ACC Markups tools, and ACC PDF Viewer - Improvements Required

[vaughan.giles7AGEV]

There are a couple of issues with the Markup tools and the ACC PDF viewer.

I would like to address these concerns in the hope that all of the tools get improved.

Problem Statement

1. ACC Markup tools
   • The current set of Markup Tools leave much to be desired. The main issue around the use of the markup tools is that they are clunky and not intuitive. Users who are new to the ACC platform do not want to use them because similar tools from programs such as PDF xChange simply work better and are easier to use. This creates a reluctance to adopt the Markup Tools; thereby making ISO 19650 conformance difficult. After-all, why would you want to use inferior tools?
   • for example when typing text, boxes don't automatically resize to accommodate the additional text. Additionally, arrows/leaders don't re-align correctly when moving from 1 side to the other-side.
     
   • 
2. ACC PDF Viewer
   • When viewing PDFs on the ACC platform, they are very slow to load, which slows down the review process and hampers progress on projects, especially when it's crunch-time.

Potential Solutions

1. ACC Markup Tools
   • Make the Markup Tools easier to use and more similar to that of the competition - make them easier to maneuver.
   • Allow for preset Markup Tool configurations to be saved within ACC project templates, so that we can help users conform to company standards while also having a clear and consistent approach across all projects.e.g. 
2. ACC PDF Viewer
   • Make the PDF viewer lightning fast. If you are struggling to find a solution to this, then please give users the ability to pre-cache a selection of PDFs, so they can review entire sets of PDFs without the need to constantly wait between each drawing sheet.

While these requests are very minor in nature, it will have a drastic effect on productivity and sanity of ACC users.

Thank you.

[karen.mein]

ACC markup tools are currently very rudimentary, which is prohibitive to engineers/designers to using this ACC feature, especially when some are used to using Bluebeam.  Please improve tools, this would greatly increase uptake of reviewing drawings within ACC.

[vaughan.giles7AGEV]

And before I forget, here is an example of the PDFs being slow to load.

 

[matthew.gonzalez5DH7N]

Completely agree that this is an area where Autodesk really needs to up their game. Bluebeam Revu in particular simply runs circles around the ACC mark-up tools. So much so that most people that I work with simply don't/won't use this feature of ACC, they would rather pay the extra money for another product (Revu) than use ACC. Once ACC has the basic mark-up tools covered, it will still need something equivalent to Revu's toolboxes if it is to have any hope of getting people to use it. If developing such features is not the plan, then please re-release the Bluebeam/ACC plug-in that used to exist for BIM 360.

[Sleepingfish_Kuo]

I need the Markup Tools keep being vector objects and stay same place when I edit the snapshot of issue.

It makes nonsense to do it again from empty when I just want to edit one word or move a little.

...By the way, why the edge of textbox, lines, cloud lines are using the same template?

I need to change it often.

[abreckenridge]

Unfortunately, there is no one perfect platform, but I am happy to share a workaround with you that I’ve developed.

In principle it involves keeping the individual PDFs in the WIP folder but doing reviews of a single combined pdf in Bluebeam Studio session.  Before the session and getting the team to review and do markups in Bluebeam, split and copy the individual PDFs to the WIP (easy to do with Bluebeam OCR) so that a compare with previous version in ACC can be done.  This is good to ensure previous markups were carried out.  This creation of a single pdf and Bluebeam Session is repeated until there are no further comments required and the PDFs can be electronically signed with a batch stamp and split and copied into the WIP folder so that the latest version has a signed pdf and previous version history retained.  The Bluebeam Sessions are saved as WIP/Reviews_Markups/Date.  I am happy to share a workflow showing this in more detail and to share the knowledge.

The ACC review process can then be implemented and approved files copied to Shared or Approved folder however you set it up but the beauty is the status of files can follow the “In Review”, “Approved” etc in line with the principles of ISO 19650; ie. knowing what has been saved in the Approved folder has gone through a review and approval process.

The ACC is really powerful and the beauty of the above workflow is that the ACC markups can also be used simultaneously.  The ACC allows you to keep the markups and Issues feature throughout this process which is a fantastic underrated feature.  Markups in a new version will appear and can be deleted but will be kept in the previous version, so in theory can eliminate the Bluebeam Session however, our team loves the power and features of Bluebeam so we have had to develop this workflow to suit everyone.

The annoying part here is that you have to check the pdf out in Autodesk Connector before you can open it in Bluebeam and do the Studio Session.  So it means being outside of the App but potentially this may be improved by ACC.

Happy to share more if this is of interest to others…

The speed of reviewing the files in ACC we are also experiencing but are working through it.  The power of ACC far exceeds this drawback so am happy to persevere to see if it can be improved down the track.  The default compare within ACC of current to previous version doesn’t exist which is annoying but I have separately raised this as a future improvement Idea to Autodesk.

Andrew

[andrew_cowie2]

I have just had a lessons learnt session with 'my' ACC users and have had very similar negative feedback about the performance and features of the ACC pdf viewer.  They said it was simply too slow (always) and particularly painful to use for multipage pdfs (since you need to click through each page rather than simply scroll down to keep reading) . . . such was frustration most users routinely downloaded pdfs to read them . . . completely defeating the purpose and moving further away from being 'convincible' to use options like using markup functionalities on ACC.  This one performance failure is almost single handedly causing us to lose the 'hearts and minds' campaign for increased ACC usage.

I did a simple speed test and the users are right, its slow.  I only tested three pdfs (opened them twice in each location and timed them with a stopwatch to the point user could see first page of pdf document on screen) but here is what I found . . .

Opening from hard drive (adobe acrobat program with program NOT running to start with) = 1.65 sec

Sharepoint (using chrome browser, default Microsoft pdf viewer) = 3.42 sec (207% of hard drive speed)

From ACC but opening in new tab with your browsers default pdf viewer . . . this is an option you can set in ACC btw (adobe extension for Chrome browser) = 5.68 sec (344% of hard drive speed)

From ACC using default ACC pdf viewer and editor (chrome browser again) = 7.38 sec (447% of hard drive speed)

I am a big advocate for ACC and systems like it, there is a lot of upsides but these basic (but often used) functions need to be improved to meet users expectations or we will continue to face an up hill battle for adoption.

[vaughan.giles7AGEV]

Unfortunately, Autodesk have indicated to us that there is no intention from them to improve the  ACC markup tools.

[0205521_2]

It's a shame that the Markup tools won't be improved. Autodesk has already made a better markup solution with Design Review, that could also be tracked and exported to excel for better control.

If they only allow markups to be assigned and attached to an issue, it would be a huge improvement.

[paul_georgeTQR25]

Agree the Pdf Markup tool is rubbish. 2D markups are a huge part of our workflow and the markup tool is nowhere near where it needs to be for productivity. Our engineers hate using it and revert to exporting pdfs (to retain existing markups) add their markups in pdfxchange then copy back to ACC.

Have just tested Bentleys offering (Infrastructure Cloud) markup tool and its 10 times better. 

I have a long list of gripes but my biggest is not being able to add (stamp) an image onto the page. Or create custom stamp libraries of symbols which we need for P&ID markups.

Autodesk you can do better!

[jonminick]

Thanks for sharing your idea. Our Product teams are taking a look and will update a status here soon when we have more information.

[jonminick]

Thanks for sharing your idea. Our Product teams are taking a look and will update a status here soon when we have more information.