Digital annotation and remote viewing

[Vigilante]

Hi there, here is an interesting question. I need to figure out the best way for somebody to annotate and "draw" on a CAD file without them knowing CAD or any drawing tools.

They don't have paper, they don't have a large format plotter, they are half way across the USA and that makes mailing sheets back and forth a pain. So what I want to do is create the CAD files and E-mail them. They will open the file in some way, in some format, and use a touch screen, tablet PC, Wacom tablet, I don't know, and annotate the CAD file, send it back to me digitally, and then I can translate their scribbles into the CAD file as if I had a sheet with pen marks in front of me.

 

He thinks he needs to buy some huge touch screen and draw right on it. I thought just having a big regular screen and a Wacom would be good. But he seems to think he wants to "see" the file under his pen. Not sure he can draw with one hand while looking at the screen elsewhere.

 

Of course the challenge is with zooming. He's not going to have a 36" wide touch screen. So he has to draw lines and shapes and text depending on how he happens to be zoomed in to the document at any given time. If he zooms far out and makes a mark, that mark will be real thick when zoomed in. If he zooms far in and draws little text on an object, then zoomed out you can't hardly see it. We might want to make sure all lines are the same thickness no matter how he zooms, I don't know.

Somehow or another he needs to open the document and draw on it, making zooming easy, and also with the pinpoint accuracy able to draw leaders right to certain points and what not. Sometimes drawing delicate meshes of plumbing and so forth, we have to get in pretty tight. We can't have him pressing "pen" to "paper" and making a mark an 1/8" away from where he pressed.

 

When he's done marking it up, he's got to send it back to me so I can review it and even change or erase his markups for the next revision.

 

Think of it this way, the guy is not tech savvy. He takes a pen and scribbles on paper, I view the paper and translate to autocad and reprint. Now imagine this guy moves to another state and wants to keep doing the same job. It's got to be accurate, simple, and accomplish the same flow.

 

Assume money is no object. I mean we probably can't buy a 36" or 42" touch screen accurate enough to show a drawing at full size to annotate. If such things exist. But we may have to afford something similar.

 

 

Any ideas?

[MaxwellEdison]

Have you thought about Autodesk's Design Review? Its a DWF viewer which allows users to make markups and notes on the DWF. And even if money is no object...its free

[ziemerd]

That's how I would do it. He can mark it up with scribbles, send it back, and you make the changes. Very easy and inexpensive.

[flem snopes]

Send him your CAD file in PDF format.

 

He can purchase Adobe Acrobat (~$150) and annotate the PDF with text, lines, comments, squiggles, etc. and then send it back to you.

 

You can then revise your CAD file based on his markup.

[Vigilante]

It's not just annotation. In other words, he's not just writing some text or making comments, he is actually going to design entire layouts for HVAC and plumbing this way.

 

Could Design Review be used with a large touch screen or Wacom with a pen and be accurate enough to do entire duct layouts and piping?

I thought about Acrobat as well, but run in to the same issue about how easy it will be to draw layouts and keep track of things.

 

I was trying to find videos or demos of how something like this would work, but no luck so far.

[MaxwellEdison]

If he really wants accuracy, he'll need to man up and use a CAD program. If he wants to just write over the drawings, Photoshop Elements would be a simple choice. Accuracy is going to depend on your tablet, not the program. But you can easily make new layers that will look and act like a transparent overlay. Biggest thing will be to work out the drawing output on your end. PDF will probably be the best quality, might need an add-on for Elements to work with PDFs, but its an Adobe product.

[ReMark]

Tell him to buy AutoCAD LT and start designing. You can exchange files until the cows come home and nobody has to worry about incompatible file formats (PDF vs. DWG vs. Other).

[Vigilante]

He is old school. He started back in the day when there were NO computers, they have the perfect font typing and used to design on paper from start to finish. There is no way to teach this old dog new tricks. He wants pen and paper, even if it's digital pen and paper.

 

Also note that it is just easier to design on paper, to see the whole drawing at once, to get a feel for it. Trying to design and draw on the computer is more difficult, I think. At least for him. Seriously, sometimes he wants to see something on a sheet and I pull it up on the computer and he just doesn't get it, I have to plot it for him anyway. He can't do digital.

 

Anyway, the idea is that he may be leaving soon, so this is not a spend-3-months-training-how-to-autocad-so-I-won't-have-a-job-any-more situation.

 

Design Review would be great, if it allows input from a touchscreen or digital drawing pad. I just don't know if it does. I suppose Acrobat does.

 

Just wondering if anybody had done this before.

[MaxwellEdison]

A touchpad/Wacom tablet functions like a mouse. Anything you can do with a mouse you can do with the stylus. Design review has a "freehand" mode that allows you do sketch over the DWF. Download it, buy a cheap tablet from best buy, try it out. The only differences between a cheap tablet and an expensive one are size, resolution (accuracy) and whether or not its an active display (like a Wacom Cintiq).

[Vigilante]

Yes the Cintiq looks sweet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCWLd52GfoU

 

And since you said Design Review has a freehand mode, that answers that question.

 

I think the Cintiq would be good for him because I can preprogram the shortcut keys for common tasks, making it less training involved for him. For zooming and saving and what not. Plus the screen tilts so he can put it just where he needs it for drafting. I assume he can also have a regular mouse right next to it. At 21.3" diagonal it should be big enough to work on.

 

The only thing I haven't seen on this is if it has all the normal monitor controls. Brightness, contrast, color, etc... Not a big deal I guess.

There are lots of videos of this being used with Photoshop and other drawing apps, but I haven't found one for working with autodesk products yet.

 

Anyhoo, now I just need to find a place that has one so we can do demo it.

 

Thanks.

[MaxwellEdison]

Thats because the expense isn't justifyable for most. CADders usually click point to point where the Graphic artists rely on the digital "brush strokes". Many 3D modelers ignore them and go for a haptic pen for actual feedback in a digital sculpture. Basically Wacom's are digital easels, where AutoCAD is the digital drafting table already.