Project Navigator Newbie

[dzatto]

Okay, I've been reading up on it, and it's a bit confusing. One question comes to mind, though. I'm drawing a commercial building in 3D (walls, doors, windows, roof). It is slow to load and work in. I noticed that when you set up constucts, you have one for the exterior wall (each floor), the roof, the slab, etc. Then, drag all the constructs into a 3D composite model. Does this make the drawing run smoother? In other words, I am now drawing in model space with 3 view ports. One for top, one for an elevation view, and one in perspective set to realistic so I can see what the finished model looks like as I'm designing it. Just to stretch a wall or 3D orbit to another view, it lags big time. Will using the PN cure this, or is that just a reality of a 3D drawing?

Oh yeah, I'm on ADT 2007, about to load up ACA 2008.

One other thing comes to mind. I also do 3D renderings by drawing a 3D model in ADT and linking it to Viz. The 3D model is strictly for the rendering. I opened up an old 3D rendering model I did in another version (can't remember exactly which one) and it ran super smooth in 3D. Any idea why?

[david_peterson]

Their may be a few reasons as to why your old model ran faster. Depending on how old it was, there may not have been as much data in the drawing. As for PN, It's not going to make your composite model run that much better, but it helps with load speed for plans and elevations. One other thing to notice, is that ADT is kind of a 2.5D modeling tool. When you save a composite model in a 3d view, notice that the file size is much larger than if you save it in a plan view. In a stright on view, ADT/ACA thinks of the drawing as a 2d element and only draw that section of it. The idea behing PN was really to allow more poeple to work on the same project and try to cut down on the file size. Kind of like the inventor type approach. You create a bunch of smaller pieces and x-ref them all together.

[dzatto]

Okay, that makes sense. If I'm the only one designing and drawing, is it worth it to setup all my existing typical drawings using PN? I may hire another draftsperson in the future, but I've always set it up so that one person handles a whole project. Sounds like I shouldn't worry about PN. What do you think?

[david_peterson]

The other aspect that PN dose add is a better sence of file management; Or at least more complex. I don't think I'd change over your old models, but as you create new ones (copies of the existing) you may want to test it out at least once. Paul Aubin has a nice FREE download (http://www.paulaubin.com/resources.php) on his website (Chapter 5 under ADT 2005 of his book) that gives you a great perspective on how PN should be used along with the Philosiphy of it. Rules of engagement if you would.

[dzatto]

I've already downloaded it! I'm trying to get the boss to get me a laptop so I can do a lot of this at home, after hours. It's hard to check out new things when work is piling up.

[dzatto]

Okay, I'm slowly making my way around PN. Man, is it ever a different way of looking at your drawings. This is a silly question, but is there any way to screw it up? I mean, if it's looking correct on paper, and correct in model views, then it's pretty much correct, right? I'd hate to continue on this path, get to the end, then realize I screwed up in step 2.

Another question. The building I'm working on is a lube center. There is an waiting area on the finished floor, with an office above. Floor to floor is around 9'. Here's the question, in the bay, the overhead doors are 12' tall. Usually, I just show my upstairs office plans without showing the bays, since they are technically on the first floor. Do I now draw them as spanning constructs, or just show them on the first floor plan? I have the same question about the wall above the doors. The eve height is 17', but I dont want to show that on the upstairs plans. Is it okay to leave all that as part of the first floor, even though the elevation is so high?

Hope that's not too confusing. As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

[david_peterson]

Hi Dan,
I see you've now joined the PGA :lol:.
Well If you just keep in mind the basic rules of

If it exists after the building is constructed it's a construct. ie if you look at the building you don't see text on the floor.
If it's text it goes in the view.
Remember that spaces exsit in the building.
Only exception to the rule is the column grid. Even though you don't see the column lines/tags after it's up, they still exist in theory.On the Modeling side of "where do you split the building", My practice is model it how it's built. If you have a 17' high wall, draw it 17' tall. As for if it shows up on the second floor plan, well it should. If you run the cake knife (cut plane) through the building, you see it, right? So it should be there. If the door is 14' tall, you'll still see the opening. If the contractor gets confused by this after he looks at the elevations and sections, he shouldn't be a contactor.
I hope this helps, if you have more questions, let us know.

[dzatto]

Hi Dan,
I see you've now joined the PGA :lol:.
Well If you just keep in mind the basic rules of

If it exists after the building is constructed it's a construct. ie if you look at the building you don't see text on the floor.
If it's text it goes in the view.
Remember that spaces exsit in the building.
Only exception to the rule is the column grid. Even though you don't see the column lines/tags after it's up, they still exist in theory.On the Modeling side of "where do you split the building", My practice is model it how it's built. If you have a 17' high wall, draw it 17' tall. As for if it shows up on the second floor plan, well it should. If you run the cake knife (cut plane) through the building, you see it, right? So it should be there. If the door is 14' tall, you'll still see the opening. If the contractor gets confused by this after he looks at the elevations and sections, he shouldn't be a contactor.
I hope this helps, if you have more questions, let us know.
That certainly cleared up a few things. The only reason I didn't show the walls for the bay on the second floor plan was a space issue. I can fit the finished floor and the mezzanine plan on the same sheet by just showing the bays on the finished floor plan. Otherwise, it's an extra sheet for the floor, MEP, etc. As far as contractors and supers being confused...........well............we'll just leave that one alone for now! ;)

BTW, If I was good enough to be on tour, well, you know the rest.........................:)
Thanks for the input.
AHHHHHH just had a thought. I'll go ahead and draw it for the sake of the actual drawing being correct, but I can easily "shrink" my viewport to just show the top floor, and maybe half of the first door. That should work. Maybe........hopefully........we'll see.

[dzatto]

Dang it, I'm confused already. Okay, if you have a 30' tall building with 3 stories, are you supposed to draw the exterior walls 30' tall? I thought you drew the first floor 10', then another construct for the second, then the third. Then,when you do elevations and sections, the program just puts it all together. Is that not right?

[david_peterson]

Ok, There's 2 differnt lines of thought on the subject of exterior. The way Paul Aubin tells it you draw the exterior as one construct with walls that span from bottom to top. That construct then gets attached to each level. You can do the same with a stair tower or a shaft. The other method is to spit it as either floor line or horiz joint lines. If you draw the exterior floor by floor you may end up with extra horiz lines in your elevations that you don't want. So basically you split the interior and exterior of the building and let the program clean up the wall intersections. (FYI I'm a structure guy so I've not done this, but this was the method I was taught) Don't worry about the viewport. Make the model view (The view file) the size you want and the program will take care of that as well.
If have more questions, fire away.

[dzatto]

If have more questions, fire away.
You sure about that?!!??
Thanks for the help, I'm sure I'll run into more trouble down the road. Here's one: how do you set up the links in you title block to automatically fill in? I basically modified an OOTB title block, but I don't really like it. Most of the fields fill in, but some don't.

Oh, one more thing......(hahaha you asked for it!)...............okay, I have all my constructs and everything pointed to my network folder for this job, but I can't get my project path to change. It's still pointing to my local drive. Any ideas? Do I even need to worry about it?

[dzatto]

Geez, we could do this all day. Okay, another problem arose. I changed my exterior constucs to a single exterior construct, that I was going to span across each level. Problem is, won't all my exterior windows be part of that construct as well? If so, the sill height won't be from the upstairs office elevation, but from the finished floor. So instead of a 1' sill height, it will be a 10' sill height. That will be a problem on my schedules.

[david_peterson]

Well for the title block what I've usually done is create a block of feilds. I insert them and then burst them. I'm not a fan of 1 title block for all projects. I think they should be project specific. Some of the fields are based on the project info, others are "custom" fields. You can add this "custom" data to the project info. My first guess is that bacause your project info sounds like it's located on your local drive, and the drawings are on the network, that may be causing the issue.
Can you tell me how you set up the fields and which ones are working. Those things kind of take a little tinkering to figure out some times.
You should, and I mean should be able to change the "project location" via the project info, i think.
On your question of windows, Yes it will screw that up if you have it set up to automatically give the sill height. Of coure you could also add in a custom piece of x-data that you could fill (you'd have to do it for each window in order to work) that gives the sill height. Plus it won't update if you change it, so you'd have to do it the OLD way, Manually :shock:.
Their may be away around it, but I'm not the one that would know.
Hope this helps.

[dzatto]

Here's another problem I have with PN. I'm sure there's a fix.

On some projects, I have multiple floor plans (or sites, or elevations, etc). When an owner or the city makes changes, I rename the floor plan and add a number. So floor is the first generation; the owner adds a bay, it becomes floor 1 and so on. I have one job that I'm up to floor 32! Anyway, the reason I do this is because the second I don't save a change, the owner will want to go back to the previous plan. Or my boss will want to see every change, or someone will want a previous plan of something.

How do I do this in PN? If I change the floor and save it as floor 1, won't that mess up every link throughout the whole project? Hmm, I might need to keep floor as the current one, then number the older ones, but what happens when the owner says (and this happens all the time) "what do you mean it will cost an extra $30,000.00 to add 10' to my office area? Go back to the previous plan." Then all my links are shot once again.

Any suggestion?

[Steve_Bennett]

That might be a use for divisions. Use a division for the revision number.

[dzatto]

That might be a use for divisions. Use a division for the revision number.
Thanks for the tip. I'll look into it. :beer:

[dzatto]

Steve,
Where can I find some information on using Divisions as revisions? Couldn't I also just create another construct, then detach the old one and attach the new one to my view, thereby keeping both plans?

[Steve_Bennett]

Steve,
Where can I find some information on using Divisions as revisions? Couldn't I also just create another construct, then detach the old one and attach the new one to my view, thereby keeping both plans?I believe David Peterson has done that, although I could be mistaken. Check with him perhaps? I'm drawing a blank on this one for some reason.

[david_peterson]

I've never done divisions for revisions. I believe that Paul Aubin mentioned this potential use during a training session. If you read up on divisons in his book he talks about using division for new & exising. Well after we stamp a set of drawings they kind of are existing and any changes are new. Or at least that's how I think of it. If I think of anything else I'll try to post back. I seem to remember this topic posted here once before, but it was a while ago.

[dzatto]

I may have found a solution. It worked for a simple change, but may not for a more complicated one. Anyway, I had to relocate a set of stairs, and also move some walls in my basement interior construct. All I did was open the original, save it as a new drawing (original was 00interior, saved as 00interior 1). Then, I made the changes to the new plan and used the "save current drawing as a construct" command. After that, I just detached the old basement plan, and attached the new one. It seems to work really well, and I still have both plans in case I need to go back.