Adding Construction Notes (Bubble Notes)

[Jeff_M]

I've seen a number of these types of requests at Quux, including a few examples of old lisp & VBA routines, that accomplish this. Since the Architectural vertical package already has the notes included, can we please get the same functionality included with Civil3D? No sense having all of these various partial solutions floating around, that don't work with each other, when Autodesk already has the code and much of Civil3D is already using the AEC code base. To be clear, this would be for adding Tags and Schedules to the drawings, and can get the data for the schedule from an external source.

[BradPowell]

Yes. This would be very helpful for all Cardno designers.

[troma]

This talk of tags, schedules and bubbles is confusing me. I don't know what that means.

Are you talking about a master list of construction notes for a project that can be updated across multiple drawings?

[Joe-Bouza]

I concur

[BradPowell]

Yes. A master list of notes linked to tags that can be extracted per drawing file to generate a schedule table.

[troma]

What is a schedule table?

I like the idea of notes that can sync between drawings, but I feel there's something else that I'm missing here.

[BradPowell]

Similar to Keynotes

http://blogs.rand.com/architectural/2012/08/sheet-notes-in-revit-using-keynotes.html

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-architecture/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/20...

[Joe-Bouza]

@Jeff_M  I have done this with vanilla by pre-defined tags and data extract a table, having it built in would be great.

[troma]

OK you got my vote.

I still don't know what a bubble note is.

[TerryDotson]

A flexible system would let the user maintain their key dictionary with an easy to edit table (like the lower left).  You select the code from the list and how you want the note to look (mtext, block, leader with block/text) and place those (examples in the top).  When it comes time to place the keynotes table (lower right) the application simply looks through the drawing for ids (codes) used and makes a table object with a header of KEY  DESCRIPTION.  That way someone looking at the drawing simply spots the note and looks at the table for details.  Comes in handy when drawings get busy because only a 5-digit code is needed (there are established standards in at least 15 categories).

The ultimate implementation would be dynamic, evaluate the drawing on placement and update the table (that's the one thing we lack). Of course if everything were dynamic the application would be slower than it is.

[Civil3DReminders_com]

Autodesk could choose to use the other processors to run the updating in the background as a queue and then have when the object is drawn go get the new values from a list saved in memory, delete the entry from the update list, and move on. They could also choose to go grab those other drawings that are not open and go through and update them. 

Unfortunatley they'd probably make this a cloud feature and force you to upload 100+ MB of data to cloud to update the drawings and then download them back down. 

[peterfunkautodesk]

Just to be clear: you are looking for the ACA Keynote system that uses a database of keynotes, creates either a simple numeric call out or a complete note and also can create a table of the keynotes that are used on the drawing?

Regards,

Peter Funk

Sr. Product Manager

Civil 3D

Autodesk, Inc.

[Civil3DReminders_com]

I don't know if we are expressly asking for that, but just a way to add labels and then manage the labels across drawings. I'm not sure any of us are ACA experts in this thread and wouldn't know fully if it would meet our needs. Maybe a video showing how the callouts work in ACA so we can validate the workflow and give feedback on whether or not it works. 

[Jeff_M]

@peterfunkautodesk, as @Civil3DReminders_com noted, we are not familiar with how ACA implements the notes exactly, but from what I have seen, and what you described, Yes, this is essentially what we'd like to see for use in C3D drawings

Spoiler

Now, please change the status back to Accepted 🙂

[joantopo]

they could be linked to some property of the object, for example the "description" property.

[Civil3DReminders_com]

Description won't work since Autodesk doesn't honor them all of the time, like null structures in pipe networks. Also I don't know if they have the technical expertise to ensure the description is always carried over when data shortcuts are used. They can't use XDATA or XRECORDS since they cause fatal errors when attached to Civil 3D objects that are data shortcutted.

[shunter62]

I'm in agreement with Jeff. In my experience, government agencies don't like callouts on plans much, but prefer keyed notes or bubble notes. Right now these must be added by hand with regular AutoCAD commands (like multileaders) and then, when revisions to the plans are required, all the notes have to be switched around or revised over and over. If these notes could be linked to the object, essentially a type of label, multiple page revisions could be done more quickly. I recently finished a C3D project where we had at least 6 reviews at various milestones. Each review changed  numbers or callouts. We had over 80 sheets in the planset. That was a LOT of editing!

[rkmcswain]

 Autodesk could choose to use the other processors to run the updating in the background

@Civil3DReminders_com ...... Gasp!

Back to the topic. I'd be okay with a first implementation of this that allowed the user to place mleaders (or a similar looking C3D Object) that contain an identifier (3, 4, 5, etc.) and then let you add a description while also allowing you to add certain C3D reference elements such as station & offset, or a surface elevation, etc.

Yeah, you can sort of do this with cogo points, but this is a simple example. You may have multiple identical objects that you just want to tag with the same tag. See Terry's example above.