SuperCAD Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 (edited) See page 2 for an updated version of the CAD Standards Manual Edited December 10, 2010 by SuperCAD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted November 23, 2010 Author Share Posted November 23, 2010 LOL! Come on, guys. Don't leave me hanging like this. How did I do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 Looks like you are on the right track to me, but you know someone is going to come up and ask "what does this mean about the plywood hatch?" It's easy to read and understand. That's a big plus. Just make sure all your templates match your cad standards. For instance, if you expect someone to put dimensions on a particular layer, it's nice if the layer is already there and you don't have to create it every time. One of the places I worked for had some changes over the years to the standards, but never updated the templates. New folks coming in wouldn't know that, and would struggle with it. Most of us wound up saving our own version of the templates because corporate had such a burr under thier saddle about making changes that they didnt' think of. It's almost like the wanted to make it difficult. Someone else will probably mention it, so I will too...with regards to using yellow, you do know you can turn the paperspace background black same as model space, right? Autocad's normal green is nearly impossible to see on a white background too, so mine are all set to black. I know a guy that draws on a dark green background...very strange. Just a couple of minor fixes I'd suggest: The font you used, especially in bold makes all your lower case "i" letters look like a lower case "L" for some reason (at least on my monitor). Page 6...NTS says "No to scale". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted November 23, 2010 Author Share Posted November 23, 2010 All of the topics shown in the standard are set up that way in all of the templates, including all dimensional overrides. I promise to update the standard and templates at the same time, since I know that would frustrate me too. I don't have any layer standards since we don't require a lot of layers for our drawings. There are only four layers in our templates (0, Defpoints, Title Block and Viewports), and I rarely need more than this. That said, I'm giving my drafters a little freedom to use whatever layering system they want, as long as it is logical and not overly complicated (such as the AIA layer guidlines (not that they are wrong, it's just WAY more than we would ever need)). Now as to colors, I'm going to pull out the "I'm your manager and you'll do it my way" card. My drafters can use any color they want as long as it's not yellow. I know that the paperspace background color can be changed and I also know that the colors can be overridden in a viewport, but I don't want to force another drafter to make changes to their environments just because someone wants to use yellow (I like my paperspace background set to white). There are over 200 other colors they can pick from that show up just fine, so taking away one isn't going to hurt anything. Maybe I'll switch all bold text to capital letters to avoid confusion. Thanks for catching the typo on page 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nestly Posted November 24, 2010 Share Posted November 24, 2010 Very nice. Here's some other things you may (or may not) want to include: Center mark size Arrowhead size Leader attachment location Leader text alignment Linetype scale Block units Also, I loathe the color yellow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted November 24, 2010 Share Posted November 24, 2010 All of the topics shown in the standard are set up that way in all of the templates, including all dimensional overrides. I promise to update the standard and templates at the same time, since I know that would frustrate me too. I don't have any layer standards since we don't require a lot of layers for our drawings. There are only four layers in our templates (0, Defpoints, Title Block and Viewports), and I rarely need more than this. That said, I'm giving my drafters a little freedom to use whatever layering system they want, as long as it is logical and not overly complicated (such as the AIA layer guidlines (not that they are wrong, it's just WAY more than we would ever need)). Now as to colors, I'm going to pull out the "I'm your manager and you'll do it my way" card. My drafters can use any color they want as long as it's not yellow. I know that the paperspace background color can be changed and I also know that the colors can be overridden in a viewport, but I don't want to force another drafter to make changes to their environments just because someone wants to use yellow (I like my paperspace background set to white). There are over 200 other colors they can pick from that show up just fine, so taking away one isn't going to hurt anything. Maybe I'll switch all bold text to capital letters to avoid confusion. Thanks for catching the typo on page 6. I was just using the layer thing as an example. The rest of that story is a good example of corporate stubbornness. What started it all was a lisp routine that drew a particular portion of this company's product based on picking 2 points. It drew this on a specific layer, but the guy that wrote the routine didn't make it so it would create the layer if it was missing, and the thing would crash if if was missing. I put in a request to have the lisp changed to make the layer and was flatly refused, no explanation given. Put in another request to have the layer added to the template, because we used this thing all the time. Had to send screen shots of exactly what was happening, weeks later got grudging approval. New template issued, but the layer name was misspelled, so it crashed anyway. To this day, that has not been fixed, and it was almost 7 years ago. Nothing like working for a giant dinosaur who's cad manager is king of his particular hill and wants you to know it! Another little quirk in that same template involves a dimension style that has the inch mark (") as a suffix on every dimension, including angles. Somewhere along the line this suffix became unnecessary, so you wind up with dimensions that say something like 10 1/2"" and the angles of course never should have had it. They look like this: 25.4°". If you use that template, you have to fix it every time. Nothing like setting up standards that generate failure by design. I have worked for some morons over the years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted November 24, 2010 Author Share Posted November 24, 2010 Another little quirk in that same template involves a dimension style that has the inch mark (") as a suffix on every dimension' date=' including angles.[/quote'] That's how our dimensions were set up too. Every dimension, including angles, had the inch mark at the end of it. I grew tired of working around it so I went and started using dimensional overrides. Now I have an override for Angular, Diameter, Linear and Radial dimensions. I also have a dimension style specifically set up for isometric views for our customers that just want a pretty picture, but also want the overall size of the fixtures we build. Works like a charm. I have worked for some morons over the years.Man, I could write a book on the number of morons I've worked for over the years... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted November 24, 2010 Author Share Posted November 24, 2010 Here's some other things you may (or may not) want to include: Thanks for the topic suggestions. I also have to write a chapter on viewports, as well as creating PDF files. I've still got a long road ahead of me before this is finished. Then we'll move over to SolidWorks and half of this manual will be junk! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nocturne00 Posted November 26, 2010 Share Posted November 26, 2010 Very nice set of standards. lets hope your company follows it Some additions you may or may not Include also : -System to track Revisions: in my experience this is very important not to mix up current drawings with archived ones. We have a set for three levels, Bidding stage, Contract Stage and Construction stage, I think this goes for most companies. -Cross Referencing(for drawing title annotations): e.g. How to tie a callout "See Handrail Detail" found at Drawing number X, with the Detail Drawing "Handrail Detail" to Drawing number X. We have a lot of cases where there are Detail drawings which cannot be referenced on a plan, Mainly happens when they look at at the details first and cannot find which part of the plan they are supposedly to be . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CADkitt Posted November 26, 2010 Share Posted November 26, 2010 I made a block with all dimensions textstyles etc. and put in the acaddoc.lsp (command "_.insert" "dimstyles=" nil) (command "_.purge" "_b" "dimstyles" "_n") This way you always have all the dimensions styles and etc. and no messy blocks/layouts. (dimstyles is a dwg in a searchpath.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted December 9, 2010 Author Share Posted December 9, 2010 I've revised and reorganized the standards manual. There are a few more topics that I may need to put in there, but this should be a good start for us. Once again, your comments and suggestions are appreciated. CAD Standards Manual 1 of 5.pdf CAD Standards Manual 3 of 5.pdf CAD Standards Manual 2 of 5.pdf CAD Standards Manual 4 of 5.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teeds Posted December 11, 2010 Share Posted December 11, 2010 Well done. I like your description of how line weights are used but wonder if it would be beneficial to have an example. This is the biggest violation I see in the world of CAD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted December 11, 2010 Author Share Posted December 11, 2010 Yes. At some point in the near future I plan on including examples of exactly how everything should look. Thanks for giving me your suggestion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johmmeke Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 little question .... pdf 5/5? are am i looking not at the right place? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted December 26, 2010 Author Share Posted December 26, 2010 The fifth PDF only contained a hole drilling chart, but the file was too large (even at one page) for me to include as an attachment. The four PDF's in my post contain the bulk of the manual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkent Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 (edited) post removed by rkent Edited December 26, 2010 by rkent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiLLiNG-TiME Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 No Bad in fact very good. A couple of observations though if I may. Page 3 of 5 A. Text All text should be in CAPITAL LETTERS, you then go on to show your dimension text example under B dimensions in Sentence Case & on Page 4 of 5 under C, multileaders you show the text back in CAPITAL LETTERS & again under 2, Block Symbols you show your multileaders pointing to your blocks as Sentence Case again. Unless it’s me you need to be clear about the use of CAPITAL LETTERS & Sentence Case or lowercase. Why not use an annotative text style seeing as your using multileaders that is if your multileaders are annotative? Example All text must be defined by BLAH text styles. The style defines the font and letter spacing. The text height will be controlled by ANNOTATION scaling, and is restricted to the following reproduction sizes which correspond to American imperial measurements: Notes and dimensions 2.5mm Labels 3.5mm Titles and labels 5mm Annotation scaling is incorporated into the text style. The character width factor will be 1 The Font will be ARIAL True Type No other text style shall be used without approval from the Project Architect/Engineer and the CAD Manager. Do NOT override style definitions in MTEXT. ATTRIBUTES in annotation blocks with must be defined by CAD managers. The current drawing space’s annotation scaling value is set by the CANNOSCALE system variable, or by selecting the value from the tray. Also there no mention of the use of LTSCALE or MSLTSCALE? Dimension Styles Example BLAH dimension styles All dimensions must be defined by the BLAH dimension styles. Dimensions styles are defined with ANNOTATIVE properties The current drawing space’s annotation scaling value is set by the CANNOSCALE system variable, or by selecting the value from the tray. BLAH dim styles use the BLAH-text, text style and will display at the same size as notes in the view. The following styles are defined in the BLAH templates and must be used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBox Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 @ SuperCAD - This is more of a back-end question... While most standards can be easily managed via templates, what kind of 'standards enforcement' (if any) are you using for production? I ask because reactors can go a long way for the items that *should* be training-based (styles manipulation, scales, layers, etc.). Example: Here in my office, a command reactor conditionally checks for a series of commands, and if a match is found (based upon the active command) a specific function is called (i.e., MVIEWs, and XREFs are each placed on their respective layers). This can easily be developed (with minimal code) to automate all dimensions, text, etc. being placed on the appropriate layers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted January 11, 2011 Author Share Posted January 11, 2011 I don't have any "reactors" that check for anything other than moving viewports to a specific layer, locking them, and changing the visual style to 2D wireframe. It would be nice to have another one that puts all texts, leaders and dimensions on a specific layer though. We had one user that would occasionally make the viewports layer his current layer and forget to change it back. A lot of the drawing information (from objects to annotations) would then be on the non-plotting viewport layer and (obviously) wouldn't print when the hard copies were made. As far as enforcing the standards, I use the standards checker built in to AutoCAD, but not much more than a simple review of the drawings to make sure they look like they're supposed to. If you've got any suggestions, I'd be open to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blam Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I took a quick glance at the XREF section under heading 8. You might want to clarify how you want xrefs handled. Do you hard path Xrefs? Do you reference in with No Path and keep the reference in the same folder as the host drawings? Do you Attach or Overlay? Do you use relative pathing? What do you mean by putting the tag XREF on the end? Xrefs can be a problem when you pass drawings around to other offices or clients. Non-CAD type people struggle with resolving xrefs sometimes if they are not handled in a consistent way. If they are hard pathed and the other office don't have your same drive letter for the folder location, they will not show up in the host drawing. Also, when giving drawing files to others you could look at using the ETRANSMIT command as a standard practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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