standardizing a bunch of different drawings

[davesec]

hi all,

 

so we receive several hundred autocad drawings from five groups across the country. each group has their own format - they each have their own titleblocks, some do their layouts in modelspace, others in paperspace, some use attributes, some use tables, some are just awful, layering is all over the place, etc etc.

 

the one common thread between all groups is that the actual drawings are all in model space. thank god.

 

anyway we would like to see all these drawings eventually become standardized, and i'm trying to figure out the easiest, kindest way to do this.

 

i don't think any of the groups will go for a 'start from scratch' approach. ideally i would give them a template that everyone in my office is happy with, and a layering standard of some sort, and tell the groups to all hire summer students and get cracking. unfortunately i think there will be a lot of resistance to this approach.

 

so here's what i'm thinking so far:

 

1. i let each region keep their own titleblocks, but ask them to add any missing information that we need. i would like them to use attributes if possible (some already do, some don't), because i get the feeling that down the road if i wanted to present them with a standard 'titleblock', it would be easier to export the attribute data into my new titleblock. can this be done?

 

2. i am going to push them to use a standardized layering system. (right now the layers are all over the place).

 

3. the drawings, for the most part, consist of building outlines and room names (or at least this is the information my group is most concerned with). all five groups have a room legend in model space that lists the room name and number. i'm going to see if they can put this information in a table, because it will be easier to export this data into our database. right now one group already uses tables, 3 use multitext, and one uses a bunch of single line text. i will also tell the groups what font to use, and what size the font should print at. (rather than get involved with whether they should make their text annotative or put it in paperspace, etc.)

 

4. each drawing should have a key plan. some groups already include this, and i think they all have the key plan as a xref, which is fine by me. i'm going to ask the other groups to include an xref'd key plan as well.

 

5. i'm not going to worry about lineweights too much - the drawings are uncomplicated and we can generally print as a single lineweight, so i can just have a .ctb file that reduces all colors to a single black lineweight.

 

6. ideally i would like them to hatch their buildings and provide me with the area of each building. i guess a field in the titleblock would be the easiest thing to do here?

 

anyway that's about as far as i've gotten. when i type this all out, it seems like just as much work as starting from scratch. also, if we decide to go this route and have the groups all 'update' their drawings, i'm hoping that we end up with drawings that all have the same layers, same title block info (in attributes), and tables with the room numbers and names... and i'm also hoping that with this information, i could create a template with an 11x17 layout with a standard titleblock, and somehow be able to batch import/export these drawings into this new template. do you think that will be possible to do at that point?

 

thanks! sorry if any of this is convoluted, i've just started working on this a few days ago and am trying to do this in the smartest way possible.