Drawing standards? What are those?

Long time members of this forum have read my many criticisms regarding drawings I've received from outside contractors and vendors. I thought I'd share an example of one that was sent to me by the project engineer for adding a fire suppression system to a new tank farm. The company that did the work submitted this finished P&ID (Process Piping & Instrumentation Diagram).

Besides what I consider to be the poor overall quality of the drawing (ex. - no title block and 20 layers that used only four different colors) it had 26 overlapping objects, and the following unreferenced entities: 1 group, 1 plotstyle, 4 mline styles, 29 dimension styles, 29 text styles, 10 linetypes, 131 layers and 261 block most of which were anonymous. Thankfully there were no database errors.

I've been requested to bring it up to our standards. Really? It's going in the trash. I hope the system they installed is better than the drawing they gave us.

BTW...the file size was 2MB!

How timely. I just got an email from AUGI with a link to their online magazine AUGIWorld and in it is an article written by Murray Clack entitled, "Is Drawing Composition Becoming a Lost Art?" The key word here is composition. I highly recommend the article.

here is my personal record for the worst drawing package that was done in house, by drafters that are no longer here.

Command_overkill

Select objects: all

548030 found

42 were not in current space.

Select objects:

26682 duplicate(s) deleted

51451 overlapping object(s) or segment(s) deleted

I keep a copy of this on my cubical wall at all times; I don't remember the file size.

At least you got a .dwg. Many times I just get a pdf of a hand drawn sketch to work with, which I then have to bring up to "Our Standards".

One time I was given a stack of drawings that were created in Excel, if you can believe that. Excel!!! I had to print pdf's, insert them into Autocad and trace over them. Of course there was no scale and no accuracy whatsoever. There were over 100 of these "drawings", but luckily I only had to do about a dozen of them. I don't know who ended up doing the rest but I feel sorry for them.

Sound like a export from a 'b.i.m.' Software of some kind. Poor 2D dwg export is a fact of new 3D CAD practice...

I deal with it with my own routines and dwg fixes.

Sound like a export from a 'b.i.m.' Software of some kind. Poor 2D dwg export is a fact of new 3D CAD practice...

I deal with it with my own routines and dwg fixes.

This has nothing to do with BIM, as that information is cast aside before it gets to .dwg format. I've seen exports that are better than some drafters are capable of drawing. Any 3D software can export a bunch of garbage. It's not an exact science because you are asking the software to do something that it was not designed to do. It's there as a convenience. Exporting to .dwg is never perfect but it doesn't have to require a lot of clean-up. Depending on the software, there are settings that can give you a variety of outputs that might come close to your needs.

Long time members of this forum have read my many criticisms regarding drawings I've received from outside contractors and vendors. I thought I'd share an example of one that was sent to me by the project engineer for adding a fire suppression system to a new tank farm. The company that did the work submitted this finished P&ID (Process Piping & Instrumentation Diagram).

 

[ATTACH]56281[/ATTACH]

 

Besides what I consider to be the poor overall quality of the drawing (ex. - no title block and 20 layers that used only four different colors) it had 26 overlapping objects, and the following unreferenced entities: 1 group, 1 plotstyle, 4 mline styles, 29 dimension styles, 29 text styles, 10 linetypes, 131 layers and 261 block most of which were anonymous. Thankfully there were no database errors.

 

I've been requested to bring it up to our standards. Really? It's going in the trash. I hope the system they installed is better than the drawing they gave us.

 

BTW...the file size was 2MB!

Probably paid top dollars to put out **** like that too

Shame and here i am without work dang

Probably paid top dollars to put out **** like that too

Shame and here i am without work dang

I wonder if it was done in a non-AutoCAD program and exported?

I wonder if it was done in a non-AutoCAD program and exported?

I wonder if it would have been easier to use a crayon and a sheet of butcher's paper.

You decide. The only parts of this elevation that are parallel to the view plane are in the tiny wall section at the far right.

I was supposed to do plan, elevation, sections and details of the "A" frame portico on the right. You have as many dimensions as I do. I sent it back with a simple request to provide useful construction drawings. This drawing came from a 3D Revit model. That was all over the layer names and unreferenced xref path names.

There are 63,783 objects in the drawing, all of it nested in a block with 13 levels, 67 blocks on the lowest level. The vast majority of the objects are ellipses less than 1" long, delineating every non straight facet shown. All of the curves, largest to the smallest ones discernable, at the original scale of 1/2" = 1'-0" are made up of either ellipses or straight segmented polylines, each segment infinitesimally short.

PHOOIE!! The png is blurry. but only after uploading.

I can't say what it is, but you should be able to take your grandkids to see it at Epcot this spring.

After two months I pulled out of the contract without ever having to deal with this particular scene. They did pay very well, and often, though.

Let it go, let it go

Can't hold it back anymore

Let it go, let it go

Turn away and slam the door!

I don't care

What they're going to say

Let the storm rage on,

The cold never bothered me anyway!

I've been relatively lucky, Though I have had some that are just ridiculous. Recently i had a project turned over to me that were low res scans of 11x17 prints of 24X36 drawings. The best part about this is that the engineer held on to the deliverable for 7 months before turning them over to the CAD department. In the intervening time the company that generated them folded (no surprise there). A fully modern designed unit turned over like it was a garbage product of the mid 70s.

I had to create a new word for the feeling i experienced. Bumblefuct v- 1. in complete awe of the level of ineptitude or lack of competence. 2. A sense of paralysis induced by exposure to stupidity of a scale with which one has never experienced coupled with a concurrent fear that this event may have damaged the metaphysical universe.

I've been relatively lucky, Though I have had some that are just ridiculous. Recently i had a project turned over to me that were low res scans of 11x17 prints of 24X36 drawings. The best part about this is that the engineer held on to the deliverable for 7 months before turning them over to the CAD department. In the intervening time the company that generated them folded (no surprise there). A fully modern designed unit turned over like it was a garbage product of the mid 70s.

 

I had to create a new word for the feeling i experienced. Bumblefuct v- 1. in complete awe of the level of ineptitude or lack of competence. 2. A sense of paralysis induced by exposure to stupidity of a scale with which one has never experienced coupled with a concurrent fear that this event may have damaged the metaphysical universe.

Best new word of the Century, and beautifully defined.

This should be submitted to Websters or another such for consideration!