MHL Posted February 9, 2015 Posted February 9, 2015 (edited) This has been bugging me for some time, and I haven't really found anyone else expressing this same problem. I took a look through the forums here and didn't see anything concerning it, but I'm sorry if I missed someone else's answer/thread about this. We do most of our drawing and plotting from model space, with each sheet of a project being its own DWG. While working on a project, I'll use the plot manager to set each sheet to print to an actual, physical printer with our preferred settings and then hit "apply to layout", so that I don't have to do that every time I wish to print. Eventually, though, we finish the project, and at that point I'll switch to either a different printer or to plot to pdf or whatever the project needs. To do both that initial setup and the final print, I'll go to the first drawing of the set, set it up as it needs to be, and then go through each other drawing and, under page setup, use "previous plot", and then just apply that to the layout instead of doing it manually for each drawing. Of note is the fact that we almost exclusively use "Plot area - Window" for these, since we have enough different clients/borders/etc we have to print from project to project that making a page setup for each individual setup would be impractical. Sometimes - usually whenever we use a project that uses some other company's standard, since this rarely happens with drawings we start from scratch with our own standard - if I use the "previous layout" from the dropdown in the manner I've described, the window's location will appear to be in a completely different location relative to my 0,0,0 coordinate. This baffles me, since for all drawings we make sure that the border is in the same spot relative to 0,0,0. Is there a coordinate system that plotting uses that doesn't map to the drawing's coordinate system? If so, how do I fix it in a particular drawing? Am I forgetting something really basic/obvious about coordinates? TL;DR - When jumping from drawing to drawing and using "previous plot" for the page setup, my window selection for what to plot changes relative to the coordinate system and I'm not sure why. (P.S. - No, our company officially does not want to use paperspace for plotting. Our company actively avoids using paperspace whenever it's possible. There's reasons for it.) Edited February 9, 2015 by MHL I grammar'ed better. Quote
BIGAL Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 If you have a title block encasing what you want plotted then think about finding it and you can via lisp redo the plot window no matter where the title block is located. You could also add which title block is it to adjust window sizes accordingly. You just get the title block insertion point. You can have multiple title blocks in model space and it will find all of them and plot. http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?67143-One-Click-Printing Quote
RobDraw Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 No page set-ups and no paper space and manual plot set-ups? Oh my... I'm sorry, but there has to be a better way that will suit your needs. Quote
MHL Posted February 10, 2015 Author Posted February 10, 2015 Hooray, time to vomit out a wall of text. Part of the issue with using predefined page setups for our projects is that our clients - 95% of whom are architects who hire us to do the engineering for their own projects - are: 1] Quite numerous (Meaning that there's enough variation in the amount of borders we have to adjust to as there is, since we rarely ever get to use *our* border for anything), and 2] Really prone to constantly friggin' changing their borders. Sometimes there's a legitimate reason for it, but some of them just seem to do it for no appreciable reason. It's rather annoying, and throws a wrench in standardizing a page layout for plotting. The other issue with all this is that the way work flows here/is done requires multiple prints during a project at multiple sizes, with multiple plotters. So, not only would we have to set up plot styles for each individual architect and whatever border they happen to be using at the moment, I'd have to do it three times in total for each instance. I'm not some sort of curmudgeon who dislikes page layouts on principle; I actually really wish we had standardization across more projects so that plotting would be more of a non-issue. With things as they are, though, 95% of our projects are fine with the "Set up layout on one page, and then use 'previous plot'" method I've previously described. 95% of the work we do, either we create the drawings from scratch (but use what the architect has provided us for backgrounds/borders), and thus avoid the plot window coordinates problem, or we receive drawings that we "must" use as they are without starting from scratch, but from competent draftspersons who avoid the plot window coordinates problem. My issue, specifically, is when we have to use another standard (Typical example: Any of the dozen or so large franchise restaurants we frequently design - think "large enough chain that they can hire an entire department of people to approve or disapprove drawings based on whether they meet their [usually terribly drafted, inaccurate, and ugly-as-hell] standards"), and we can't start the drawings from scratch ourselves. These problem drawings require that we use their actual DWGs instead of nicely setting up ours, so I don't know what happens to these drawings that interferes with their coordinates so that the print window lands in a different spot from drawing to drawing using the "previous plot" page setup. Side note: No, I don't like using their drawings in any event. If I had the time every time, I'd much rather start our own drawings and just place their stuff in ours, instead of literally using their .dwgs for things. The problem is, I'm sometimes not allowed the chance, usually due to my boss specifically disallowing it due to time constraints (In essence, I can't always spend X amount of time fixing everything, since that would put us too far behind on other projects). Anyway, I'm getting off track. Literally all I wish to know is what affects the coordinates of where a plot window lands - since it appears to be using a different coordinate system from the standard UCS. It's one thing if the border/drawing is obviously in a different position relative to the origin - that's easy to fix. What most obviously slows down the plot process with these problem drawings is having to constantly redefine where the window is from drawing to drawing due to the window's previous coordinates being anywhere from inches to miles away from it's previous position relative to the origin. Does anyone know what coordinate system - if any - that the window selection when plotting relies on, and how I would change/reset it in a drawing? My end goal is to be able to "fix" a drawing that I don't have enough time to completely fix by starting from scratch - once I figure out how to fix the window's print location in one drawing, I can just make a script to fix that in any drawing I'm having an issue with. Bleurgh, I write too much. I'd really appreciate an answer to this! Quote
RobDraw Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 You're preaching to the choir, here. I set-up projects with upwards of 200 sheets using client title blocks. Even if the client is using model space title blocks, I move them to paper space. That move alone will make your life a lot easier. Your company is hindering your efficiency by not allowing this. I usually only need two page set-ups per project. One for full size and one for half size. We adjust the files to plot with our pen settings, so I typically only need two page set-ups per title block size. There are ways to make your workflow smoother and your superiors have to realize that even if the settings may vary slightly from project to project, having every sheet ready for plotting is a huge time saver over the life of a project. Something similar came up today in another thread. Doing prep work in the beginning can save you tons of work later. I cannot stress that enough. Your superiors have got to realize that. If not, you should show them. Back on topic, UCS can be different from file to file unless it is "World". I believe that, if you change the UCS to "World", the window problem will be solved. That is only if the title block is in the same spot in relation to the "World" UCS. Quote
BIGAL Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 same spot in relation to the "World" One of the problems here came across it the other day was the title block was rotated in "world" so a whole new plotting problem. Again I say click the title block you can get via a lisp the bounding box of the block so the size is irrelevant then use a lisp or script to plot, ok its not batch plotting but you can still script multiple drawings and watch the sheets come out. If you get multiple dwgs from 1 client and they have used the same title block then next is easy you can automatically open the dwg and move the dwg by using the title block to say 0,0 resave the dwg making your plotting consistent across the set. Obviously if they use the same name title block but between dwgs its different yeah there will be problems. Why not post a dwg or 2 remove company stuff now xxx, with how to get it like this explanation and like me people will have a look and make suggestions. It can be done. Quote
MHL Posted February 13, 2015 Author Posted February 13, 2015 Yeah - I tried changing the ucs to "world" in each of the offending drawings; no luck, problem persists. I'll try to post some example drawings next week here; I didn't think to check this thread until after I'd left work, and I don't have access to any of them outside of work. Quote
RobDraw Posted February 13, 2015 Posted February 13, 2015 Yeah, I left out a step. Hopefully you caught it. If the UCS was not previously set to "world", you would have to verify that the title block is at the same window coordinates. Quote
its_ikon Posted June 4, 2015 Posted June 4, 2015 Having a similar issue and for life of me can't figure it out. The files did plot in the same location and recently over the last week or two the issue started. I've encountered this on other jobs and gave up on the search, but this time have two separate drawings that produce different results. One set stacks the previous plot windows and the other offsets it. We also don't use paperspace plotting and never will. I've attached 4 drawings as an example. The ones labeled offset will offset the previous plot window and the ones labeled stack do not. I have a window selection and line drawn from 0,0 as reference. Any help is greatly appreciated EXAMPLE_STACK_FLOR_07.dwg EXAMPLE_OFFSET_FLOR_01.dwg EXAMPLE_OFFSET_FLOR_07.dwg EXAMPLE_STACK_FLOR_01.dwg Quote
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