Better Revisions,Addendums 8.5x11

[FOUTJM]

Need way better tools to deal with Revisions.
painstakingly slow to do them now by duplicating views


this guy has a great idea.
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=50862&highlight=revisions+8.5x11

[david.kingham]

Try this...just plop the titleblock on top of your existing sheet...print to pdf or dwf, then delete the titleblock....

[dfriesen]

Try this...just plop the titleblock on top of your existing sheet...print to pdf or dwf, then delete the titleblock....
Hey, that's pretty slick! Thanks for sharing.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Very cool indeed. I might just borrow that one myself :beer:

[david.kingham]

No problem, we've used it on 5 or so projects now and it's worked really well

[dfriesen]

Try this...just plop the titleblock on top of your existing sheet...print to pdf or dwf, then delete the titleblock....
Ok, how do I fill in the Subject and Sketch number parameters? I'm assuming they're shared parameters, but I'm not sure how to get them to work once I've loaded and placed the titleblock on a sheet.

[dbaldacchino]

Great minds think alike ;) Actaully a great thanks to Autodesk support for the tip offered regarding the use of nested generic annotations and their order in the family editor vs in the project....

The key to this technique is to have the big masking titleblock cover the entire sheet at all times and then setting the print options to Center. We're using a raster image for our logo and the generic annotation gets hidden by the generic annotation family. As a workaround, the masking annotation family works it's way around our logo and then the jpg/png was sized in such a way to fill the entire area that the annotation family doesn't mask. Works awesome as you don't need to mess around creating new sheets etc....just fix the original documents, print the revision with this masking titleblock and you're done.

I really wish there was a way to scale a titleblock any given amount (I know I know, not desirable but handy in a situation when you want to issue a revision at a different scale, perhaps a random "NTS" or some other scale that doesn't match the original document scale). I've been creating double sized titleblocks to be printed at 50% in order to achieve this. You can/should use a Dependent view of an original document sheet view for this purpose; that way you keep a record within the project file without having to adjust the view's crop regions manually.

[jfreauff]

I've built a masking titleblock for our office based on David Kingham's posted revision titleblock. Pretty great, but what I cannot figure out is how you would get the masking widow to be flexible via handles in the final project insertion. That way you would not need to "type" out the window sizes. (Quite often we only want to show a small strip of work.) The best I have been able to do is chain the window dimension parameters through to the project insertion as instance parameters that you can simply fill out on the fly. This still takes a few guesses to get it right however.

I am assuming the problem is a result of inserting the mask generic annotation into the titleblock family as a symbol, but this seems to be the only way to do it....

Anyone else try this?

[david.kingham]

I was just starting to post that no you cannot have grips...then the lightbulb came on, you can add an invisible line in the titleblock and give it the same parameter that controls the wipeout, I did a quick test and it did work but I'll have to clean some things up before i post an example and it's getting late...hopefully this helps get you started though

[jfreauff]

Very clever,

I built it in and it works great. Bit of an issue with assumed relationships between the titleblock lines & the new invisible lines, but a few more locked dimensions solved it all.

Now that the mask need not be "typed out, I can in theory use the "types" to swap the mask component to get an "L" & "T" shaped dynamic mask, which should cover all of the usual masking requirements.

I'll post my version of this when I get the multiple mask shapes to work smoothly.

Thanks for your help.

[mthurnauer]

That is perfect and exactly what I was looking for. Thanks

[mthurnauer]

Daniel,
I had the same problem, but what worked for me was to add the shared parameters and then add them to my project. I had to go back to the title block and recreate the labels. After recreating them and loading it into my project it works fine.

[dfriesen]

Daniel,
I had the same problem, but what worked for me was to add the shared parameters and then add them to my project. I had to go back to the title block and recreate the labels. After recreating them and loading it into my project it works fine.
Ah, of course, that makes sense. Thanks!

[jfreauff]

Sorry everyone,

I got busy and forgot to post my versions of the title-blocks. I did not add the different shaped masks like I had hoped, (maybe someday...) but here are two versions I made, that are grip adjustable. This is great because you really only need one "type" definition that corresponds to your typical detail box size.

Please let me know if you find any problems with these, or if you see any way in which they might be improved via more features or simpler construction.

Hope they are helpful.

[djn]

Thanks for the great idea. I incoporated and on/off parameter for the filled region so I could place the titleblock on the sheet with the filled region off, get everything the way I wanted and then turned the filled region on when I want to plot.

[aargumaniz]

This is great thanks for sharing. I have downloaded the file and re-created it for our title block and it works, but when I go to print it's off centered. I tried looking for something that is off in space somewhere but I can't find anything. I'm trying to make a PDF of the title block while using the following settings: 1. Current View 2.100% Scale 3. Center the image on sheet.

Can anyone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,
Aracely

[david.kingham]

The key is that the filled region family absolutely must be centered in the lines of the titleblock that define the paper size. The horizontal reference line you have is not centered and the filled region is locked to this. Of course it's not as simple as moving the ref line down because you don't want the 'hole' to be centered on the paper, you want it centered in the usable area. Take a closer look at mine and you'll see the solution I came up with, which is creating separate parameters in the filled region family for the top and bottom height rather than just a height for the hole. Then I tied these parameters in the titleblock family with formulas that have offset parameters. Hopefully this rambling makes sense.

FYI I have replaced the file in my original post with an updated file that has the offsets

[FOUTJM]

so what do you do when the engineer asks you to go back to reprint addendum 3 thru 20 but change the date to blah blah and change the issuance to bid pack 4...you have to remake all those revisions?
we are just keeping every 8.5X11 sheet in the project file.

[david.kingham]

We simply hide the element (the titleblock) then if we need to re-issue, just hit reveal hidden elements and unhide it

[NKramer]

We simply hide the element (the titleblock) then if we need to re-issue, just hit reveal hidden elements and unhide it

We do the same a well as keep a PDF copy. This only gets complicated when you have multiple addendum borders on the same sheet. Once the addendum is issued and approved by the governing agency we go through and delete the addendum borders. This becomes a little easier if you create a new type for each addendum (which we do for addendum 1,2, etc but not for CD drawings).

Nick

[aargumaniz]

Thanks David for the help. I haven't had time to look at my title block yet,but I will dive into it today and try to solve my problem. If I don't succeed, then I will be asking for more help. By the way nice job on your title block, it looks very professional.

[mrice.47661]

Here's an issue that has been noticed with this approach:

When you mask out areas of a plan, you lose the ability to show grid bubbles (in plan) and level annotations (in elevation/section).

If you've been using the masking approach to sketches as described, how have you been handling this limitation? Presumably we all want to see the grid designations around the cropped area on a sketch.

[dbaldacchino]

With Structural drawings, this approach isn't ideal. We use this mostly with Architectural and MEP drawings as there are other things (room numbers, door numbers) to help the viewer get their bearings! But for Structural drawings, the only cue is the grid bubble. Our Structural group duplicates views as dependants and crops them as required for issuing revisions.

[amjones]

Mr. Kingham,

Wow...very very cool. I just spent a few minutes getting it up and running for my firm. Works like a charm. And the the 'Blank' setting is terribley handy for sheets with multiple sketches on them...not sure if that is your intent or not but it's great :) Before I hide my sketch titleblock I make sure I change it to 'Blank' (i.e. 'Without the Mask'). This allows me to see what the hell I am doing should I need to turn any one of them (or anything else for that matter) back on again.

Once again...very slick...thank you.

Drew

[thill.149764]

Prolly way late, but 2 questions

1. how do you identify each sketch (i.e. number the various titleblocks) so they can be referenced in the addendum?

2. seems imperfect for setting up the sketch and then working on it later. am I missing something. Like say you make changes to A101 the day after bid docs are released, then 2 days later you change something on A102, A103, A104 & A105. then the next day, you have to change A101 again. so you need to go through the process of turning the titleblock on and remembering where it is, etc, etc? and what woul dbe the number of the sketch?

[patricks]

I must be missing something but, how do I keep the rest of the drawing from overlapping stuff on the side of my title block? I placed a masking region in the title block family and loaded it, but the floor plan appears to be in front of the title block mask.

Also, how do I "plop" a title block onto a floor plan? I can create a sheet view with a title block, but if I delete it, how do I place a different one? I don't see title blocks listed under families in the Project Browser.

[rdaniel]

The only way I know how to insert a titleblock is to drag it from the browser. It is under annotation symbols in the file tree.

The filled region must be inside of a generic annotation family and then loaded into the titleblock family.

[ParagonChris]

We have got the sketches to work great with the masked region. The only problem we run into is if we have more than one revision on a sheet. We are using a shared parameter for the addendum number and a shared parameter for the sketch number. The parameters are set to instance. If I label one of the sketches it labels the other one the same thing. Is the correct? What can I do to fix this?

[NKramer]

We have got the sketches to work great with the masked region. The only problem we run into is if we have more than one revision on a sheet. We are using a shared parameter for the addendum number and a shared parameter for the sketch number. The parameters are set to instance. If I label one of the sketches it labels the other one the same thing. Is the correct? What can I do to fix this?

We have the same issue. apparently instance parameters don't work for multiple title blocks on the same sheet view. As for the work around you print one out and then the other or use opaque text. Nothing great though, still waiting for a good way to issue supplementary drawings and don't suggest the cad converter that supposedly does this. That only archives drawings not prep or allow for a real supplementary drawing.

Nick

[dbaldacchino]

Parameters are instance-based on the View, not on the titleblock. That's the main problem. We also cannot add shared parameters to Annotation families within the project environment. If that was possible, then you could type in the value you wanted, but it would not be a View parameter.

If you place 5 titleblock instances, you can only have one "Drawn By" value. In practice that doesn't work. To a certain extent if that parameter changed, in a linear workflow you could have John draw Sketch 1 and Jane do Sketch 2. If you print Sketch 1 first, you can then change the name to Jane and print sketch 2. However that changes the titleblock's parameter for Sketch 1 since it's the same parameter, so you cannot rely on Revit for revision record keeping. Plotting to PDF is the only way to literally freeze a drawing (or print to paper). Unless you want to have a unique titleblock for each person with their initials typed in as text in the family and making sure they use the correct one. It's just too much work and in my opinion, not elegant at all.

[hart]

We do use multiple sketch titleblocks in sheet views without having unique titleblocks but instead insert a generic annotation family that has labels for all the items that are different from titleblock to titleblock. That means we have to edit each generic annotation family, which in our case has five labels that consist of Item Ref, Drawn By, Checked By, Sketch Name, and Sketch Number. We can load as many sketch titleblocks as we want and then insert the Generic Annotation family for each titleblock and edit labels as required, group the titleblock and family together in case they need to get moved so that they move together. Each group does need to be a unique name but it seems to be working for us so far.

[ckeelor]

Our firm has a slightly different approach:

1. create the revision in the original plan and cloud/tag it.
2. add a new sheet with an 8.5x11 frame
3. crop the revised plan temporarily
4. export the revised plan to a TIFF
5. insert the TIFF into the new 8.5x11 sheet, print to pdf and send out.

No, the bulletin drawing isnt live, but it doesnt need to be.

This way, the revision is saved in the project and there is no reason to mess with duplicate views and no reason to mess with duplicate section cuts that arise from duplicating views. Plus, it's really easy to train the staff to do it.

Should we need to revise the bulletin drawing, we just go back to step 1 and delete our tiff.

Eliminates a lot of the headaches we were experiencing with the other methods.

[kingjosiah]

....insert the TIFF into the new 8.5x11 sheet.....

What impact are all these linked images having on your file performance? The thought of the file size and speed with (potentially) hundreds of linked RFIs/bulletins/etc. scares me.

- Jon

[ckeelor]

King,
It hasnt become a problem, yet. However, it's probably based on the nature of the work we do, which tend to be small to mid size projects.

We are also running 64 bit Windows 7 machines, with 8GB.

If it does become a problem, it is just as easy to delete the TIFF's, but maintain the drawing frame in the project, since we always have a pdf record. Keep in mind, we have modified the model itself, too, to create the image. We could also switch to jpg's.

I know the whole thing sounds backwards, but it has been much less of a headache. We dont need our bulletin drawings to be live, as long as our drawing set stays live and we maintain records.

[patricks]

Our firm has a slightly different approach:

1. create the revision in the original plan and cloud/tag it.
2. add a new sheet with an 8.5x11 frame
3. crop the revised plan temporarily
4. export the revised plan to a TIFF
5. insert the TIFF into the new 8.5x11 sheet, print to pdf and send out.

No, the bulletin drawing isnt live, but it doesnt need to be.

This way, the revision is saved in the project and there is no reason to mess with duplicate views and no reason to mess with duplicate section cuts that arise from duplicating views. Plus, it's really easy to train the staff to do it.

Should we need to revise the bulletin drawing, we just go back to step 1 and delete our tiff.

Eliminates a lot of the headaches we were experiencing with the other methods.

Hey this sounds like a really good method. I may have to take this "to the masses" (all 2 other Revit users in our office :mrgreen: ) and see if they'll go for this.

I was about to ask the question of what if you have an ASI 1 sheet with a revision to an existing drawing, but then the next one, ASI 2, is an entirely new detail to clarify something? I was thinking with the other methods listed above, you wouldn't have all the ASI sheets in the PB, but if you use an image of the drawings then you'll still have all the sheets listed in the PB so that a user will know which number comes next.

*edit* Any particular reason for using TIFF files? Do you find those to be the best compromise of both image quality for an architectural drawing and file size?

[jsr13]

This post is exactly what I have been looking for!
I intend on trying a couple of these & adopting one of them very soon.

Questions:
I just installed the new version (RST 2011) on our computers. Does anyone have any insight pertaining to the new software that would give one of the methods you've been talking about a clear advantage over the others? I ask because this thread started over 4 years and a few releases ago.

Does anyone know if Autodesk has made any headway into eventually incorporating a "sketch-issuing-tool" into the software? Every firm that I know of in every discipline has to issue post-CD sketches for almost every project. It just seems like this is something that should be well past the "workaround" stage. It would be nice to be able to move this from the Wishlist category, though.

[dbaldacchino]

Nothing has changed really. You now can turn any view into a jpg or some other format but I wouldn't recommend keeping a lot of these image files in the project as it will bloat it. We use a version of the titleblock in this post. I'll go ahead and post a more updated one. We have multiple orientations and sizes (like a double size so we can print at 50%). The latter is useful when you have a 1/8" drawing for example and you want to issue at 1/16" scale instead to fit more on a page. Also notice the parameter "Permanent Revision Sheet", which swops the sheet number to an editable one so you can use a number that has already been used in the set. This was required since Structural creates new sheets whereas Arch. just place this titleblock on an existing sheet and go from there. Arch drawings can be located easily as there are numerous door and room tags, however Struct drawings only have grid bubbles to gt you oriented, so if there's a change in the middle of a sheet you wouldn't be able to easily tell where it goes. Thus they create new views and permanent sheets, which show the grid bubbles.

The attached titleblock also has "crop" handles on the inside of the crop region. I took the logo off. You would need to place a png of your company logo with the same size as the box so it also acts as a mask.

[Errolowl]

We can load as many sketch titleblocks as we want and then insert the Generic Annotation family for each titleblock and edit labels as required, group the titleblock and family together in case they need to get moved so that they move together. Each group does need to be a unique name but it seems to be working for us so far.

I built groups for our SK sheets and it works perfectly. Each group consists of the titleblock and generic annotation, and these groups are pre-loaded into our template.
We make our revisions/ clouds on the main sheet, drag in the SK group, save it as a duplicate with the name of the SK as the name of the duplicate group. We can then edit group to adjust masking, add extra symbols like north arrows/ fake grid bubbles, etc. This approach also gives us a list of the SK sheets in the project by looking under groups in the project browser.

Printing is easy if you always do it at 100%. We line up the bottom left corner of the SK title block with the bottom left of our screen, then print "visible portion of current view" at 100% on the correct size sheet. Works like a charm and the current view on the screen doesn't even have to coincide with the required extents.

We then hide the group in the view once we print the SK.

[FOUTJM]

started this post in 05. we are still doing revisions by creating duplicate views and when they become to big in the browser we will filter the sheets with an added parameter to keep things cleaned up. never did catch on to the "create it one time and then delete the titleblock method" we have too many changes to changes sometimes. but i have to say, all in all, we have become accustomed to doing it and it's really not a complaint of mine anymore. it would be nice to have a new method for single drafted details(duplicate as revision?) but we will continue to use the old tried and true method. even with its little flaws Revit blows Autocad out of the water every single time.

[sgray05]

Hey guys,
So I have been trying to work through all this as we develop our title block for issuing addendums. I got everything working with our standard sheet layout with one glitch. I used jfreauff's post as a template and revised the line work to reflect our standards, I added some Labels from the list of given parameters. for example - date, revision sheet number. revision descriptions.
When I load the titleblock into the main project these items don't show up at all. no question marks, no editable fields, nothing.
Am I missing something? any help will be great.
Thanks

[NKramer]

The labels also need to be loaded into the project as shared parameters. Also, sometimes the labels are turned off or possibly controlled by another parameter (if the label was copied instead of a new one created). Just a few thoughts. It would help if you post your trouble shooting efforts to date and possibly the file.

[Joshua Kohl]

I love this idea of using a masking titleblock. AWESOME!!

Is there a way to have more than one of these masking TB's on a sheet view while also having different SK numbers for each one? I would like to be able to just hide each sketch TB in the sheet view instead of having to delete them if I end up with more than one in a view.

If you have your SK Number parameter as a shared parameter and it's listed under the SHEETS category it will be the same for each sheet in that view.

[Errolowl]

Is there a way to have more than one of these masking TB's on a sheet view while also having different SK numbers for each one?

If you have your SK Number parameter as a shared parameter and it's listed under the SHEETS category it will be the same for each sheet in that view.

Our trick is to just have the SK number as a text parameter. Then you can have as many as you want with different numbers on a sheet. We never delete them when we are done, just hide in view.
We name the title block groups with the SK number and a brief description so we can see a running list in our browser under "groups".

[Joshua Kohl]

Our trick is to just have the SK number as a text parameter. Then you can have as many as you want with different numbers on a sheet. We never delete them when we are done, just hide in view.
We name the title block groups with the SK number and a brief description so we can see a running list in our browser under "groups".

I have mine as a text parameter under the sheets category.

Do you mean as an actual piece of text (not a parameter) that is just placed overtop of the masking titleblock in the appropriate location?

[Errolowl]

I have mine as a text parameter under the sheets category.

Do you mean as an actual piece of text (not a parameter) that is just placed overtop of the masking titleblock in the appropriate location?

Yes. The family is very basic and the other items are text in the project file. The family and the text are grouped together so they stay together. See attached family.

[mleinback]

David:

In my firm, we are looking at using your "Titleblock Neenan 8.5x11 SKA.rfa" in Revit 2014. My guys tell me that the masking region does work, or maybe doesn't even exist. Can you comment?

Thanks,
Mike


Try this...just plop the titleblock on top of your existing sheet...print to pdf or dwf, then delete the titleblock....

[mleinback]

Oops, that should have read, "the masking region does NOT work...."

[Joshua Kohl]

David:

In my firm, we are looking at using your "Titleblock Neenan 8.5x11 SKA.rfa" in Revit 2014. My guys tell me that the masking region does work, or maybe doesn't even exist. Can you comment?

Thanks,
Mike

Try using a white filled region in place of the masking region.

[dbaldacchino]

Here's the same version I posted back in the days, updated to work properly again in Revit 2014. Something changed in the automatic sketch dimensions and constraining behavior and the bottom "crop" handle stopped working correctly in Revit 2013 (worked fine up to Revit 2012).

[Cabotage]

Errolowl -

I really like the idea behind your solution because of the way it doesn't create a bunch of duplicated views and new sheets, but I'm having trouble getting it to print correctly. When I go to print, I make sure the title block is placed at the bottom left hand portion of the screen. Inside the print dialog box I select "Visible portion of current window" with Zoom set to 100%. I am using Revit 2014 and am blown away that they still don't have a "Print to Window" command like in ACAD.

How have you been able to get these sketch layouts to print correctly?

Thanks

[julianmandrade]

I downloaded and modified but I can't get it to print correctly... Perhaps I changed something while editing. See attached.

[Cabotage]

OK. We've figured out how to get these sketch titleblock overlays to print correctly.
The first step is to make sure the masking region (actually a solid white filled region surrounding the sketch area) is a very large square. We use 4'x4' to make sure it completely covers the sheet underneath. Make sure the extents of this massive masking region is centered exactly on your sketch titleblock (this will ensure proper printing later). The solid filled region and titleblock should both be in the same family.
Make sure the Print Range is set to "Current window" (not "Visible portion of current window").
Make sure under Settings that Paper Placement is set to "Center". With the large white mask being the outermost geometry, Revit will center to that, meaning your sketch will center on the printed layout.
Make sure Zoom is set to 100% (do not fit to page).
The resulting print will center the sketch titleblock on the page and print at true scale.

It would be great if we could find a way to place these sketch titleblocks in the Project Browser in such a way that their numbering sequence is not only viewable, but also if they could be recalled easily (like a Go to View type of command). Making them Groups will probably work for now, but it doesn't seem to offer much besides creating a running list in the Browser. Even having them feed to an internal schedule with their various parameters reporting would be a huge help (perhaps listing Sketch #, Sketch Name, Date, Scale, and perhaps most importantly, which sheet they're placed on). For now I think we'll just be hiding the sketch titleblocks once the PDF of the sketch has been generated. We'll have to refer to the PDF to determine what the referencing sheet for the sketch is if we happen to need to find it again.

[charlie_76543]

I have tried using this family in 2013. The titleblock shows up over the drawings, but the masking region does not mask anything, it is clear. Suggestions?

[cholden]

I have just started as BIM manager at a firm and am setting these titleblocks up. I am having trouble getting the image to show up in front of the masking region. I have tried copy to clipboard and repaste a raster image, placing it in a detail group, creating a generic annotation out of it....nothing is working. Is there something I am missing?

[cholden]

I gave up and just cut a hole around my image logo. it works just fine.

[Jmhanby]

With Structural drawings, this approach isn't ideal. We use this mostly with Architectural and MEP drawings as there are other things (room numbers, door numbers) to help the viewer get their bearings! But for Structural drawings, the only cue is the grid bubble. Our Structural group duplicates views as dependants and crops them as required for issuing revisions.

I was told not to use duplicate views as dependents but not told why. I see this so far to be the easiest way for our firm however this is our first project and want to get it right.