Topic: The ONE most important standard

[nivuahc]

(1) Adherence to company standards is a condition of employment; repeated failure to comply with said standards will be considered a failure to meet those terms and conditions, and justifiable means for termination.

Oh, dear God, how I wish this were the case at my office!

[MP]

[t-bear]

MAMA!

[MP]

[TR]

Uhh...we have standard titleblocks and revision triangles. That's about as far as our CAD Standards go anymore.  

But if you were the CAD-GAWD and could make just one mandate, it would be......?

I am the CAD God at my company.  

I know some people go crazy over layer standards, linetype standards, etc. but not I. We have very minimal standards; ctb files, dim styles, borders and revision blocks. Anything other than that is the responibility of the Project Manager. They get paid big bucks and thier name goes on the transmittal so if someone draws a hidden line in blue (0.256 width in the ctb) then that's thier problem.

I have no official power over anyone in the engineering department yet I can completely control. I am the only one in the company who knows how to program so I am in charge of our document management system and creating almost all custom programs[1]. Since I created most of the programs I basically have control on how things are done. My approach is to make it harder for people to not do it the right way. It's been working so far.

[1]The only custom program we use in engineering that wasn't developed by me is our batch plot program. It read's information from a list in a excel file, finds the drawings in our document management system and prints them with the information gathered from the excel file. I am seriously thinking about re-writing this in python for multiple reasons. One being that even though we have the source we can not modify it and recompile as it's in VB6. Another (the main) reason is a good chunk of the program is compiled to a dll, which I can not modify. If I re-write it then we will have complete control of the source code and can modify it as we see fit.

[CADaver]

*bump*

Just getting input that I think we can all use.  Hope to compile a list when I get my hands back.

[Fish]

Since I was hired I've been trying to create a standard for our company.  Though it wasn't easy at first, they're plot files didn't make sense, dimensioning was standard, yuck!!  The majority of everything was drawn on very few layers and they never plotted to a scale???

So now I'm the remaing drafter, although I do have someone that helps out when I'm swamped, and he is getting better at using the so called "standards" here.

The easiest for me was to set up my templates the way I wanted and for the other drafter to make sure he started with that.  At least it looked sort of right, I can't ensure the layers are correct but at least it's a start.

[CADaver]

The easiest for me was to set up my templates the way I wanted and for the other drafter to make sure he started with that.  At least it looked sort of right, I can't ensure the layers are correct but at least it's a start.

Well then let's expand that thought a bit.  What's the ONE thing that would be REQUIRED in the template.

[Fish]

Besides the template set to a certain scale (hopefully that's a given)

1) text style and height, simple enough I know but that can really change the appearance of your plans.

2) plot file

3) layers

4) dimstyle

some big items I think (also very basic)

[hudster]

There is an international standard for the interchange and structuring of CAD data files.

Layer names shoudl consist of 3 mandatory parts.
1  - The agent responsible, (2 characters maximum)i.e A = Architects, B = Building Surveyors, E = electrical engineers, G = geographical system engineers/land surveyors etc etc

2 - The Element, (6 characters maximum) This should be taken from a recognised code of classification. uniclass - K36_ = External Walls. C1/SfB - 621_ - Electrical small power. etc etc.

and 3 - The presentation (2 characters maximum), D = dimensions, G = grid, H = Hatching, M = Model graphics, P = page/plot graphics, T = Text.

The user can also add optional fields which include such things as sector, i.e. basement, first floor etc, Status - new work, existing work etc, scale - A=1:1, B=1:5, C=1:10 etc. and finaly a user defined section which is an undefined unlimited string length.

As this is an international standard, ISO 13567, surely we all should be using this?

[CADaver]

As this is an international standard, ISO 13567, surely we all should be using this?

Thanks, but no thanks.

[hyposmurf]

One thing I dont about like about that standard is that I'd first be looking for the Electrical small power ,than C1/SfB - 621_ - Electrical small power,which wouldnt stand out too easy with the other info in front.Also reminds me of Architects layers, like for instance AHI48K-FDU7N8-FJ5DOORS,complex layer conventions that just confuse users.

[Oak3s]

As this is an international standard, ISO 13567, surely we all should be using this?

Thanks, but no thanks.

im with you on that 'no thanks'.

[t-bear]

I'll third that.... No way Jose...

[MP]

Add another makes four.