Paul Andersen
2005-07-18, 08:31 PM
As a Multi-discipline Engineering firm we rarely have occasion to use our own company titleblock on a project. Generally, the titleblock we use is given to us by the Architect or Owner of the project. Since all of our clients, with the exception of one, are currently on platforms other than Revit we generally have to recreate the titleblock in Revit Structure. Several issues that would make this a less time consuming and irritating task are as follows.
SHX Font Support: While I'm sure I'm not the first to ask for this it would save a lot of time getting a titleblock to look and perform correctly. Often times we simply match the closest True-Type and on few occasions have created fonts from scratch when that wasn't good enough. I personally appreciate the simplicity of a True-Type only software platform but having to deal with custom created and/or stock shx fonts wastes a lot of time.
Snappable Text: It would be nice if text could have at least one usable snap point for more accurate placement. Multiple snap points would be even better. For example: if your text was placed as left top justified it would be nice to be able to grab the text at left top or center. I know text lines up with other text but there is currently no way to line up with edges of lines or to accurately space several separate text placements.
Filled Regions: The creation of company and client logos usually requires tracing and/or picking geometry that is by nature small and intricate. I've yet to experiment how short of a line is too short for filled regions to handle and I'm sure that it must be quite small, but the trial and error process required to get a filled region to close without the ambiguous "The sketch contains an extremely short line." can get rather annoying. It's a little frustrating to to be able to sketch or pick a closed loop and then be confronted with this error and have no recourse but to hunt for which line is causing the error. I'm sure it's not easy programmatically but I would rather not be able to create the offending line in the first place.
Revision Schedule: I know this has been brought up before but the ability to have more control over the formatting of this schedule would help make tracking and displaying revisions in the titleblock go a lot smoother. Namely the ability to use letters or numbers and the ability to sort by descending order / bottom up formatting. Since we don't generally drive the titleblock used on a job we're also not in control of the clients / owners revision tracking practices.
We have tried several workflows to efficiently generate accurate usable titleblocks which vary greatly from job to job often times even if the client is the same. Solutions to the above outlined topics could easily shave 4-8 hours or more off of any given project and make the whole process more enjoyable.
SHX Font Support: While I'm sure I'm not the first to ask for this it would save a lot of time getting a titleblock to look and perform correctly. Often times we simply match the closest True-Type and on few occasions have created fonts from scratch when that wasn't good enough. I personally appreciate the simplicity of a True-Type only software platform but having to deal with custom created and/or stock shx fonts wastes a lot of time.
Snappable Text: It would be nice if text could have at least one usable snap point for more accurate placement. Multiple snap points would be even better. For example: if your text was placed as left top justified it would be nice to be able to grab the text at left top or center. I know text lines up with other text but there is currently no way to line up with edges of lines or to accurately space several separate text placements.
Filled Regions: The creation of company and client logos usually requires tracing and/or picking geometry that is by nature small and intricate. I've yet to experiment how short of a line is too short for filled regions to handle and I'm sure that it must be quite small, but the trial and error process required to get a filled region to close without the ambiguous "The sketch contains an extremely short line." can get rather annoying. It's a little frustrating to to be able to sketch or pick a closed loop and then be confronted with this error and have no recourse but to hunt for which line is causing the error. I'm sure it's not easy programmatically but I would rather not be able to create the offending line in the first place.
Revision Schedule: I know this has been brought up before but the ability to have more control over the formatting of this schedule would help make tracking and displaying revisions in the titleblock go a lot smoother. Namely the ability to use letters or numbers and the ability to sort by descending order / bottom up formatting. Since we don't generally drive the titleblock used on a job we're also not in control of the clients / owners revision tracking practices.
We have tried several workflows to efficiently generate accurate usable titleblocks which vary greatly from job to job often times even if the client is the same. Solutions to the above outlined topics could easily shave 4-8 hours or more off of any given project and make the whole process more enjoyable.