Jump to content

CAD Standards Manual - Rough Draft, need your opinions


SuperCAD

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 22
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • SuperCAD

    10

  • Jack_O'neill

    2

  • resullins

    2

  • nestly

    1

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".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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 ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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!:x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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 :D .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ 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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...