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 (http://www.necmitsubishi.com/press/PressDetail.cfm?document_id=881)

MULTIPLE MONITOR COMPUTING - In the very early stages of adoption. (http://www.multiplemonitors.org/Pages%20-%20about%20MMI/MMI%20-%20Multiple%20monitor%20industry.html)

[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!!!

[amy.stuart]

Okay i know this is an older thread but i am recharging it with a new question. We just got Dual Monitors and 1 user is opening 2 AutoCAD sessions to view 2 different layouts within the same drawing. Is there anyway that we can have 1 AutoCAD session open with 1 screen viewing layout A and the other screen viewing layout B?

Thanks.

[djenasni]

Hello,
Unfortunately the answer is no. I have been using dual monitors for a few months and have not found a way to do what you are asking with layout tabs.
Easy,
Chris R.

[Opie]

Okay i know this is an older thread but i am recharging it with a new question. We just got Dual Monitors and 1 user is opening 2 AutoCAD sessions to view 2 different layouts within the same drawing. Is there anyway that we can have 1 AutoCAD session open with 1 screen viewing layout A and the other screen viewing layout B?

Thanks.
How does the user open the same dwg in two different sessions of Autocad? Is one read only? If so, can he just open another instance of the same drawing within the same Autocad session? Not maximize the drawings, but stretch each window to fill each screen?

[amy.stuart]

How does the user open the same dwg in two different sessions of Autocad? Is one read only? If so, can he just open another instance of the same drawing within the same Autocad session? Not maximize the drawings, but stretch each window to fill each screen?

Yes he opens 2 sessions and one is read only. But he wants that not to be the case. Personal opinion would be that i would want 1 to be read only so that i know ALL changes get made on the 1 drawing and that i don't forget something. But personal opinion and it was a technical question that was asked so i thought i would find a more valid answer than "my personal opinion"

Thanks!!!

[christian.knudsen]

What i'm using, is having 2 viewports, stretch Autocad/ADT over both the monitors, then you should have one viewport in each monitor. Now you can choose different views/layouts as you like it..
This is a great thing to do while working in 3D. The left monitor is plan view, the right one is isometric view (3D).

This is of course one session,
And you may have to tweek your Graphic card settings, to be able to move across both monitors as if it was just one.

[mfowler]

Technically it can be done. Most drivers that come with dual-head video cards allow you to stretch your program over both monitors. What I sometimes do is to maximize my Autocad session over both monitors, open two drawing files in the same session (Land Enabled Map) and then position one drawing in each screen.

[Jason.Moore]

My company upgrades computers every three years, when they upgraded my station a few months ago there was talk about trying out dual monitors. (I put an article on My managers desk a few months ahead of time) so he naturally claimed it was his idea and ordered new 19" digital flat panel displays (soooo sweet), to run with our old 19" analog flat screens.

Only one problem, getting our computer supplier (Dull) to get us the right y-cable to run the blasted monitors. It took three tries. Finally I had to look the part up myself, and I found it on e-bay. but its finally up and running in dual mode. I keep my AutoCAD up on the left screen (digital) and keep outlook, excel and IE on the right (analog)

I dont care about credit for the idea. I wanted the dual display.

I know this is not for everyone. Some companies only upgrade systems when they have to do so. but its an idea to start with.

[Mustangman6799]

How would you live without dual monitors? We use ABS 2006 and a separate software for flying thru the model. I'm trying to get my bosses to get me an additional monitor so I have a total of three. One monitor for the AutoCAD screen, one for all of the toolbars and pallets and one for other programs. To be able to fly through a model identifying problems and adjust simply by moving your mouse from one screen to another.... I think I'm going to buy my own and see how well it works. I don't even know how much time I have saved by having my pallets open at all times. you just have to move your mouse over, select the tool that you want to use, go back to your drawing screen and start using it. even if you only saved two seconds every time you picked a tool how much time, which in turn means money, would you save over the course of a week? month? year? The point is, you can get a decent 19" LCD flat panel on sale anywhere for $150- $200 depending on what you "need" and that amount of money is EASILY recuperated very quickly in time savings alone. To me, dual monitors is a no brainer, you would have to be dense to not see the benefit.

[Mustangman6799]

Okay i know this is an older thread but i am recharging it with a new question. We just got Dual Monitors and 1 user is opening 2 AutoCAD sessions to view 2 different layouts within the same drawing. Is there anyway that we can have 1 AutoCAD session open with 1 screen viewing layout A and the other screen viewing layout B?

Thanks.


There is an easy way. You need to have a decent video card, preferably a 512mb card. NVidia GeForce 7900GTX is a good card to use like this. Install the card and hook up the monitors. There are programs out there... you can use the NVidia or ATI control center. When you install one of these programs there is an option in the settings that will allow you to maximize your window over both screens as opposed to just the one. You can still maximize on one monitor like usual, the control center just adds another icon up by the minimize, restore down/ maximize and close icons. When you have made it this far you can type "viewports" on the command line in CAD and that will allow you to split your drawing screen down the center into two separate views of the same working drawing. You are able to have one in plan and one in iso, one shaded one wireframe etc. Fairly simple. I tried it like this for about 10 minutes but I didn't like having the window separated and I didn't like having it spread over both monitors... but that's just me. Maybe give it a shot and see what you think.

[stelthorst]

I'm with bbrown (sorry don't know your name). I use ABS2007.1 and NavisWorks. It's great to be able to have both open at one time. This way I can draw something in ABS and then check it in the Navis file to make sure I don't have any conflicts. Also, I work on spreadsheets all the time and whether you're transferring data from a drawing to the spreadsheet or vice versa it's alot easier to do it with both programs open and visible at the same time.


As for the question posed by Amy. If I'm reading your post correctly the user is wanting to view two layouts at the same time. As far as I know there is no way to do this except the multiple instances of ACAD open at the same time method. If in fact they want to see multiple views than any of the suggestions made above will work.

The problem with trying to justify costs of two monitors is it's difficult to quantify. When I had to justify my monitors I estimated a 10% times savings by using two monitors. Where did I come up with that number? It was just a WAG but after getting the monitors I feel it was pretty close to reality.

Hope this helps