing registry entries or that no page setups were found. Enter PSetups at the AutoCAD command prompt and specify the drawing that has the page setups you want to load as a drawing opens.”

In addition to Follmer's post, I recommend that you a create few prototype projects one for each typical project type (residential , retail, building design, campus work etc… ) your company specializes in. This will allow for quick start up of new projects. Make sure you stripe out anything project specific information(obviously) and leave the standard specs legends and general notes which appear on every project of that type. Then when you have time you may see the benefit of hiring a CAD programmer to automate this and other processes.

Jan Ray Brookes

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