Creating AutoCAD model from Paper Drawings

[boggyboy]

Hello,

I have an challenging AutoCAD problem.

Resolution of the problem is critical to our business - a steel framing manufacturer in Florida. We make the materials for steel-framed homes and commercial buildings.

In short, we are losing profit and customers because of the cost and time to produce AutoCAD models from paper plans (supplied by our customers). We outsource all AutoCAD work to a vendor - who requires approximately 150-200 hours and 2-3 weeks to re-produce the paper drawing(s) in AutoCAD. Our vendor assures us this is the accurate and reasonable - despite the fact that most of the home designs we encounter can be built from pre-manufactured panels (trusses, wall panels, headers, etc). Our vendor is on AutoCAD 2007 AD.

Does this pass the sanity check with you? Do I need a new vendor?

Best Regards

[StykFacE]

how many "sheets" of paper plans are we talking about here? is that vendor redrawing the entire set in 2-3 weeks?

[rkmcswain]

In short, we are losing profit and customers because of the cost and time to produce AutoCAD models from paper plans (supplied by our customers).

I have to ask... Why are you creating digital data from paper? Were these paper drawings never digital to start with?

[zars]

Check out this website (http://www.designpresentation.com/digitizationservices.php3).

It seems they work faster.

[boggyboy]

Thanks for the replies!

We take the sheets from customer and use them to build a single drawing of the frame -only. The drawing includes all the walls, floors, and trusses. In short we only take what is needed from the paper to model the frame.

In the majority of cases, our customers do not have an electronic version of their plans - so I'm talking about the scenario where they have paper only.

We need the AutoCAD model in order to generate the "cut list" of materials. We use a third party AutoCAD add-in to generate the cut list from the drawing. The cut list is then sent electronically to the machines which produce the material via in-house software.

Bottom line - we need to model structures in AutoCAD so that we can produce an accurate materials list. Modeling also allows for the usual fine tuning before the home is sent to manufacturing.

[WagglyFawn]

To repeat Styk's question... What exactly is 150-200 hours? HOW MUCH work exactly are they saying can be done in that time frame?
Have you considered bringing a full-time AutoCAD Operator into the picture? I realize this means paying a few grand for the software and adding another paycheck, but could it possibly be a solution that saves money (and time) in the longrun?

[boggyboy]

OK...Here's the process they follow to the best of my understanding.

First, they get the dimensions of the Home and the wall heights from the paper plans.

For each floor of the structure they:

1) draw each stud wall - interior and exterior, as well as each header.

2) draw the floor. This drawing consists of each Type of floor truss (or joist) and its quantity.


Next they determine the quantity of roof trusses needed and draw each roof truss type. They specifiy the quantity by type for each truss.

All drawings are 2D - each is "shop drawing" quality - meaning that a qualified technician can assemble the panel from the AutoCAD drawing.

All this takes about 150 - 200 staff hours - which we get the bill.

We do plan on bringing in an outside consultant to help sort this out - but have not found one yet. At this point I'm trying to get my arms around what I perceive to be an unreasonable cost for work critical to our business. Am I wrong?

[brassworks]

We have a local outside vendor who can take a paper print of a plan - any kind you like - and through some method of scanning, can convert paper prints into AutoCAD objects. A typical 24"x36" drawing sheet runs between $140 and $180 to convert (depending upon the complexity of the paper drawing), and they have an average of 2 days to turn around and email the electronic file back into our office. They do some kind of manipulation besides the scanning - probably assignment of objects to layers, for what we get does have layers. We can't be the only folks who have such a vendor available - it sounds like you need to look around for another vendor.

[RASP]

We have a local outside vendor who can take a paper print of a plan - any kind you like - and through some method of scanning, can convert paper prints into AutoCAD objects. A typical 24"x36" drawing sheet runs between $140 and $180 to convert (depending upon the complexity of the paper drawing), and they have an average of 2 days to turn around and email the electronic file back into our office. They do some kind of manipulation besides the scanning - probably assignment of objects to layers, for what we get does have layers. We can't be the only folks who have such a vendor available - it sounds like you need to look around for another vendor.

I was curious who your vendor is? We sometimes run into this same problem from our customers and would be interested in contacting them the next time the problem arrises. Thanks

[BIGAL]

It sounds like you should employ an Autocad lisp or VBa programmer and write code to draw exactly what you are doing.

Manual (Autocad) re-drafting is crazy.

You should only enter measurements and all drafting occurs automaticaly. Say total length, tot ht, 1st opening ht & width 2nd opening ht & width etc.

Personally I wrote a concrete slab layout lisp program, manual 20- 30 minutes v's liap 10 seconds, program time 3 days you work the numbers out 20 minutes saved every job.

There are some brilliant programers on this site some one must be near you for hire.

[brassworks]

Jeff Bruno,

Here is the information on our vendor. I live about 3 miles from their office, so it's easy for me to just drop in on my way to or from work, but I see you are from New York State (I've been to Glens Falls on a number of occasions - beautiful country!) so you'll likely need to FedEx or otherwise ship your plans to BCS. They email your stuff back. If you want the prints back, they'll mail them back for an extra fee.

Boston Computer Scanning
274 Main Street
Reading, MA 01887
781-944-3006
www.bosscan.com (http://www.bosscan.com)
tdooling@bosscan.com

Ted Dooling is the man in charge. We found them very accommodating.