Dual Monitors

[bhargis]

Anyone out there have any suggestions on how to justify Dual Monitors for a bunch of CAD stations? I've always been able to suggest them before, now they are asking for some kind of justification.

Is there any way to put a $ amount to intangibles that a dual monitor would bring to the speed of production?

[Glenn Pope]

Here are a couple of articles that you might find useful.

MULTIPLE MONITOR COMPUTING DEMONSTRATES TANGIBLE BENEFITS FOR CORPORATE WORKFORCE

MULTIPLE MONITOR COMPUTING - In the very early stages of adoption.

[robert.1.hall72202]

Why would you need dual monitors for engineering????
Isn't 1 session of AutoCad enough?

[rplato]

I use dual monitors for civil engineering, AND one session of CAD. However, I can utilize one monitor for drawing area and a couple of toolbars, while the other monitor keeps design center and the properties dialog open at all times, as well as a dozen other toolbars. Without sacrificing screen space for my drawing. 2nd monitor is also home to peripheral applications, such as outlook, calculator, AUGI Forums...
I don't know about justification, other than I'm no longer opening and closing design center and properties a thousand times a day.

[robert.1.hall72202]

Interesting........only thing I think I could use it for is for working with a spreadsheet while I am in an AutoCad session............I still think that it would only be geek factor
My wife has Dual LCD screens at her office as she is in a financial institution. In finance I could see dual monitors keeping you from messing up copying info from one document to the next.

[tbedrich]

I had worked for 9 years with a single monitor.
I now have dual monitors and do not think that I can go back to a single.
I keep ADT open on one and have properties and tool pallette and project navigator open on the other.
I feel that I save time when I am using ADT, it is much easier to see what you have selected when you go to the properties palette to change it.
Also you can have Otulook, Excel, Word, Etc open on the other screen and still work in ACAD.
When I suggested that I get a second monitor we had an extra one available, so maybe if your company has extra monitors you can use them and maybe budget for newer ones next year??

[hand471037]

I used to use a dual-monitor setup, and where it came in really useful was in Historic Renovation and dealing with Existing conditions. You could have AutoCAD or Revit open on the primary monitor, and then have site photos, building photos, scans, etc, open on the other monitor. It was a helpful way to work.

However, that was the only real thing I can say that was productive. Otherwise, all that was on the second monitor was my e-mail, or iTunes/winamp, or a web browser. When I went to a laptop I'm single-screen, and I haven't really noticed any performance hit at all...

[tjk0225]

It is great to have (2) sessions of Revit open - one with my project the other with whatever family you are working on.

It is also nice to be able to have pictures, drawings, manufacturer's website - whatever open on one while you are working on the other.

Does it make me more productive - at times yes. Is it something I can put a $ amount to - not really. Sorry, not much help.

[waynes03]

It sounds like this set-up is great for the user but will be hard to justify to management.
Hardware typically has a low ROI - user convenience and comfort usually doesn't go far,either.
Good Luck

[bhargis]

Thank you to everyone who replyed to this. It is helping a lot!!!