utility drawing standards

[gisdude]

Hi all,
I basically have started a new position at a utility. I am a GIS/AutoCAD guy with a lot of experience with electrical/utility company's. The company I'm at now basically has autocad drawings from the mid-90's (as-builts) and some of those drawings have been used over the years for revisions and changes to equipment and facilities out in the field. The problem I'm running into (often), I've noticed that there has been no standard regarding the drawings. I'm talking about layers (not naming a germane and appropriate layer name), using lines in the drawing (I'm so used to polylines, I can't even wonder why we would use lines anymore), ALL OF THE TITLE BLOCKS FOR EVERY DRAWING ARE IN MODEL SPACE. So, when you measure the border of a title block - IT'S LITERALLY 300' LONG!

Does anyone have any advice on how should I proceed with my work? I'm working with electrical engineers and scale to them is inconsequential, hence the 300' long title blocks. I don't want to rock the boat, but I've been diligently setting up drawings a little more on modern way of doing things now (ie title block in paper space). It's just really a big culture shock to see a lot of work that's been done over the years that has been sub par, and continued on for so long.

Sorry for venting...

[Opie]

Start on one element to standardize and train the users on how to use that one element. To make standards work, you need to make it easier to follow the standards than it would be to not follow standards. Use the Ribbon / Tool Palettes / Menus / AutoLISP / .Net / etc. to make this simple for the users.

Starting with the title blocks and making printing simpler is a good step on your journey. I needed to do the same thing here when I started.

[Wanderer]

Hi all,
I basically have started a new position at a utility. I am a GIS/AutoCAD guy with a lot of experience with electrical/utility company's. The company I'm at now basically has autocad drawings from the mid-90's (as-builts) and some of those drawings have been used over the years for revisions and changes to equipment and facilities out in the field. The problem I'm running into (often), I've noticed that there has been no standard regarding the drawings. I'm talking about layers (not naming a germane and appropriate layer name), using lines in the drawing (I'm so used to polylines, I can't even wonder why we would use lines anymore), ALL OF THE TITLE BLOCKS FOR EVERY DRAWING ARE IN MODEL SPACE. So, when you measure the border of a title block - IT'S LITERALLY 300' LONG!

Does anyone have any advice on how should I proceed with my work? I'm working with electrical engineers and scale to them is inconsequential, hence the 300' long title blocks. I don't want to rock the boat, but I've been diligently setting up drawings a little more on modern way of doing things now (ie title block in paper space). It's just really a big culture shock to see a lot of work that's been done over the years that has been sub par, and continued on for so long.

Sorry for venting...

Yeah, I'm with Opie on this, try to make it as easy on them as possible.
That's similar to what I started with here. No paperspace and no consistency. Of course, with older drawings being updated, that's common, as well as having lines instead of plines, hatches showing as anonymous blocks, text instead of mtext or tables, sometimes having attributes, sometimes having exploded text that used to be attributes... the list goes on. It takes a long time to shake out a complicated setup like that, took me a few years, fixing things as I updated the drawing, or completely updating a frequently-used set.

[dgorsman]

Transitioning from full-size modelspace to scaled viewports in paperspace can really start to mess people up, especially with the annotation scaling thrown in. I'd save that for later, after standardizing layer naming, settings (BYLAYER!!!!), style settings, etc. which will make viewport adoption easier. Don't forget there may be procedural or client/subcontractor reasons for content being in model space - make sure you understand what the existing processes are before tinkering.

Don't forget about budgets either - while its "nice" to put drawings right, there isn't always time for it. Check the budget at the beginning and see if you can carve out a few extra hours to do basic drawing clean up. Keep expectations modest, both in results and amount of intended work.

And why all the hate for the simple line?

[reikajapan]

And why all the hate for the simple line?

I was wondering that myself. There are times when plines are best and times when lines are best, I lean more towards lines rather than plines so I wonder what I am missing?

[jaberwok]

... ALL OF THE TITLE BLOCKS FOR EVERY DRAWING ARE IN MODEL SPACE. So, when you measure the border of a title block - IT'S LITERALLY 300' LONG!

Well, that was SOP in the 70s but it shouldn't have been in the 90s.

[Iceberg]

Hi all,
ALL OF THE TITLE BLOCKS FOR EVERY DRAWING ARE IN MODEL SPACE. So, when you measure the border of a title block - IT'S LITERALLY 300' LONG!

I worked for a Civil Engineering firm a few years back who did the same thing. You brought and printed everything out in modelspace. I asked the CAD manager there if we could change it and he said no, so I had to deal with it. The other weird thing they did was draw in inches instead of the normal feet for civil projects. The combination of the two was interesting.

I would talk with the other CAD guys there, saying that you have some great ideas on how to make things better and to improve the CAD procedures. Start with one of the simpler things, like layers and get those established then move onto the more complex items that need to be revised. I have found that starting with something simply that people can understand and/or grasp quickly not only gets things moving in the right direction but also builds confidence in your CAD guys as to what you are trying to do.

Be prepared for some resistnace. Be patient and firm in your resolve to make things better and it will work out.

[Coloradomrg]

When I started here we had a decent set of written standards, custom toolbars, and a few lisp routines, drawings located on server, etc.

What we didn't have was anyone following the standards, and complete access for all users to modify the toolbars and/or lisp routines. We had users who weren't trained by the 'head' draftsman, users who didn't/couldn't use the tools they were given.

After about 2 years I took over the department, now13 years after I started I have very few problems with standards being followed. I've customized everything to the point that it is much harder to go outside of the intent of the standard than it is to just follow it.

Be prepared for lots of resistance. It will come from all directions, but if you make it easy and make solid recommendations then the resistance will slowly go away. I had resistance from the head drafter at first (didn't listen to anything from anyone anyway), then I had resistance from the partners of the firm (what is this going to cost me?) , and other users also gave some resistance (change sucks, the system works as it is). By taking it slow, incorporating user requests, and showing actual results (time and $$) reccomendations get approved and accepted much faster.

[gisdude]

Hey all thanks for all the valuable suggestions. I think the easiest route is probably doing the small things at first (ie layer naming and putting the right gear/equipment/facilities on the correct layer).

As far as model space and paper, I think that will probably be the hardest and last thing to do. I honestly believe there are some people in the office who don't understand the rationale for paper space and why scales matter.

Lines vs. plines? Well, since I use GIS and AutoCAD interchangeably, I frequently need lines to have a z-value (elevation) as part of it's attribute data because of some the topography and terrain models that need to be rendered for analytical work. Now it's more common not to have just 2-D polylines, but 3-D plines as well, for better breakline modeling. Up until now, I hadn't even used a line command in probably 5 or 6 years, however, I've found out that there is a proprietary software program that our utility uses that ONLY WILL RECOGNIZE LINES. That's why the lines! Who would have thought?

Again thanks for the advice and I'll take it a little slow on this one...

[pdstro]

I'm in a similar situation. When I started here in 2010, they were still using 2002 and was never shown what AutoCAD now had to offer. It was always to keep the same way of doing things from when they started using CAD. Now we are finally trying to update standards that were created in 1994. The philosophy is "this is how we've been doing it for 20 yrs, why change it." Problem is that some of the people have been here for 30-40 yrs and don't want to change. I was trying to make changes or introduce the idea to update & we now have a little standard committee. I wasn't allowed to make any changes before because it was "not my job" as I've been told several times.

We now have changes in our titleblocks and are working on layers, linetypes, & text styles. Trying to make the leap into paperspace as well. Slowly but surely progress is being made.

Keep up with your efforts as the changes will be made.