How are companies using the Sheet Set Manager ?

[robert.1.hall72202]

As near as I can tell:

• Provides a way to organize and browse your project. Essentially, now you point to the drawing in the "Table of Contents", and open it that way. Makes it easier to jump around, especially if the drawing set comes from another company and you aren't familiar with their file naming standards.
• Provide a central place for Drawing Set information, so that if any of this information changes, it only needs to be changed in one place. The change is reflected throughout the drawing set.
• Automatically creates a Table of Contents for your index sheet, or for the first page of your drawing set. Makes it easy to keep this table up-to-date as pages are added/removed/reorganized.
• Allows one to create "Dynamic Callouts" that update as the drawing is reordered. So, that Detail callout retains the proper page number, even if the detail moves to a different page.
• Also provides another way for creating new sheets, and add them to the existing sheet set.

Basically, another convenience tool, more useful for some situations than others.

Interesting points. Too bad I have not taken the time to learn all of the SSM functionality.
A dive right in kind of user will miss all of the mentioned features.

[KGC]

someone above mentioned that the SSM can create an index of drawings, where is this feature at.

That and is there any easy tutorial on dynamic callouts, that has been something that i have been wanting to get into, but just havent made the dive yet, i have been too bus playing with dynamic blocks.

[Chris.N]

someone above mentioned that the SSM can create an index of drawings, where is this feature at.

That and is there any easy tutorial on dynamic callouts, that has been something that i have been wanting to get into, but just havent made the dive yet, i have been too bus playing with dynamic blocks.

look in the Dynamic Blocks forum and check out the 'Sharing' thread..

[Glenn Pope]

someone above mentioned that the SSM can create an index of drawings, where is this feature at.

In the SSM right-click on the Sheetset name. In the pop up menu near the bottom you will see "Insert Sheet List Table". You will need to have a sheet open in AutoCAD to be able to use the feature. Otherwise its grayed out.

[KGC]

yeah i figured it our, i was right-clicking on the wrong button. Now its time to figure out the dynamic call outs

[rdaniel]

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.

We're in our 3rd ADT project utilizing the project navigator and project structure. The 1st project was a small (12,000 SF) building in which I used live sections, view - sheet placement, and linked callouts. That went fairly flawlessly.

Moving from there, I applied the project tools to a 100,000 SF project and hit a huge wall - SERIOUS SYSTEM BOGGDOWN. For example, a section details sheet had about 25 details on it = 25 viewports. This meant processing all 25 viewports and xrefs every time the drawing was regened, saved, and plotted. Plotting a sheet like this was the worst - approx. 45 minutes to process everything and we are running on high-end BOXX computer systems. The thing we learned from this project is that view - sheet placement was not at all an option - too much time lost.

Where I am moving now with the 3rd project is skipping the views step altogether and simply drawing with constructs (floor plans, site plans) and sheets (everything else). Of course, this is because I am not really utilizing BIM and modeling the building, but I assume you could and still skip the views step. I am then linking everything through an outside excel spreadsheet. I simply place all the sheet numbers and titles in the excel database and then reference them in ADT through fields. So, far it is working pretty well. We are still automating coordination, but avoiding the serious system slowdown.

If anyone else is doing something similar to this, I'd be interested in what you are doing.

.... and about the time I get all this down, I'll probably be moving to Revit.

[robert.1.hall72202]

I was passed some drawing files that contain sheet sets.
I have since swapped the sheet sets for
publishing pagesetups while saving sheet lists.

The files did not have any fields and I do not see
much of a difference in functionality. It takes less
time to create pagesetups.

[Chris.N]

I was passed some drawing files that contain sheet sets.
I have since swapped the sheet sets for
publishing pagesetups while saving sheet lists.

The files did not have any fields and I do not see
much of a difference in functionality. It takes less
time to create pagesetups.

i think that whoever created that set didn't know how to use it (SSM)... the benefits are enormous when used to it's full potential!! i.e.: r-click plotting of any and all sheets of choice, is one deal-maker!

[keelay711]

the SSM has been awesome with the ability to add your own SSM properties. i've even added fields in the SSM properties for where certain types of drawings can be found (schedules, etc.) to update our standard front-end stuff at the 'callout' legend index.

This paragraph intrigued me. I have been playing with SSM to see if it will work for us. It sounds like your company does approximately the same style of drafting setup (IE model space with x-refs, going to one layout per dwg).

I would be interested to see what your "standard front-end stuff" is and how it updates with the use of your custom properties.

[Chris.N]

This paragraph intrigued me. I have been playing with SSM to see if it will work for us. It sounds like your company does approximately the same style of drafting setup (IE model space with x-refs, going to one layout per dwg).

I would be interested to see what your "standard front-end stuff" is and how it updates with the use of your custom properties.

i added fields within the text strings telling the contractor where to find info. i didn't want to type the same thing more than once, especially if the location changed!!

here's screenshots of my drawing with the fields, and the SSM properties...