Standards & Philosophy - Part 2

Hi everyone!

We are talking about the philosophy behind standardization, specifically relating to CAD standards. 

In the last posting I identified the three big questions that have to be considered for each item in a CAD standard.

1. What SHOULD it look like?
2. Does item in the standard increase the overall value of the CAD design?
3. How do you minimize the enforcement aspect of the standard?

In this posting we are going to talk a little about the actual graphic portion of the standard.

What should it look like?

When considering the graphics of a standard I think that there is a hierarchy of importance that has to be considered.

The most important is accuracy.  If the information shown in the drawing is wrong what good is it? 

This might seem like a strange item to put at the to of the "What should it look like?" list.  However, I think that we can all agree that you would never try to build anything from an impressionist painting where the geometry and details are distorted. 

Despite any personal feelings about this particular artistic style many find it very visually appealing and interesting.  But, could you ever determine what the original subject of the painting actually looked like with a high degree of accuracy?

Next is readability.  If a drawing is not readable then it is of absolutely no use to anyone.

Why then would I want to send out a drawings where the font is so small you can't read the notes or dimensions.

Or perhaps the drawing is so cluttered with lines and notes that the details are lost because every line on the page has the same color and thickness.

Last is visual appeal.  I am not placing it last because is is not important.  Quite the contrary.  I think that visual appeal is important for many reasons. 

• Marketing to a potential client by showing them a previous project is much better when the drawings look good and you both know it.
• Things that are visually appealing tend to be more memorable, and increase retention of information.
• It conveys pride of ownership and attention to detail.

The only reason that this one comes in at the bottom of the list is because the other two items are directly related to the function of the drawing.  That function is to convey the information necessary to accomplish something.

If a drawing set is the most appealing and beautiful work of art, but is inaccurate or unreadable then it is really just wasted time and money.  In the long run, the person who actually has to meet the requirements of the design will have no clue what they are supposed to do.

Standards & Philosophy - Part 1

 

Welcome back everyone!

I took a little break from writing after CAD camp to spend time with my parents, who were in town for a few days, but I am ready to start up again.

I want to spend some time talking about CAD Standards from philosophy perspective.

Ask yourself why any company finally expends the time and money to develop a CAD standard.  There are of course many reasons, most of them started something like this.

• "Why can't we get this (insert graphic feature here) to look the same on all our drawings?"
• "What font are we supposed to use again?"
• "What color or layer am I supposed use for this thing?"

These are the type of questions that usually spark the move to develop a CAD standard document.  But the documentation is only the beginning.

The question of standardization generally takes on three parts.

• What SHOULD it look like?
• Does item in the standard increase the overall value of the CAD design?
• How do you minimize the enforcement aspect of the standard?

If the development of a standard is not coupled with discipline to follow it, and apparent value to the drafter, then it is only the beginning of additional problems.  Not the solution to old ones.

In the next posting on Thursday we can talk about these questions in more detail to see how to answer them.

DWF it to Save Time, Paper, and Hard Drive Space!

At CAD Camp I had a chance to talk with Heidi Hewett and a gentleman (I'll call him Ted), who was having a problem publishing archived sets. 

Here is Ted's problem in a nut shell.  

1. Ted and his company need to print out archived legacy projects from time to time so some of the page setups may not be up to current CAD Standards.
2. Archived projects are set up for obsolete plotters and therefore will not publish well without creation of a new named page setup.
3. Creating a named page setup, importing it into each file and layout to make sure that it works, is time consuming and tedious.
4. Sometimes people will just plot without checking to see if the sheets are configured properly.  This wastes valuable paper and time when things go wrong.

My suggestion was the increasingly valuable DWF (Drawing Web Format not Divorced White Female as was the joke at Autodesk University this year) file in conjunction with the Sheet Set Manager.

By creating a new Sheet Set and importing the legacy files you gain access to the very powerful publish to DWF command.  This command will publish the imported layouts to a single multi-page DWF using whatever the current page setup is.  But, it will replace the assigned printer/plotter with the "DWG to DWF.PC3" driver removing any problems with assigned but non-existent plotters.

With that accomplished the DWF file can be opened with the free Design Review software or viewer and reviewed to make sure that the file has plotted correctly. (Think about it as a mass "print preview" option.) 

If Ted is using Design Review and a sheet does not look correct then he can just remove it from the DWF file, fix the error, plot it to a single DWF, and insert it into the set in it's proper place.

With all errors fixed, and the set looking good ,Ted can just select the print option from the File menu in Design Review and choose from any current printer or plotter on the system including a PDF maker.  (PDF files printed from DWF seem to be much smaller as a rule for some reason.  So there is another advantage.)

When the process is done the DWF file can then be deleted if it is unwanted.  My suggestion would be to to place the DWF file in the archive with the cad files so that it can be printed again at a later date without repeating this whole process.

This is the process that we use in my office all the time because it help to catch those little printing errors that are always cropping up without having to waste paper and toner.

I hope that you have all enjoyed this little tip and found it useful.  If anyone has a question or topic that they would like me to cover just email me CADNation@gmail.com.  I am always looking for good topics and if I cannot get it into the blog I will still help you out if I can.