ACAD 2009 - Where to start?

[SteveChestnut]

Hello Everybody,

My office has been a big "CAD System X" user for many years. We have had AutoCAD for some time and when we have used it,
we've pretty much used it as it comes "out of the box". We live in an AutoCAD world and the time has come for us to start using
AutoCAD directly on our projects. I've been asked to work on developing a "company" environment for ACAD 2009.
This is my question to you...

Where to start and what to avoid? I want a well thought out and productive custom environment.
I'd like avoid mistakes made by not thinking things through and understanding options.

- I know we will need templates - but paper or model space?
What else about templates should be thought of up front?
I'm sure there are many things that could go in a template - but what?

- We need to decide how we as a group will handle our referencing
I see a couple ways, what's best?

- Plotting, CTBs or STBs? Anyway to simplify plottting and get it down to one click?

- Lot's of things to think of when starting down this road.
Can anyone recommend where one could get some type of checklist of "things to be considered"?

I'm looking forward hearing your suggestions and appreciate your experienced advice. Thank you.
Regards,
Steve Chestnut

[RICHARD_JONES]

Give us some background on what your office does. Is your office part of a larger company that may have standards? How many users will you have and what is their general skill level? Do you have outside clients that have standards requirements? What are some of your current procedures, as it relates to the topics you listed in your post, i.e. ctb vs stb?

[SteveChestnut]

I'm looking for general advice from people with established systems.

We create nonscale and scale drawings - diagrams and layouts. Paperspace for layouts? Modelspace for diagrams? Use just one for both, if so which one? What do you use?

We need to reference drawings, I'd think from a common server would be the way to go. How do others handle this? Map to server\share or to a mapped drive like L: ? Can project variables be assigned in the ACAD environment upon startup? Such as PROJ-3000-M = server\share\lfull-path-to-m-drawings-location, PROJ-3000-S = path to s dwgs, etc., etc. This gives us the advantage of moving to another server and just redefining the vatiable and not having to redo the reference. I can do this in my other system. I don't know if this is possible in ACAD? If you work with a group and share drawings how do you make sure everyone can always see the references?

Plotting. Some use CTBs some use STBs. What do you think does the best job? Which one can help me be sure that how my plots look can look the same when plotted by a vendor I send the drawing to? Which one do you feel is the better choice and why?

What all can and do you put in your templates? I'm sure there's a lot. This can help you set your standards. What all do you have inside your templates?

What should be avoided when setting up a custom environment. We need to be able to send our drawings to outsiders and want them to see everything we see as we see it. How do you accomplish this?

I hope you can see what I'm wondering about.
Thanks for the interest,
Steve

[Harold Pei Jr]

You're making this a lot harder than it really is. Don't get me wrong, it will take a lot of trial and error setting up your templates and plot styles, but the planning part is the easiest part to get through.

1. CTBs and STBs: both allow you to have your drawing print out how you want it to look. You'll just have to write the company policy on the one you choose. Which do you know better? Which can be enforced easier? Are you going to be so strict as to not allow people to choose for themselves? If you wanted, you could have one set of CTBs and one set of STBs and let the users decide which they want to use. You'll just have to set them up to make them look similar, if not exactly the same.
2. Plot layouts can be set up in each drawing, before you even plot. Make sure to set it up before hand (probably in your templates).
3. As for what templates should contain, my rule is templates have everything. Now, if you're not going to use certain things, then don't put them in your template. Just make sure that every item that you use has a style and the correct layers assigned to the style. All variables (if saved in the drawing) can also be put into your template. If you use different paper sizes when you print, make a template for each one. This helps you get plotting down to "one click."
4. For references (x-refs/xrefs), you can tell it to take a relative path (i.e. from the main drawing, the reference is this many folders out and in this folder) or choose no path and keep it all in the same folder. We've started using Vault, so we make our references through there.
5. Paperspace or Model space, always do work in model space and print from paper space. I believe the reason they started paperspace up was so people can see what their prints would look like (if I'm wrong, someone please correct me).

Other than that, I'd say to make your own checklist. Include what items for the type of work you do, what's required by clients (or the typical things required), how do you want your plans to look, etc.

[RICHARD_JONES]

Let me toss some ideas/opinions out and you can decide what might work for you.

I’d start with the setup of the network folder structure. For me that has three parts. One for your cad standards, one for active projects and one for archived projects.

When using ref files, use relative mapping so that if your drives or other network settings change in the future, the references will be maintained.

You might want to look into using sheet set manager or vault.

I draw everything in model space and have my drawing borders setup in paper space.

Setup your template file to include every possible setting you can think of:
Layouts for each paper size you use.
Dim styles (I only have one that is set to scale by viewport.)
Text styles (One main one, height set to 0, that is used by the dim style plus one or two that are used for titles, etc.)
Layers
This is just the start…..

ctb vs stb both are valid, you have both being used in the office. I would try and see which way the majority is in the office and go with that format.

When sending drawing out of the office use etransmit, that will allow you to make sure all reference files and support files that are needed are included.

Try to set things up so that you can continue to add to what you setup.

Get input from as many of your users as you can. They need to buy into whatever you setup and the more they feel included the smoother things will go.

Good Luck!

[SteveChestnut]

Thank you Richard.
Your advice makes sense. One thing though is that we don't have established users.
This will be new for all of us. We are kind of creating a brand new system based upon
AutoCAD. We have our old CAD system as a guide but AutoCAD works differently.
Where in our old system I could set variables to point to folders on a server for referencing
I cannot do it like that in ACAD. That's why I'm asking such basic questions.
How would you advise a group of people to reference each other's drawings where for
all practical reasons the "originals" are always considered to be on the server.
We like to see the references from the server instead of people copying files to their
C: drive. Would you use \\server\share paths or map a drive letter or is there another way?

For things like CTB vs STB. Since we are brand new I'd like to use the "better" way
(for lack of a better word). But what is the better way? I'll pose this to you and anyone else who'd like to share. If you were starting over brand new and setting your standard, would you choose CTB plotting or STB plotting and why?

I really appreciate the input so far from you and others.
I know these questions are basic and big picture but that's what need right now.
I can get into technical how-to later but I'm hoping to learn what options exist and
why some options may be better, especially since we're starting from scratch.

Thanks again,
Steve

[dgorsman]

There really is no "better" way for the CTB/STB discussion - search on the terms, there are some, er, colorful discussions on the matter. If you get a lot of outside drawings coming in, you will want to check to see what they are using before you commit.

Also, allocate at least 3 months (maybe even 6, you are starting from scratch) for research and development before you even start the roll-out process. One of your biggest considerations is what tools you will need - very few companies use AutoCAD out-of-the-box. There are many commercial and home-grown products to help in automating work processes and some of these will dictate your set-up.

[RICHARD_JONES]

How would you advise a group of people to reference each other's drawings where for
all practical reasons the "originals" are always considered to be on the server.
We like to see the references from the server instead of people copying files to their
C: drive. Would you use \\server\share paths or map a drive letter or is there another way?

The first item on my list covers this. Everyone is setup to work from the same network drive folder structure. Anyone caught copying files to their C: drive to work on needs to have a visit from this guy….

AutoCAD can also be setup so that standards are pointed to common files on the server that is read only for the users.

My only experience is working with ctb files. That being said, if I was starting from scratch I would take a serious look at using stb’s. As noted by a prior post, the whole ctb vs stb debate is often a heated issue.

[acote]

Use mapped drives. MHO only, other will disagree, nature of Acad.

Open the Option dialog box. There is where you specify hundreds of settings, all depending on your needs. These can then be exported to a standard file to import as needed.

A template file is where you specify your styles, dim styles, font styles, layer standard etc... Look up Design Center in help. Anything that can be imported via Design Center sould be standardized and put in the template so I can be imported into any drawing.

As one person responded to your same post on the Adesk newsgroup, look for a local guru/reseller that can assist you in your endevers, there is no "best way", the thing about Acad is that you can customize for your paticular environment. All depends on what you do with cad, draw widgets, buildings, bridges, site plans etc... all have different needs/requirements. Can not cover all in a simple reply. As someone already stated this will take time, and trial and error.

Good luck
ACote

[SteveChestnut]

To all:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I've started a "notes to myself" text file and am cutting & pasting some of your
comments into it. I'm going to move on from this post and start posting some
"more specific topic" questions.

Regards,
Steve