Please comment on a memo sent round, highlighting company CAD standards

[troy.osgood]

After doing CAD for 13 years now I've come to one conclusion regarding CAD standards. There is no such thing as a CAD "standard" it's more of a CAD "guideline" giving the user some leeway to get thier job done. With most people being on subscription you should be constantly updating the "standard" for new features. We are in the process of re-working ours because we are trying implement annotative text and multileaders.

Exactly. Standards should be guidelines to produce drawings that LOOK the same when plotted. HOW the drawings get there shouldn't really matter, as every person has their own ways of producing drawings. Constraining people to working within a strict frame lowers productivity. Some people are faster typing commands where others like using buttons. Let the drafters do it their way.

At the end of the day it's the final LOOK that matters, not the process used to get there.

Standards should be set up to control the LOOK (text style, text height, lineweights, etc..) and give a very rough structure to work within so anyone can go into any drawing and work in it (not necessarily at normal speed).

Standards should not force people to draft a certain way, it should force people to make sure the end look is the same and consistent.

[nightNday]

Unfortunately, the problem here probably isn't really with the standards. It's with the way the other person is handling the situation. I have encountered this. If you sat with him and you two worked TOGETHER to create/modify the standards, he'd probably be just peachy. But he probably (I am using "he" as just a filler) felt slightly threatened by you, or he's just afraid of change. That is why he pulled a power play and sent out that memo. I was 'trying to put you in your place'. I've been put in that place a few times. The only way to do it is to assure him that you're not going to go through the network all willy nilly and destroy everything. Remind him that you are working on these drawings (too?) and that you wouldn't do anything that would cause you pain and suffering would you? I've had to remind my latest standards enforcer of this a few times. I may be a masochist, but there is no way in h3ll that I'm messin with the CAD at the office. Good luck.

[jmctamney]

Exactly. Standards should be guidelines to produce drawings that LOOK the same when plotted. HOW the drawings get there shouldn't really matter, as every person has their own ways of producing drawings. Constraining people to working within a strict frame lowers productivity. Some people are faster typing commands where others like using buttons. Let the drafters do it their way.

At the end of the day it's the final LOOK that matters, not the process used to get there.

Standards should be set up to control the LOOK (text style, text height, lineweights, etc..) and give a very rough structure to work within so anyone can go into any drawing and work in it (not necessarily at normal speed).

Standards should not force people to draft a certain way, it should force people to make sure the end look is the same and consistent.

One thing to add is there should be significant programing to help the users adhere to the standards. We use a partial CUI for company standards and keep everything centraly located on the network so you don't have rogue users changing everything to suite thier needs.

[Richard McDonald]

I've just got this image of a guy with a big stick walking up and down rows of draughters all facing the same direction saying,

Line, 2 ,3,
Endpoint 2, 3,
Midpoint 2, 3,
Now circle 2, 3,

I know some people need this to produce anything decent but thats for another thread.

[jmctamney]

I've just got this image of a guy with a big stick walking up and down rows of draughters all facing the same direction saying,

Line, 2 ,3,
Endpoint 2, 3,
Midpoint 2, 3,
Now circle 2, 3,

I know some people need this to produce anything decent but thats for another thread.

I commonly refer to those type of people as CAD nazis

[dxarhoulakos]

Exactly. Standards should be guidelines to produce drawings that LOOK the same when plotted. HOW the drawings get there shouldn't really matter, as every person has their own ways of producing drawings. Constraining people to working within a strict frame lowers productivity. Some people are faster typing commands where others like using buttons. Let the drafters do it their way.

At the end of the day it's the final LOOK that matters, not the process used to get there.

Standards should be set up to control the LOOK (text style, text height, lineweights, etc..) and give a very rough structure to work within so anyone can go into any drawing and work in it (not necessarily at normal speed).

Standards should not force people to draft a certain way, it should force people to make sure the end look is the same and consistent.

I agree with you partially. This idea of "the end result is what matters most" is a common misconception in my opinion. This may have been true in the days of hand drafting, but it can no longer hold true now.

One of the most important aspects of electronic files, is the fundamental ability to reuse them, and alter them over and over again.... This being the case, it is extremely important to maintain the fidelity of the file. Whether it be a layer standard, or properly constructed blocks, etc. It may look great on paper, but what if all the doors were created with lines and circles, and we're never created as blocks? What id that plan needs to be reused somewhere down the road?

The legacy of files, needs to be considered while working on drawings. Good CAD standards help to facilitate this.

I do agree that people should be free to "use" the tool there own way with regards to buttons, and typing, and how you ultimately draw a line from 0,0 to 10,10. But the layer that line goes on, needs to be standardized.

[jaberwok]

Exactly. Standards should be guidelines to produce drawings that LOOK the same when plotted. HOW the drawings get there shouldn't really matter, as every person has their own ways of producing drawings. Constraining people to working within a strict frame lowers productivity. Some people are faster typing commands where others like using buttons. Let the drafters do it their way.

At the end of the day it's the final LOOK that matters, not the process used to get there.

Standards should be set up to control the LOOK (text style, text height, lineweights, etc..) and give a very rough structure to work within so anyone can go into any drawing and work in it (not necessarily at normal speed).

Standards should not force people to draft a certain way, it should force people to make sure the end look is the same and consistent.

I agree with you partially. This idea of "the end result is what matters most" is a common misconception in my opinion. This may have been true in the days of hand drafting, but it can no longer hold true now.

One of the most important aspects of electronic files, is the fundamental ability to reuse them, and alter them over and over again.... This being the case, it is extremely important to maintain the fidelity of the file. Whether it be a layer standard, or properly constructed blocks, etc. It may look great on paper, but what if all the doors were created with lines and circles, and we're never created as blocks? What id that plan needs to be reused somewhere down the road?

The legacy of files, needs to be considered while working on drawings. Good CAD standards help to facilitate this.

I do agree that people should be free to "use" the tool there own way with regards to buttons, and typing, and how you ultimately draw a line from 0,0 to 10,10. But the layer that line goes on, needs to be standardized.

If the word "structure" is substituted for the word "look" in Troy's post you are both in agreement. Control the use of the correct tools but not necessarily the method of applying those tools.
Many of our "superiors" and clients really do only consider the look though; mainly because they don't know any better.

[dxarhoulakos]

If the word "structure" is substituted for the word "look" in Troy's post you are both in agreement. ....

Thats a big IF. I think we are saying 2 different things...you are correct about a lot of peopel in the industry feeling this way. That doesn't make it right though.

The legacy of any electronic file, has to be considered during its creation.

[dsthilare]

lol no MTEXT....

Ya right.. o_0

[bjames.164872]

If there are 2 or more people in the company that work with the drawings, then standards are very important. Even if there is only one drafter, then standards are still important for QC purposes.

Almost as important as standards and quality is efficiency. Some of these standards don't seem to be compatible with efficiency.

This is a good one.
• Text font style, height and width to comply with company standard.

I'm not sure about this. I'm accustomed to using dtext and I like it, and I have lisp programs to work with dtext entities. But I also recognize situations where mtext would be more efficient.
• D Text to be used as a company standard, M Text not to be used.

Good one
• Lower left justification to be used unless required for text setout.

Good one
• Dimension to be set to company standard, in said dim layer, text to be ‘Romans’, text height 2.5mm, with oblique arrow heads, as set out in standard company templates.

I don't know about this. Seems that the autocad leader entity would be more efficient
• Arrows to be drawn polyline and not leader dimensions, the size of which relative to text height.

I don't understand this. We draw gridlines as line entities, and we can snap column locations to the intersection of gridlines. Plus it is easier to edit the gridlines as projects evolve, and projects always evolve and change.
• Gridlines to be drawn in the grid layer using Polylines, grids to have node points at all intersections.

Not sure I understand this. We make extensive use of XREF's, We don't have to email drawings that frequently, but you can bind the drawing or do like I do and make a copy of the drawing for the client, then remove the xref's and insert them as blocks.
• X-ref’s only to be used for drawing frames, unless approved. This resolves binding issues when e-mailing drawings.

I haven't gotten into groups. I do use blocks a lot though.
• Group is not a company standard and will not be used.

Layer standards are very important. We follow this rule strictly, but we do add layers when needed for specific projects.
• Layers to be kept to a minimum, added layers should only be introduced if needed, each object does not require its own layer!

This is important, but we have to adjust for the needs of our different clients.
• Drawing number system to be followed at all times, see attached sheet.


But the biggest problem I see in this whole thread is that you're using LT. If I had to use LT, I estimate that it would take me about 50% longer to produce my work. At the level of work I do, the increased productivity of full autocad would pay for the cost of full autocad in about 4 weeks.