Base-Design Procedure Suggestions

[eargrif]

We are in the process of trying to overhaul some company procedures, in particular controlling the process from base drawing (typically a surveying topo) to design.  During design, the base drawing needs to be modified for removals (selected entities are sliced and put on a removal layer to control visibility and shading).  In the past, the base drawing was copied, and all edits done to the working copy, which ultimately gets xref'd into the design drawings.

The problem with this is that at times the topo needs to be updated or revised after design has already started - limits expanded, boundary lines get replatted, etc.  Keeping the original and copy in sync can be a pain, and increases the chance that something vital gets missed.  Our recent move to Vault has complicated this even more.

I'm wondering how others out there handle this process?  Ideally there would be a relatively easy way to non-destuctively (or through an overlay) edit the base drawing to depict removals, leaving the base drawing unmodified and thus eliminating the need for a copy.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks!

p.s. I'm posting here in case there are C3D specific methods that might be helpful.

[tom_berning]

I am also very interested in this topic. We have struggled with how to setup the demo layers and then update the drawings as additional topo is received. We tried several methods from just changing object layers (but this didn't allow us to change colors of the objects) to separating the demo objects into a separate drawing. We decided early on to keep a separate existing topo drawing to data shortcut the surface from so it wouldn't matter what we did to survey figures or points in the other existing base drawings. Neither method gives us a simple and easy to update base drawing.

[OMCUSNR]

I guess what I'd use is a naming convention & dwg file updates.

Survey comes in & creates BASE-0 topo (project & dating included).  BASE-0 goes to preliminary design and gets worked on.  OK, we need more survey, so BASE-0 gets savedas BASE-1 & goes back to survey for tweaking.  Saveas BASE-1a & back to design.  Need to go back again?  BASE-2 & so on as required.

Make sure you have a field somewhere visiable that has the Drawing name and date/time that can be updated every time the drawing is modified.  Use the saveas function to keep a running backup of older revs.  Also, remember to save before saveas, otherwise some more recent changes may not make it to the most current drawing.

For me a file name might look like:  11-36-10-HooperSubdivison-BASE-0.  I use a year/month/day because that sorts best in Windows directories.

Reid

[eargrif]

Excellent ideas, the only caveat is that surveying needs to have a current signable drawing available at all times - which would typically exclude any modifications done to the drawing during design.  This goes back to the "destructive" nature of doing removals in the base drawing.

[mathewkol]

A year-month-day naming convension is great, but it's best done like the ISO method

20011-07-08.  That way eveyrone KNOWS the format.  With 11-07-08, it's still ambiguous. 

[Joe-Bouza]

I read once where Autodesk suggest the Action recorder, introduced in 2009 for this type of application. Record your changes to the base drawing copy, and then you can apply the recorded macro to the update files. I haven't done but it sounds interesting.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=11015719&linkID=9240615

[OMCUSNR]

Good call Matt

Reid

[eargrif]

The Action Recorder is very interesting.  I'm not sure if it would be useful or not in this situation, but it is something I never knew existed!  Thanks for pointing that out.