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New to Paperspace after 10 years


ColinPearson

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Hey folks. Hump day is upon us :)

 

I've been using AutoCAD daily for about 10 years now and have no idea how to use paperspace. I first learned some CAD years ago from a grouchy old surveyor but I literally never touched paperspace because the aforementioned grouch told me "it's stupid and we don't use that here". I said ok and went about my model space business. That translates into constantly scaling the text and title block to allow for plotting at 1:1 which sucks but I really just don't know any better.

 

I may produce 150 drawings on a job that contain nothing but a title block and text/labels/etc in the model space sitting on top of an xref of the main job file that may contains hundreds of layers of various construction events. Of course, the appropriate layers are Frozen/Thawed depending on what that drawing is supposed to highlight.

 

-Should I be doing this in Model Space instead?

-Instead of 150 separate .dwg files, will I have one main file with 150 layouts tabs?

-If so, are there performance drawbacks or will I notice my machine lagging with so many layouts in one file? it lags BADLY once I get a couple hundred layers worth of stuff going on?

-If I want to show 2 or 4 or 10 views of the same area with a progression of steps, I see how to control the layers individually within each viewport - that's fantastic amazing news for me. But how to I ensure that in all 10 views that I don't accidentally move one of my views of model space by a little bit? For example, say I had one piece of equipment that I want in the center of each viewport, how to I 'lock' the pan/zoom so once I get it set I don't booger it up by accident later?

 

I like the idea of using paperspace and I think after a little while of browsing this forum and asking Mr. Google I understand HOW to do the things I want but I just want to get y'all's take on how you set up your workflow.

 

Thanks y'all!

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You don't lock pan/zoom you lock the viewport's display.

 

Have you read the thread I did a few years back about viewports?

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I'm still digging, but I've found "Things you should know about Viewports" and "How to print multiple drawing in one layout combined?" that I'm reading right now

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I wrote the first one re: viewports. You might also want to check this one (about scaling viewports) out too.

 

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?72213-Viewports-and-Setting-Scale&highlight=viewports

 

I think people really start to have questions when it comes to the placement of text and dimensions. There are basically two options (with a minor variation): put them in model space (using annotative scaling if layouts will be utilized) or put them n the layout. In our company we put non-geometry related objects in the layout. Model space is strictly reserved for geometry only. I'm NOT saying it is a better method, however, it is a viable option.

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OK, read those and a couple others. Layout Viewports are definitely what I'm after, I don't have any desire to use Tiled Viewports in Model Space.

 

So, it seems that I will have ton of drawings all living in my one main .dwg file as individual layouts with one plot per layout (as I believe styckface mentioned). I'm a little concerned about slow computer performance if I do this; my machine bogs down pretty badly in my main dwg which is one reason it's been nice using a model space title block with an xref 'behind' it. Would it make sense to have a dwg that was nothing but an xref and a bunch of layout tabs? If I did that, at least I could Unload all the .jpgs and .pdfs that I usually have in my main dwg.

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I think it partially is due to the images, but even without those, mine lags badly when I get a 100 or 300 layers in there. Mostly noticeable within the Layer Manager widow itself that creating new layers or filters, changing color/linetype/etc or even just scrolling through the list of layers has a lot of lag and hangs up. Like worst-case, a slow double click to rename a layer took 15 seconds to actually put the cursor into the layer name yesterday. Beside the point though, I'm working on a laptop by necessity and am just not going to get fantastic computing power out of it and that's ok.

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Look like a similar issue to one I have in excel...if I have a ton of layouts, can I display more than one row of tabs at the bottom of the drawing window or is it just one row max?

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I believe it is limited to one row. However forum member and lisp legend Lee Mac has written a program called TabSort that you might find useful. It is described this way...

 

TabSort

A program designed with the intention to aid in the organisation of layout tabs in a drawing, the program enables the user to organise each layout tab using intuitively engineered buttons to move selected tabs up/down or to the top/bottom of the tab order.

 

Find and download it from here...http://lee-mac.com/tabsort.html

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I would avoid making all those layouts in one drawing. Have one drawing with model space information, then create a separate drawing and xref the model space information into that. Create the viewport and then you can save as to another drawing name and continue from there. To keep all that organized you should definitely look into the Sheet Set Manager.

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Thanks ReMark, I will definitely look into that.

 

OK rkent, so most likely I'd have a couple layout drawings (one plan view, plan + elev together, iso + details together, whatever) and copy those as needed... that makes sense. That would help me out b/c I like to use a Field in the title block so the dwg title on the page is ALWAYS the file name without a chance for error. I'm not familiar with the Sheet Set Manager, but that's why they made Google and I'll check it out. cheers!

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I have 89 layouts in one Civil dwg and no speed problems but I can turn background image off which makes huge difference. I posted a group of layout enhancements in one post the best is GOTO makes it so much easier to jump to a layout. It has stuff like reorder etc I also have plot a range of layouts. Renumber etc.

 

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?84430-Move-layout-Rename-layouts-Goto-layout

 

Lastly I have not really dabelled in sheet sets but there is a lot of discussion here about pro's and con's just like model v's layouts.

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-Should I be doing this in Model Space instead?

-Instead of 150 separate .dwg files, will I have one main file with 150 layouts tabs?

-If so, are there performance drawbacks or will I notice my machine lagging with so many layouts in one file? it lags BADLY once I get a couple hundred layers worth of stuff going on?

-If I want to show 2 or 4 or 10 views of the same area with a progression of steps, I see how to control the layers individually within each viewport - that's fantastic amazing news for me. But how to I ensure that in all 10 views that I don't accidentally move one of my views of model space by a little bit? For example, say I had one piece of equipment that I want in the center of each viewport, how to I 'lock' the pan/zoom so once I get it set I don't booger it up by accident later?

 

I like the idea of using paperspace and I think after a little while of browsing this forum and asking Mr. Google I understand HOW to do the things I want but I just want to get y'all's take on how you set up your workflow.

 

Thanks y'all!

 

I have a 'complicated' (and not in a technical sense) job that has grown to around 140 layouts and 800+ layers in the model (no xrefs). The file runs okay. Takes maybe 3 to 4 seconds to save although other than that there is no noticeable performance issues. While I think this is on the extreme end, AutoCad still handles it well.

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I would avoid making all those layouts in one drawing. Have one drawing with model space information, then create a separate drawing and xref the model space information into that. Create the viewport and then you can save as to another drawing name and continue from there. To keep all that organized you should definitely look into the Sheet Set Manager.

 

What is the benefit of that other than allowing someone to edit the layouts and someone else to edit the model at the same time? Size split over two files? Or is it for performance reasons?

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What is the benefit of that other than allowing someone to edit the layouts and someone else to edit the model at the same time? Size split over two files? Or is it for performance reasons?

 

In no particular order, and just my opinion and experience.

Performance issues

Having all your eggs in one basket

Only one person can work on them

Working with that many layouts without using SSM is a pain.

File organization - maybe have one drawing with 4 or 5 tabs that all relate to a phase or area, rinse and repeat.

 

I often have 5 or 6 layouts in a drawing but thinking about having >100 makes me want to break that down and organize to more manageable bites.

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Just my opinion to

 

The project with 89 layouts came to being, using CIV3d and a 3rd party add on, the project a GRID of 12 roads, basicly there is only one designer so no need for multiple acces. The 3rd party software can create a new layout of all the cross & long sections drainage etc or a new DWG, using the new layout method I just invoke a copy layout lisp and put the result on the correct sheet that already exists has all the correct title block stuff and any extra stuff there also, the only trick here is that I move whats there 1st so if something is not quite right I still have it, a few seconds to delete etc. Everybody will know about the problems of interconnected sheets when something is moved 100mm.

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