TheSwamp

CAD Forums => CAD General => CAD Standards => Topic started by: dubb on November 20, 2018, 12:28:02 PM

Title: How do you keep blocks and templates and standards up to date?
Post by: dubb on November 20, 2018, 12:28:02 PM
This is a situation I am faced with on a daily basis.
At my company we design permits that involve a small site plan and profile for utility poles and street lights. We have anywhere from 50 to 200 individual sites per project.
I am the lead out of 8 total drafters. I create and manage the tools, scripts, blocks, templates, & standards. Most of the times things remain calm, little changes to standards but sometimes we have to change things.

I have a huge task of keeping everything up to date across several jurisdictions, clients, & project specific standards.
The factors which determines the  standard of any project is #1 Jurisdiction, #2 Client, #Project specific standards.
Our library of templates and blocks are stored on our local server. For blocks we utilize dwg files that contain several blocks which are placed on tool palettes, each block is not an individual dwg file. We like this method because we think its easier to categorize blocks. Our templates contain title block, notes, and standard information pertaining to their standard some templates are client, project, or jurisdictional specific. We have lots of templates because we have a lot of scenarios.

Often times standards change. Blocks need to be updated. I find it difficult sometimes to notify all drafters that a block has been updated and they need to redefine that block. The tedious part of updating a single block is that it affects all 200 projects. Keep in mind each those 200 projects have the same deadline and their blocks and standards must be the consistent. In order to be consistent and keep things up to date. I send out an email to the drafters to update their blocks or template. They carry out those updates. The tedious part of that is that they would have to perform their due diligence in reading their emails and remembering which block to update. Often times there are more than one block that needs to be updated. The chances of people forgetting to update a certain blocks is pretty high and I wish I could just write a script that does that automatically. I'm not yet capable of writing a script like that. If we had individual dwg files for each block I might be able to write a script that evaluated the time stamp to redefine the block. However, converting our block library would be a huge task that I'm not sure I'm ready to do because we are so busy and there is only one tool developer.

Can anyone relate?
Any suggestions?
Title: Re: How do you keep blocks and templates and standards up to date?
Post by: mjfarrell on November 20, 2018, 01:02:19 PM
Ill think on this....

in the mean time consider;

the problem

is the solution




As in your previous/current methods may well need to change to effect the end result you are after.
It probably wont be painless or easy to effect the changes that are required to remove the problems your current methods present.
Title: Re: How do you keep blocks and templates and standards up to date?
Post by: Matthew H on November 21, 2018, 10:33:17 AM
Here is a solution to converting dwg's which contain multiple blocks.

First run the lisp routine "InsertBlks.lsp". This routine will insert all drawings in the same folder as the first drawing specified. It is advised to click yes when asked to "Explode inserted blocks".

After they are all inserted you can use the lisp routine "wblockm.lsp". It will ask for a directory to store all wblocks. This will create wblocks of all the current blocks in a drawing.

If you open one of the newly created wblocks you will notice it the drawing view will not be centered around the geometry.

To solve this use the "BlockZoomExtents.scr", change the directory in the file itself to your block directory. This will make sure all wblocks are zoom extents.
Title: Re: How do you keep blocks and templates and standards up to date?
Post by: dubb on November 21, 2018, 01:21:19 PM
Does the wblock script work with dynamic blocks? I haven't tested it yet.

Here is a solution to converting dwg's which contain multiple blocks.

First run the lisp routine "InsertBlks.lsp". This routine will insert all drawings in the same folder as the first drawing specified. It is advised to click yes when asked to "Explode inserted blocks".

After they are all inserted you can use the lisp routine "wblockm.lsp". It will ask for a directory to store all wblocks. This will create wblocks of all the current blocks in a drawing.

If you open one of the newly created wblocks you will notice it the drawing view will not be centered around the geometry.

To solve this use the "BlockZoomExtents.scr", change the directory in the file itself to your block directory. This will make sure all wblocks are zoom extents.
Title: Re: How do you keep blocks and templates and standards up to date?
Post by: dgorsman on November 21, 2018, 02:22:09 PM
I usually keep block definitions separate, and use a hierarchical client-application search structure.  That way, if I need a client specific version I just have to drop it in the client folder and it will be "seen" first.  If it's not there, then the application-level one gets chosen.  With individual definitions there isn't extra work ensuring changes to blocks that should be common are made everywhere.