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CAD Standards Manual


resullins

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Ok... back fresh from maternity leave, and my first project is to write a CAD standards manual for the company.

 

Has anyone ever taken on a feat like this before? Does anyone have any tips or tricks? Examples? There just seems like SO much information to squeeze in, and I don't know where to put it all.

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Welcome back "mama"! You didn't post any pics did you? Maybe I missed them! LoL

 

You're in luck. The StYkmaN took on such a task as I recall. Maybe he'll see your thread and share some of his acquired wisdom with you.

 

BTW...was it a boy or a girl?

 

Hope you didn't get washed out in all that rain a while back.

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Congratulations to the whole family, and welcome to the team Sullivan Alice!

Very cute, and quite alert for such a young baby.

Give it time, and you may learn to enjoy sleep deprivation.

Or at least to tolerate it.

Enjoy each day, before you know it she will be moving out to get her own place,

or leaving to go on the tour. :)

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Yes, that's what I'm trying to lay out. Our company's standards for CAD drawings. Just looking for some direction as to things that need to go in there, how to show things, etc.

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Use caps, Dimension correctly, and don't screw up.

 

That's not exactly what the OP is looking for.

 

Standards would cover such things as layers (naming, color, linetype), text styles (which ones are acceptable to use), text heights, block creation methods and naming conventions, naming of drawings, lineweights, dimension styles to be used, etc.

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Yup... along with System Variables, how to incorporate the custom programs and blocks I've written/made, all sorts of stuff. I'm even trying to get down to how to lay out system schematics. We have one "draftsman" that refuses to vertically line up any of his gear, which makes things RIDICULOUSLY hard to read. So I'm standardizing EVERYTHING I can.

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We are setting up our standards manual for Revit (and updating the AutoCAD one) and the issue of simple drafting techniques came up. It was decided that a separate, Drafting 101, manual would be set up for those types of things so as to not bloat up the company standards manual.

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Our AutoCAD Standards and Procedures document is pretty robust, but it's more of a general guide in my opinion. I can share it with you resullins if you'd like. it can definitely give you ideas to build from.

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What field of work do you do?

In my line of work (mechanical) we use ASME/ANSI standards. (almost)Everything set up in our template.

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That's not exactly what the OP is looking for.

 

Standards would cover such things as layers (naming, color, linetype), text styles (which ones are acceptable to use), text heights, block creation methods and naming conventions, naming of drawings, lineweights, dimension styles to be used, etc.

I was giving a vague answer to a vague question.

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AutoCAD doesn't have standards. There are, however, industry standards such as having everything in all caps.

 

... Or at least using CAPS when you want... I use this with a Command reactor to enable CAPSLOCK automagically; no more all CAPS emails, and forum posts. :thumbsup:

 

 

 

Yes, that's what I'm trying to lay out. Our company's standards for CAD drawings. Just looking for some direction as to things that need to go in there, how to show things, etc.

 

Firstly, congrats on the beautiful baby! :beer: ... Mrs. BlackBox wants a few of them... And soon (and she very much deserves to have anything she wants). o:)

 

 

 

As for CAD Standards... This is tough task.

 

It's incumbent upon you to be able to identify what is important to your employer, in order to standardize only what needs standardizing, providing the users the flexibility they need in order to both easily adhere to these CAD Standards whilst they perform their daily production duties, as well as appropriately request changes when required. It will be much easier on everyone if they're invested in this succeeding.

 

Some of the bare minimums one might consider, depending on your company organization, IT involvement, and the nature of one's work:

 

 

:: CAD Standards ::

 

Directory structure organization, and folder naming conventions - be sure to allow for small, and large, or even multi-phase projects.

 

To use Sheet Set Manager or not?

 

File naming conventions - Internal standard, NCS, client-specific, or all of the above?

 

What data goes in PaperSpace, and what goes in ModelSpace

 

To use Annotation text styles, etc., or not?

 

Layers - Internal standard, NCS, client-specific, or all of the above? Discipline specific, and sheet type-specific?

 

Layer States

 

Profiles - Which may implicitly require an application icon for each, with the appropriate Target path

 

Title Blocks, logos, and legends

 

Tool Palettes

 

 

 

:: CUI ::

 

Main, Enterprise, and Partial CUIs - Workspaces, Quick Access Toolbars, Ribbon (Tabs, Panels, Contextual Tab States), Toolbars, Menus, Quick Properties, Rollover Tooltips, Shortcut Menus, Keyboard Shortcuts, Double Click Actions, Mouse Buttons, LISP Files

 

 

 

:: Drawing Templates ::

 

General - Blocks, Dimensions Styles, Layers, Linetypes, Materials, MLine Styles, Multileader Styles, Plot Styles, Scales, Shapes, Table Styles, Text Styles, Visual Styles, Page Setups, Views

 

 

 

HTH

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Mind you... Those a re just a few considerations for a single platform, and version.

 

To implement, and maintain multiple versions and platforms implicitly requires one to break out what can be broken out, to reduce the amount of non-essential duplicate support structure.

 

For example... This thread may be of use, from which I'm quoting one of my posts here... The thread starts out as a question regarding SFSP, and evolves into more product implementation; not exactly CAD standards related per-se, but certainly pertains to the support structure organization, etc.:

 

Couple of things you might want to take into account when planning... And for this to work well, it does require planning... Be sure to make it as simple as possible, easy for others to follow, practical, and above all else, scaleable.

 

 

 

Firstly, there's a difference between version year, and platform (i.e., AutoCAD 2014, and Civil 3D 2014)... Separate is the topic of multiple Profiles within same application.

 

I do utilize separate folders for each platform, within each version year... But I do also maintain a 'common' folder to minimize non-essential duplication of data. I'm comfortable having so many duplicate Acad.lsp, and AcadDoc.lsp files, and even many duplicate strings within to set _that_ version's SFSP (small data footprint), because I use VLIDE Projects to manage each.

 

Generally speaking, we produce using one internal Profile for most projects. Outside of that, we only have a handful of client-specific Profiles, for which I have setup a 'client' folder, which mimics this same support structure, which comes with it's own application icon to configure the /p switch, etc. and if I'm bored I'll even change the icon to the client's logo via Gimp (I'm all for visual feedback).

 

 

 

Backing up to the topic of multiple, internal Profiles being maintained from within the same Acad.lsp file, the CONDitional statement I posted would allow you to programmatically set the needed SFSP at session start by matching the current profile (the one configured in your application icon's /p switch). We do not use any cumbersome 3rd party tools, as we mostly work with Civil 3D, and only really require AutoTURN, and Raster Design for most of our work... Other tools. utilities, etc. are there for production value, and efficiency, mostly maintained by me, and loaded either by CUI, MNL, AUTOLOADed by AcadDoc.lsp, Registry loader/Autoloader (for newer versions, via PackageContents.xml)... Most of which is relative-pathed to my 'common' folder.

 

 

 

[Edit] - Autoloader is becoming a big part of the customization work I do these days, especially with attempting to simultaneously launch a website, and publish multiple projects at Autodesk Exchange. Autoloader is proving to have a few kinks (particularly with unnecessary duplicate CUIx copies, etc.), but nothing that would preclude other benefits for 3rd party developers.

 

 

 

I do hope this helps make (more?) sense to you.

 

Cheers

 

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... Oh, don't forget to have a sense of humor too, with 'Tip of the Week' notifications, etc. :D... Like this little ditty:

 

(defun c:#WhatWhat (/ msg url)  
 (if
   (and
     (setq msg (strcat "What Day Is it, " (getvar 'loginname) "?"))
     (setq url
            "https://sphotos-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/p480x480/999170_10151613466023167_1064880976_n.jpg"
     )
     dos_traywnd
   )
   (dos_traywnd "#WhatWhat" (strcat msg "\n(Click Here)") 200 100 url)
   (progn (alert (strcat msg "\n(Click \"OK\")")) (startapp "explorer" url))
 )
 (princ)
)

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