Markups Export Option

[kknauss]

Description: This would allow all remarks made to a DWF using Composer to be exported out, let's say as a Word document.

How Used: This would allow the remarks and comments to be issues to team members, consultants or clients as perhaps an email attachment for a quick-glance of the issues and corrections needed for a project drawing set.

Feature Affinity: DWF Composer Markups

[BCrouse]

What version of DWF Composer do you have? Please look at this thread to see if this will hope Try downloading this trail version.

Autodesk DWF Composer

Thank you,

Brad

[chris.blocher]

Hi,

The ability to save a summary of all DWF file markup properties to a CSV file was added to Design Review 2010.

The CSV file format would allow you to open the list of markups in many products, including Microsoft Word.

Best,

C.

[jjsimon]

Chris,

I appreciate the option to export reviewers comments from a Design Review file to a CSV.

You mention, "The CSV file format would allow you to open the list of markups in many products, including Microsoft Word." Is one of the products Design Review itself?

Basically, I want to know if I can combine comments from multiple-reviewers into a single copy of the DWF that they all marked up that can be distributed to the design team?

We cannot practically have the reviewers working off the same file as they may be adding their comments to the dwf simultaneously and we would not be able to handle the transmission and version-management of large, multi-page and complex dwf files.

Thanks,

Joe

[chris.blocher]

Hi Joe,

At this time, I don't know of any way for Design Review to "roundtrip" the CSV file. The feature's intent was to export only. If my understanding is correct, the workflow behind the feature was to provide a generic format that could be "consumed by a system" either for storage or so that some kind of tracking reports could then be generated.

I can, however, see a VERY manual workflow. For example, I'd start by exporting the markups from each reviewer for each review cycle.

Then I'd compile each CSV file into a single file, like an Excel workbook for instance. (I prefer Excel because it's easy for me to work with the raw information.) Because Design Review can't really identify an actual person's comment (all notes just get put into the History column), some human review would be necessary to pick out actual comments.

Once I've made the date more readable in Excel, I'd print the Excel file with all the reviewer comments as a DWF file (using the DWF Writer) to generate a "comprehensive list" of markups for that review cycle.

Then I'd drag that list DWF file back into the List View palette of the DWF file being reviewed. This workaround would you get a compiled "list" of all the markups.

If you want the actual markups themselves, you'd have to drag the marked up sheets from the reviewer's copy into the "Master" copy of the DWF file.

If you have time, could you provide an "ideal workflow" that would work for your review process? I can make sure it get's reviewed by the product team.

Best,

Chris

[jjsimon]

Chris,

Thanks for the response and the thoughts.

With regard to the "manual" option you described, I had considered that but unfortunately, the CSV file does not maintain the actual markups so comments related to an arrow pointed at a specific element will be hard to comprehend by the design team and lose the great value of being able to "import" back into Revit that Design Review offers.

The solution I know of at this point is to simply link all the individual marked-up DWF files into Revit individually, "combining" the comments in that form. Unfortunately, this is extremely data-intensive and limits us from maintaining a comprehensive set of mark-ups for each stage of the design process. Also, as our design team is separate from the reviewing office, it would involve sending 7-8 100+ mb files to each team and asking them to combine it into their Revit file.

Could you describe how one can drag the mark-ups from the reviewers copy into the master file? I have tried to do this, but Design Review does not seem to allow this process. If this is possible, I think we may be able to make that work for our team, despite it being a somewhat manual process.

Basically, an ideal workflow description.

1.) Our design team produces a set of construction documents and exports a DWF.
2.) All our reviewers (Code, architectural, electrical, mechanical, QC & drafting standards, etc) receive the DWF and make their markups as required throughout the CD set - often multiple reviewers have comments for a single page.
3.) Reviewers "export" comment files from their DWF and send the small mark-up only file to the main office
4.) Main office compiles all reviewers comments and markups into a single DWF providing a comprehensive review document that shows all issues at once in a single file
5.) Marked-up DWF is "imported" back into Revit for updating and correction

As a comparison of the process we have used in the past, the Adobe Acrobat - Comments>"Export Comments to Data File" (FDF) and then the responsive "Import Comments" option allows us to combine the reviewers comments and allows the reviewers to send very small FDF files back to the main office instead of the entire PDF.

Thanks again for taking the time to review this request.

Joe

[m20roxxers]

Nice comments joe I agree completely with that workflow.

I would also add it would be nice to run a collaboration effort similar to the Navis system in XP that allowed multiple people over the internet to markup simultaniously on a DWF and have the results saved in a central location.

Project Butterfly is a nice start but I believe the real power of these types of apps will come from the capabilties of nwd and dwf markup formats.

[chris.blocher]

Regarding collaboration efforts, have you tried the Freewheel option in Design Review? It's been around a couple releases now. It enables you to share DWF files for collaborative reviews.

See "Save a DWF File to Freewheel" in the Design Review Help file for more information.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Best,

Chris

[chris.blocher]

Hi Joe,

Regarding your request to drag "mark-ups from the reviewers copy into the master file", the workflow isn't very different than you described.

1.) Send the exported DWF to the reviewers.
2.) Reviewers receive the DWF and make their markups.
3.) Reviewers return their marked up DWF (they could also just return the markedup sheets rather than the entire DWF.)
4.) Someone can compile all marked up sheets from reviewers into a single DWF providing a comprehensive review document that shows all issues at once in a single file. (Tip: As you add the markedup sheets, it may be helpful to rename the sheets, appending the reviewers initials, for example, to the sheet name to keep things more organized.)
5.) Marked-up DWF is "imported" back into Revit for updating and correction

See the Help file and search for "Combine DWF Files" for details about how to bring all the markedup sheets into one DWF file.

Hope it helps,

Chris