Help with Collaboration

[john.uhden]

I've also posted this message in the Civil 3D forum...

I will be assisting a small but disparate group of engineers on a multifaceted site plan.

My thought was to share all the DWGs over the internet somehow and attach them as xref overlays.

What's the best way to do that these days... FTP, Cloud?

Furthermore, the aerial topo basemap is in C3D 2015, but at least one of the participants has only vanilla 2007 and cannot afford to upgrade.  What special steps must be taken to allow him to interpret the C3D objects?  For example, must/can contours be exploded into LWPolylines?  What about Cogo points?  Would Drawing True View convert the C3D objects into vintage objects?  Should the aerial company provide a dumbed down version?

Scale is another major issue.  Does C3D provide for annotative scales?  Does 2007?

[roland.r71]

As for the filesharing: (MS) oneDrive should be able to do that. As is Google Drive.

...but i have to admit i never used oneDrive (I'm staying away from anything MS if possible. Still redeeming myself for pushing MS to the top in the early nineties as applcation/system/network admin. Mea culpa) & Google Drive only for sharing files. Not to collaborate (nor to load it straight from the "drive")

FTP still is an option.

I would avoid any cloud service. (well, technically the 2 above are "cloud services") As you are putting your work in other peoples hands, with 0 garantees nobody else will touch them, or that they will even be there the next day)

More & more companies even start forbidding to use them. (but that goes for Google Drive too, at my current workplace. ...but here they do allow using weTransfer (which nobody else does...) Nuts!)

[roland.r71]

I had to check it if its possible, but it struck me this just might be possible with A360.

& it is.

so, all you need to do is get AutoDesk's own A360 Drive up & go 😉

[john.uhden]

Very interesting.
Lucky for me you are lisp savvy too. If I recall correctly (haven't
checked) we can access ftp sites via AutoLisp. Ownership is very important
to these guys, so maybe that's the way to go.

I have been worried from the get-go that those Drive thingies might end up
like my nephew and just drive off the road into a tree.

[roland.r71]

Yes, you can even use it as 'regular' file location. (no lisp required)

BUT, there appears to be an 'update' problem. In that you need to close & reopen the drawing to have any xref on an FTP server to sync.

I can't test it though. Haven't had an FTP up & running for some years now.

(fairly easy to do, actually, but most companies & ISP's don't like it when you do anymore 😉 )

On the page where i found the above, somebody actually advises to use A360 instead (which can sync. apparently)

[john.uhden]

An A360 sounds like it might be an America's Cup cruise ship.

No, these dinosaurs don't need no synching. They'll be glad to just grab
what they want when they feel like it and then yell at the other guy if
they still have an older copy. They'll make up at lunch over a few cold
ones.

I figure that if I charge them enough I could pick up the lunch tab and
they'll be thrilled.

[ronjonp]

FWIW I'd use dropbox and share the files. I know you said they don't need syncing, but at least this would avoid two people making different changes on the same drawing at the same time.

[roland.r71]

...but if he does that, he might as well go for the cloud service from Autodesk itself. A360.

So that's not an option. (besides the security being an issue. Which is partly inevitable, as soon as you start 'connecting', but cloud services have some serious issue's. Including loss of access to your files (unacceptable!))

Ultimately there's isn't all that much difference between an FTP server or a "cloud service". The latter just sounds foggier

In both cases you store your files on an external server/harddrive. Which can be damaged/hacked/disconnected, and you can't be to sure about the integrity of its owner. Unless, the owner is you.

That's where FTP comes on top. As I said, its prety easy to set one up on your own PC, and access it from anywhere. (but note that nowadays many ISP's prohibit you from doing so in their "user agreement")

[john.uhden]

Many thanks, but I don't want to get too high tech. It would scare these
guys. I think I'll write my own interface in AutoLisp. Plus, they want
some system that they can control. I have concluded that ftp is the way to
go.

[john.uhden]

I have pretty much concluded that ftp is the way to go.  A site is like only $3 or $4 per month, and I can access it via AutoLisp.

Do you know if vl-directory-files works with URL addresses?

How about vl-file-systime?

How would you make a new directory?

How about Sheet Set Manager?  Of course this really isn't necessary if the lead engineer keeps a copy of all the files.  Or maybe that will be one of my jobs.  I did work with C3D 2008 for a while where I learned that publishing to a DWF is the hottest thing going.  PDF files had strange and hurtful drawbacks, but DWFs were perfect, and about 1/3 the size.

[ronjonp]

I disagree. If you have to go with a cloud service, I'd trust a company that specializes in it rather than a software company (Autodesk) that has it as an option now.

I've dealt with projects where FTP was the protocol for file sharing and it was difficult to say the least ( because you rely on people to keep things updated ). To be completely honest I used to host our company FTP and it worked well for a while but technology has surpassed.

And ... yes ALWAYS have an onsite backup of your data.

My 2c.

[ronjonp]

If you go this route maybe map a drive that points to the FTP. Untested but maybe some of the built in lisp vl-file* commands will work 🙂

[john.uhden]

Yes, they all have to rely on each other. I think the word "team" applies
here.

[roland.r71]

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@ronjonp wrote:

If you go this route maybe map a drive that points to the FTP. Untested but maybe some of the built in lisp vl-file* commands will work 🙂

---

If that's what it takes to get it to work, yes.

Otherwise, no. Don't. 'cause ACAD will handle URL's differently from UNC's & local path's. And it should.

There are consequences for working with files using a internet connection, performance wise. (loading & saving takes a lot longer, traffic can be charged, etc.)

I'll have to go check all the function's, but probably it will work, with the ftp: url's. getfiled does, that I know for sure.

[john.uhden]

I really just want to be able to get-remotefile and put-remotefile, but
I'll have to be able to see what's at the URL and what dates they are.

Of course I could get-remotefile and then check the date (unless the
download changed it). I remember something working that way long ago, but
I don't remember what it was.

Meanwhile, thank all of you for contributing your knowledge.

[roland.r71]

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@john.uhden wrote:
Yes, they all have to rely on each other. I think the word "teamwork" applies
here.

---

Corrected.

[roland.r71]

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@john.uhden wrote:

I have pretty much concluded that ftp is the way to go.  A site is like only $3 or $4 per month, and I can access it via AutoLisp.

Do you know if vl-directory-files works with URL addresses?

How about vl-file-systime?

How would you make a new directory?

How about Sheet Set Manager?  Of course this really isn't necessary if the lead engineer keeps a copy of all the files.  Or maybe that will be one of my jobs.  I did work with C3D 2008 for a while where I learned that publishing to a DWF is the hottest thing going.  PDF files had strange and hurtful drawbacks, but DWFs were perfect, and about 1/3 the size.

---

Haven't been able to find much on all that yet. The function descriptions fail to say what kind of paths they will accept.

I did find some old posts regarding the time stamp, which didn't sound great...

as you apparently can not just retrieve the file's time stamp, without downloading the file first.

but I'm not sure this is truely the case.