How are companies using the Sheet Set Manager ?

[nhugley]

How are companies using the Sheet Set Manager (SSM) ? At what level are they taking the SSM ? Is all the work in setting up the callout and label blocks really worth it. Renumber whole sheets is easy, but can you move one detail from a sheet to another and not loose the link. What's the "View List" and category for other than internal organization ? This is a lot to digest and I would really like to hear from someone else.

I've done all of the tutorials. Read magazine's. I have been searching the internet and my CAD soul to come up with a way to use the SSM to it's limit but yet make it as simple as possible to use. Most everything I find so far is the basics. How to use the SSM wizard with your existing projects, How to use the fields in title blocks and sheet indexes. I've also found some things (very little) on how to setup the linked callouts and labels.

This I know for sure! There are (3) levels in which to use the SSM.

Level 1 - Out of the Box Sheet Management

Creating sheet sets with the wizard using our existing drawings mirrors the way our production folders and files already setup. Our file and layout tab naming all falls right into place with the wizard. I use the publish feature, including saving our sheet sets for future publishing. My thought that’s easy, the SSM as just an extension of the publish command.

Level 2 - Advanced Sheet Set Manager

This is using the sheet set manager just short of using fields for title blocks and linked callouts. In a nut shell you are creating your models with resource drawings and placing named model space views on to paper space (predefined sheet and/or project specific template).

Resource files are building models, plans, elevations and sections. The resource files will not have title blocks, layouts etc.. and their file names will be more of a description of what that drawing is, foundation, framing etc.

The plotted sheets that are listed in the "Sheet List" tab will be just that, for plotting only. Even at this level using the SSM requires some thinking about project templates, file names, view naming etc…..As for what entitles are really drawn in the "Sheet List" plotted drawings, very little. At this point you're not using fields so I don't know why you would be using the "View List" tab. I know what it does and how to create categories but I obviously don’t get this tab until you are renaming and numbering with callouts and labels. Maybe that's the point you don’t' have to use this tab until you get to Level 3.

Level 3 - Sheet Set Manager on Roids

It's Level 1 + Level 2 all rolled together = Level 3. At this point you are more than just drawing lines but coordinating your drawing set with more than just the command line, folders and filenames. You are linking your drawings thru a conduit (the Sheet Set Manager Palette) to each other and taking advantage of linked, updated fields. I do think this is "complex" or above and beyond what an average "CAD Operator" has been doing for the past few years.

Now there is hidden time in these drawings that is not seen as lines and text, but as pregame setup to get to the game. I really have to look at changing the way we develop and put together our drawings. Yes I have standards, customized menu's, lisp etc…..All of which will be used again but will have to be massaged and redirect to put our drawings together in a linked (smart) set of drawings.

I want to go to Level 3 and I would like some feedback from anybody before I proceed. So if you are not tired of reading this l let me share some of the road blocks I have come across and see if you've come to them yourself and maybe you can or someone else can shed some light on which way to go.

Plan and elevation sheets are the no brainer. I have this under control. Create resource drawings of plans with simples names for files and views.

Detail sheets that’s another story.

History lesson first. Currently I draw a sheet's worth of details in model space, including the label blocks, then make one view in paper space. It get's a little more involved with multiple dimscales. Actually I create our details drawings applying Joseph Reams' "Detail, Details and More Details" class from Autodesk University 2002.

So with that in mind applying this to the Level 3 doesn't work out all that well. Here's why. I can put 20 details on plot sheet "A" but I've drawn 25 details in the resource file. For linking I need 25 named model space views. Now I start dropping these views on to paper space and place the label block. Which in turn I now place the callout block on the plan using the "View List" tab (see now this tab makes since). Not all of the details are on sheets yet, so I start a new sheet "B" placing the remaining 5 details and coord them on the plan with callouts.

This is where problems start to happen. I want to replace detail 3 on sheet "A" with detail 1 from sheet "B".

The easy one first. I remove detail 1 from sheet "B". I use the "View List" and re-number sheet "B". Save the drawing and all of the plan callouts are updated and sheet "B" is done.

Now, how do I get detail 1 from sheet "B" to sheet "A" without loosing the link. I can cut and paste from "B" to "A" ? No I can't it's lost it's link.
I have place the detail on the sheet from scratch and apply the callout on the plan all over again. If it's one detail and one callout fine but if it's one detail and the callout has been placed multiple times on more than one plan I have to re-place all of the callouts again. This doesn't see right ? I've "re-pathed the link from plan callout to a moved detail but again if there are 20 plan callouts you have to do this 20 times ? What am I missing.

How do you move a detail from one sheet to another without breaking the link and having to start from scratch, in particular replacing multiple plan callouts of the same label reference.

Let's look at a few other things I am currently doing that doesn't work well to get to the Level 3.

If I have 3 resource drawings with 25 details in each. I can place 20 of these details on 4 plotted sheets. I start plucking details onto sheets and now any one sheet can have up to 3 resource drawings xrefed in to make up that one plotted sheet. Is that good or bad. What are you using for view names in the resource drawings ?

Now let's take a look at a new plan of attack for detail sheets.

Draw each detail and save as it's own file. 100 details = 100 files. Have the model space view name match the file name. I can pluck these details on to sheets to my hearts content. This makes it so that only the details that are on the plotted sheets are only the details xrefed in. I match my "View List" category per plotted sheet so I can see which files are on what plotted sheet. I can plot books of details on 8 1/2 x 11 having the details in individual files and I can mix and match details on sheets as needed.

But I still can not move a detail from one sheet to another without breaking the link.

I could go on about this topic but I'll stop there. Any feed back would be appreciated.

[tmullins68225]

I, for one, will not be using the Sheet Set Manager.

I was impressed with the concept and thought it had potential. But as usual, Autodesk has made the details too complicated and it just doesn't work the way I want. I'm sure it will work great for some people, it's just not my cup of tea.

It's yet another Revit item and has been poorly implemented into AutoCAD.

-Tripp

[Wanderer]

I agree that it is a little cumbersome. I personally am looking forward to future improvements in the feature.

I work in facilties management and use the feature for my composite plans which are separated by discipline. I use the main sheet as a jumping-off point to get to whatever drawing I need to.

I know that it will really be a long time before I see any of my contractors using this. But, it is a start. I get so tired of receiving a set of drawings and the index sheet is completely wrong, and trying to find the drawing I need, whose sheet number is not even contained in the drawing name! I think when the details get ironed out, this will be a great tool.

just my $0.02

[red2002yzfr1]

I am also NOT using the sheet set manager. I tried to use it with the way we have our drawings set up. We have a "Master" drawing for the facility and from there we create layouts of the areas of the plant. With doing our drawings in that way, the sheet set manager does not work well. It seems to be usefull if you have one layout for every drawing, which we do not.

[tomdillenbeck]

We have just upgraded our office to ACAD2005 from 2000i. We've decided in the first round of training (100 AutoCAD staff) to use SSM in a limited capacity. We are using is SSM to:
1. Create new sheets
2. Open sheets
3. Complete the title block information
4. Sheet Index for small jobs (Sheet List Table doesn't wrap and therefore is no good for more than 100 sheets)
5. eTransmit
6. Batch Plotting (publishing - don't do it in the background)

We've told our people to ignore the View List tab altogether. Partly because we need to teach things in incremental steps. Partly because we have a rule about not having anything in paper space.

For what we use it for it works nicely. Our advanced team who uses ADT finds SSM very familar, but the common cad workers are struggling to accept these new features. With time I'm confident they'll be an advatange and we'll rollout the rest of the SSM features.

[nhugley]

tomdillenbeck, i seem's we are using it a very similar fashion.

i don't use the "View List" either, again this is where you'll place your linked tags and they are insert at a scale of 1 so you have to tag your drawing in paper space which right now we don't do, we only xref the title block in paperspace and create our vports, so really we only use paperspace for plotting purposes

i guess if you are going to tag plan work you'll have to create your tag blocks with the plan work's dimscale, 49, 96, 192 etc.... now that's alot of blocks, when placing views for say details the label block again comes in paperspace and i could get comfortable with that but i would rather not tag my plan work in paperspace

yes there are work arounds i did think of placing my plan tags in paperspace and use the express tools to switch spaces, i haven't tryed this but in theory it seems to work

again my goal is to make a smart set of drawings where if i move, delete or add details the sheet set is updated

i know my first post was very long but this is (in my mind) a big topic because it can really change the way you put together your construction documents, i appreciate the feedback and again look forward to reading how other people are looking at using the SSM

thanks

nick

[StaceyG]

We've told our people to ignore the View List tab altogether. Partly because we need to teach things in incremental steps. Partly because we have a rule about not having anything in paper space.


I have found that SSM is just a glorified version of PUBLISH unless you are using the View List Tab.
If you already have your Titleblock on Paperspace, I dont realy see the benifit of using the SSM at all.

[davidmatyas]

I would have to agree that Sheet Sets are a force YET to be defined, BUT you see, THAT is what sparks YOUR creativity and YOUR own personal solutions for YOUR problems and workarounds and WE (the rest of the augi community!) want to hear about it. In the "OLD" days I used a product called autolog to keep track of project time (AutoCAD release 9) and have YET to see a product that is similar. My point is that for every problem that AutoCAD has, there is a EQUAL and OPPOSITE solution that will (trust me on this!) that will benefit ALOT of users and AutoCADheads such as myself. Thanks for listening!
Matyas

p.s. TWINS are fun HUH?? I'm suprised you have any time to acually type much less press the power button on the cpu. You thought remembering your logon was the most difficult thing to do. HA!
Good luck and keep drawing.

[sinc]

I'm just getting a handle on the SSM.

It doesn't seem to be well-integrated with Land Desktop, though. It's almost like the SSM creates a notion of a Project, so it can do its job. However, Land Desktop already has its notion of a Project, and the two seem to live in two different worlds. This isn't a really bad thing, but it causes some annoyances:

• Create a new sheet in SSM. Even if the sheet set is living in the DWG directory of a LDD project, the SSM doesn't recognize the fact. So, now you must also select the LDD project to associate the new drawing to. It feels like the user has to add every drawing to the project twice. Couple that with setting PROJECTNAME (which is required for some of our jobs), and it feels like the user has to add the drawing to the project three times.
• The SSM can't get Project Name and Description out of the LDD project.
• It is necessary to drop out of LDD and go into Map in order to print the sheet set.

These aren't big issues, but they make things feel awkward. All in all, the SSM is handy, though. And I definitely like it much better if there's a DST file in there when I get a big set of drawings from another company...

[robert.1.hall72202]

Im not real sure what the SSM adds to my projects.
I can generate a print that involves multiple drawing files.
I could do the same on my own.

What else does it allow us to do?