Working with different design options - best Practice

[mufaddal.maimoon]

Good morning everyone, 

This is my first post in the Autodesk Forum and I was hoping to get some advice on best practice on working with different design options. 

If i'm designing a small building but want to present a couple of options to the client for the way the it looks, be it layout, roof plan, elevation etc, what is the best way to model these options? How do I manage the different options in model space?

I know it may be a bit of a vague question but if there is anything further I can add, please do let me know and i'll respond. 

Thank you all for your help. 

[brian_adams]

Well, that's a good question, because I strive to the best for more than a 10 years. I did some conclusions.
In my opinion it is very suitable "designviewer". You can load you .DWG or .3D DWF file there.
In case you load .DWG not only 3D but layouts of this file also can be overviewed.
https://viewer.autodesk.com/designviews
It is very nice that you can share the link for your custumer very easy.
In addition , if it posible some nice perspective views helps a lot to understand home designe and and reciew positive feedback.

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the community!

Are you using AutoCAD Architecture, or just AutoCAD?

If you are using AutoCAD Architecture, are you using the Drawing Management feature (Project Browser and Project Navigator).  If so, I have read that some set up Divisions to organize the files containing various alternate layouts (assuming that there are some common elements).

If you are not using the Drawing Management feature, or are using "plain" AutoCAD, you can do a similar thing, modeling common elements in one file and then manually setting up separate files for each alternate version, then creating a new file for each final combination of options, externally referencing the appropriate files.  In the options files, you can externally reference the common elements file as an overlay to coordinate each option with the common elements.

[Kevin.Palmer]

Hi @mufaddal.maimoon,

Welcome to the Autodesk Community, and thank you for posting your question here in the AutoCAD Architecture forum!

In addition to the suggestions already posted, there is a great article about drawing management specific to AutoCAD Architecture, highlighting some features you can use to stay organized. Model space views, located in the project navigator tab, would be perfect for managing multiple design options. A more in depth look at understanding drawing management tools can be found in this article, About Drawing Management. Let me know if you have any other questions!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[brian_adams]

sorry in some reasons i thought that you are asking about showcasing
And let me add a bit to post of mentor David_W._Koch and Kevin.Palmer
If you use Autocad Architecture..use Project Browser and Project Navigator even for small houses. It is really speed up working

[Tiana_Y]

Hi @mufaddal.maimoon

I'm just checking in to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestions that @brian_adams, @David_W_Koch and @Kevin.Palmer provided work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[BDEZINE]

I'm new to autocad Architecture and trying to find my way out to understand the project navigator.

In autocad, I would have 3 options set on p1.dwg I would also have an existing site plan and a new site plan. In the new site plan I would xref the existing site plan and the p1. I would then copy/xref clip the site and all the other options in the same file to then place on the sheet.

If all the design are different, how would it work with the PN? Can anybody share their work flow in detail?

Thanks, this would be very appreciated!