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Multiple CAD site plans - best practise?


sou1975

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Hi,

 

I am looking for some suggestions on the best way to approach a project.

 

I am managing an outdoor event across 5 cities, each of which will require a CAD plan of the layout. In each case I will draw up the site layout over a pdf underlay which will be the ordnance survey map of the site and surrounding streets. The event will have the same elements in all cities which include cabins, fencing, seating, staging, food vendors, and a large roof canopy. All of which I will add myself on appropriate layers. However the layout will differ slightly in each city. At the end of it, I need a pdf of each city for all of the contractors to use for reference.

 

I cannot decide the best way to manage this project. Do I :

 

a) create one dwg will all 5 city maps, and create a different layout per city

b) create a different dwg for each city

 

My intention in either case is to create a block for each individual item such as seating, cabins etc. so I can create a library of blocks that can be used in each dwg.

 

Could anyone suggest a good way to approach this project? Or how you would approach this? Are there any benefits to either of the above methods? And does anyone have any other tips when creating 5 different, but similar site maps in CAD?

 

I am using AutoCAD LT 2012 for Mac.

 

Many thanks

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While I like option "a" I can foresee one downside and that would be file size. What are your computer specs? Another downside would be if someone were to request a CAD drawing file of just one of the five sites. Do you send the full drawing file and tell them to ignore the other four?

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I would be going option b personally as you will have 5 separate models in essence regardless of whether you choose option a or b. You can do one site then copy the layers/other useful info for the second site etc.

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The only good reason I can see for having them all in one file would be if you were to locate them correctly in relation to each other, i.e. real world coordinates. From what you've described, I don't think you have a need for that.

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Thank you all very much for the useful replies. It sounds like dwg per city is definitely the way to go, and I agree with all the comments.

 

One suggestion I received was to create an individual DWG for each element (ie stage, furniture, cabin) and then xref them on each city layout so that if one of them changes, they all change.

 

Would any of you agree with that or have other suggestions?

 

Thanks

Steve

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Make sure every drawing is in real world co-ordinates "DO NOT ROTATE OR MOVE" this way they will always line up we use UCS to rotate the plans to a more friendly rotation in layouts just saving the multiple UCS's you always have World when Xrefing or inserting etc.

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