Is making a Key Plan really that hard?

[dgraue]

How are you putting Key Plans on your sheets? I have a large multistory building and need to show enlarged plans on multiple sheets for each level. I need to drop a Key Plan on each enlarged plan sheet to show the location in the building the plan occurs by shadding that area of the Key Plan. The only way I can figure to do this is to duplicate a region filled drafting view a dozen times to drop onto each sheet or to print a pdf of the Key Plan and make it into a Jpg in Photoshop and import the Jpg image onto the sheet.

A Key Plan is as basic a need to drawing sheets as is a north arrow. That said, I guess I could create a generic family for each Key Plan and bring that in. But, the drawback here is that you can not bring in the outline of your project into the generic family...so you will need to draw its profile from scratch.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.
DG

[david.kingham]

I first export to dwg, delete what i dont want to see in the dwg, then import that into a legend, put a filled region where you want to shade, have to create a different legend for each shaded area but at least not for each sheet

[Firmso]

Will inserting the plans under Legend work? Just like cretaing any other legend.

[dgraue]

Legends...good idea. That will work nicely.
Thanks David.

[eldad]

A simple way is to create a generic annotation family, more or less the shape of your building if you like, than just create field regions with yes/no parameter you can turn on and off according to your location

that way you create one family you can reuse. I tried to upload the family but our much loved (not) mime sweeper is stopping me
email me if you want it

[dbaldacchino]

I'm doing it similar to Eldad...Generic Annotation nested in a titleblock family (we show the keyplan on each sheet on the left, outside the drawing area). I did a Print Screen of my floor plan, saved it to a jpg, inserted it in the border family and scaled it down to about 3" or so. Then I traced over and did filled regions and letters to designate the areas, and used Yes/No parameters to control visibility. I saved this family and inserted it in the border family. Then I tied the visibility parameters to others I created in the border. By default I left all filled regions turned off so when you create a new sheet, you get a clean keyplan showing all areas, but none is hatched. Then you select the border properties and turn on the area you want. Works like a charm.

[patricks]

Originally Posted by dbaldacchino

I'm doing it similar to Eldad...Generic Annotation nested in a titleblock family (we show the keyplan on each sheet on the left, outside the drawing area). I did a Print Screen of my floor plan, saved it to a jpg, inserted it in the border family and scaled it down to about 3" or so. Then I traced over and did filled regions and letters to designate the areas, and used Yes/No parameters to control visibility. I saved this family and inserted it in the border family. Then I tied the visibility parameters to others I created in the border. By default I left all filled regions turned off so when you create a new sheet, you get a clean keyplan showing all areas, but none is hatched. Then you select the border properties and turn on the area you want. Works like a charm.

so you create different title blocks for every project? We don't do that, we have one titleblock for each sheet size and just put in the project info on each project.

On my last big project I also did a keyplan as a generic annotation with yes/no parameters on the different filled areas. Then I placed one, and pasted same place to get them in the exact same spot on every plan sheet, and then adjusted the yes/no parameters for each instance. I think it worked pretty well. As far as the building outline, it was fairly simple and I was able to approximate it just by drawing lines freehand in the generic annotation family editor.

[eldad]

I don't have it as part of the title block, but you could duplicate the title block and insert when needed... many ways to skin a cat

[dbaldacchino]

No, we have our standard title block. Then we have to "customize it" with client's logo, (school districts), consultant logos etc just once, at the beginning of the project. All I do is nest the symbol (generic annotation) inside the border and connect it to the A, B, C, D, E (instance parameters) etc. that designate the plan areas (each of these areas fits on an AP sheet @ 1/8" scale). It doesn't matter if this is done at the end of DD as it'll show up on all created sheets. The user just has to turn on the right areas for each sheet.

As I said, by default when you create a new sheet and select the titleblock, the keyplan comes in with all filled regions turned off. All the user does then is select the border, go to properties and check the area that the sheet pertains to and the hatch region turns on.

[ford347]

Would any of you mind posting an image of what you are explaining and how the key plan actually looks. I am trying to adapt new methods for our firm, and since our projects don't exceed a certain size most of the time, I am always interested in how larger firms do things. Just curious.