Author Topic: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?  (Read 13647 times)

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Josh Nieman

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Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« on: February 15, 2007, 01:38:09 PM »
How many people here have actually purchased a copy (or multiple seats) of the NCS or AIA or another published CAD standard?

I'm starting to write our company Standard Manual and I'm citing the NCS for a lot of things (some things we do different than the NCS, and I will not conform 100% to the NCS, as it overkills many things, as far as a firm like ours is concerned), and I'm wondering if I should keep a copy in the office since I'm citing it... or just take the citation out altogether.  I'm very hesitant to take out the citations.

Have any of your offices purchased a seat of any of these standards for use in the office?  Was it worth it?  It's $350 for the NCS.

pmvliet

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2007, 01:47:29 PM »
You may want to look at te Army Corp of Engineer site for their CADD Standads/Manual.
It's based off of the AIA and NCS, so it is relevant.
They also denote where they deviate from the AIA and NCS standards to suite their needs.

it also comes out of your tax money, so you may want to look into it.

IMO, it's more user friendly out of the box.

https://cadbim.usace.army.mil/default.aspx?p=s&t=13&i=4

Look's like version 3.0 has been out since the fall. So I am not familar with this version.
But 2.0 was helpful.

Pieter

Josh Nieman

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2007, 01:52:24 PM »
You may want to look at te Army Corp of Engineer site for their CADD Standads/Manual.
It's based off of the AIA and NCS, so it is relevant.
They also denote where they deviate from the AIA and NCS standards to suite their needs.

it also comes out of your tax money, so you may want to look into it.

IMO, it's more user friendly out of the box.

https://cadbim.usace.army.mil/default.aspx?p=s&t=13&i=4

Look's like version 3.0 has been out since the fall. So I am not familar with this version.
But 2.0 was helpful.

Pieter

Thanks for that.  I will be printing that out for reference on tomorrows lunch break! :-p  I was hoping to direct my lunch time activity to hobby-things, but I really want to get this CAD Manual done.  I'm excited about it.

mjfarrell

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2007, 01:22:23 PM »
  Was it worth it?  It's $350 for the NCS.

This is exactly why so many firms have chosen to ignore the NCS.  It has always struck me as odd that one must literally "buy in" in order to adopt this standard.  :|

If they really wanted us to adopt it; they could give it away, just like the early days of DOS, and then once widely adopted, charge us for the upgrade.  However making one pay for documentation on a standard to discover that it mostly doesn't fit is sort of like getting a cardboard pizza from the delivery guy.  He has your money, and you have a bad pizza.
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Josh Nieman

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2007, 02:35:42 PM »
  Was it worth it?  It's $350 for the NCS.

This is exactly why so many firms have chosen to ignore the NCS.  It has always struck me as odd that one must literally "buy in" in order to adopt this standard.  :|

If they really wanted us to adopt it; they could give it away, just like the early days of DOS, and then once widely adopted, charge us for the upgrade.  However making one pay for documentation on a standard to discover that it mostly doesn't fit is sort of like getting a cardboard pizza from the delivery guy.  He has your money, and you have a bad pizza.

Exactly... we recently had a poll started by... sinc, i think?  about this very topic.

dgreble

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2007, 06:16:04 PM »
so..... is there a poll on this

Josh Nieman

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #6 on: July 25, 2007, 06:23:09 PM »
nah, I was more looking for advice than to see who did and who didn't.

Or wait...  ok I really don't remember if there was one or not.

dgreble

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2007, 08:44:48 AM »
Did you go with the NCS standards? 

Josh Nieman

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2007, 09:11:26 AM »
Did you go with the NCS standards? 

Sure didn't.  Wasn't gonna pay to get a book for just that.  As far as layering, I went with an AIA influenced standard that works for our discipline well.  For the rest of stuff, it's mostly in house.  I used the military link as a good guide for a lot of things, though, when I thought it was a good idea for our office (sometimes it was just more work than necessary for the work we do.

kentium3k

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2007, 11:04:25 AM »
I bought and use the NCS here and since we are the end user of dwgs from A/E firms I simply state in the contract that the drawings turned over to us will comply (generally) with NCS.  It isn't a rigid requirement where everything will be checked to the highest degree, just that their drawings should upon a quick glance follow NCS standards.  No layers named Bogus, or Larry1 and sheet naming convention that follows NCS.

As for paying for standards, any one ever pay for the IBC, UBC, NEC, UPC, UMC, ASME, on and on?
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Josh Nieman

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2007, 11:37:45 AM »
I bought and use the NCS here and since we are the end user of dwgs from A/E firms I simply state in the contract that the drawings turned over to us will comply (generally) with NCS.  It isn't a rigid requirement where everything will be checked to the highest degree, just that their drawings should upon a quick glance follow NCS standards.  No layers named Bogus, or Larry1 and sheet naming convention that follows NCS.

As for paying for standards, any one ever pay for the IBC, UBC, NEC, UPC, UMC, ASME, on and on?

Paying for an IBC, NFPA, AISC book is QUITE a far throw from paying for a CAD standard book.  -QUITE- a bit more mandatory for actually being able to, ya know, do the job -at all-  (unless you just memorize the formulas and don't expect them to ever change)

Josh Nieman

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2007, 11:51:53 AM »
I guess to wrap up / expand on what I eventually decided, after all was said and done... is that I'm rollin' my own.

We have a couple engineers here that are not educated CAD guys at all that do their own drawings for most of their work.  It works for them.  One is doing tower crane foundations and occasional hotel slab foundations and the other one does 95% communication tower design.. the other 5% is communication tower SITE colocates and site developments.  I set up the standard for all his site stuff and he just works with that.  All their stuff (aside from the one dude's hotel foundations which I haven't seen the DWGs of, or care to) is very-very efficiently routine standard stuff.  All they have to do is change a couple things... update an excel spreadsheet, change the title block, hit refresh on it all and print (aside from the calcs)  So I was not going to meddle with that.  The budget is real tight and they have something that works and to mess with that would cause a money loss.  So we allow for those "anomolies" that even use the old title block still.

Now, that leaves the big boss, and an EIT the boss is working with, and -me-.  We stick to the main standards I employ.. loosely.  Layering is a bit chaotic.  The big boss sticks with "S-Concrete" "S-Steel" "S-Rebar" "A-WallInt" "A-Windows" and so on.  He adds a discipline prefix, but doesn't layer very specifically.  "Steel" covers basically every beam, regardless of size, type, etc.  So basically the whole design is on one layer, if we do a platform, lol...  the EIT is somewhere between the boss and I.  I tend to keep my layers more organized.  "S-FNDTN-STEEL"  "S-FNDTN-CONCRETE"  "S-BLDG-W12COL"  "S-BLDG-W8HDR" and so on.  Some of our projects get big and the organization is nice.  Generally though I'm the only one handling the CAD on the bigger ones, though, so there's never a problem.

That's the only thing that's loose.  The title block, methods of xref'ing, color table, fonts, shape files, and practices about everything being "ByLayer" with very few exceptions, and not drawing on layer 0, and no one using 'explode' to modify blocks and all that... I'm strict on.  The guys here are generally very understanding when I explain -why- I say it's a bad idea to do something.  I never resort to "because that's how it's done" because, well, if I can't come up with a reason you SHOULDN'T DO IT... then maybe there IS no reason.  I sometimes tell them "You know, I can't recall right now why not to do that, but let me get back to you... sometimes I am so habitual about something I forget why, and just 'do it' " and often times I recall why, later, and tell them.

I've also come to the realization that some things are just not practical to do in a firm so small with specialized roles that we have.  Since I'm the only 100% CAD guy, I maintain a good standard that I can pass on to when another guy gets here, but I don't worry about the engineers unless I'm working on their project, and then they submit to my scheme, luckily.

I've come to the (mostly sad) realization that programming is not a viable solution for me for most things.  The customization that would be TOTALLY KICK BUTT for me to have, just isn't worth it.  If, in a firm of 500 CAD'ers, I can save each of them 1 hour per week, by investing 40 hours in a program, then obviously the ROI is astounding.  If I burn 40 hours on a program, no matter how massive, the ROI on... -1-.. maybe 2... people... is just too long.  The same goes with some time saving 'standards' we could have here.  In a firm this small, structure needs to be loose, because the time spent organizing it will not come back soon enough.

Krushert

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2007, 01:33:57 PM »
I've come to the (mostly sad) realization that programming is not a viable solution for me for most things.  The customization that would be TOTALLY KICK BUTT for me to have, just isn't worth it.  If, in a firm of 500 CAD'ers, I can save each of them 1 hour per week, by investing 40 hours in a program, then obviously the ROI is astounding.  If I burn 40 hours on a program, no matter how massive, the ROI on... -1-.. maybe 2... people... is just too long.  The same goes with some time saving 'standards' we could have here.  In a firm this small, structure needs to be loose, because the time spent organizing it will not come back soon enough.
Alright you had me until here. 

Code: [Select]
;;H.LSP          SETS LAYER TO HATCH LAYER - THEN ACTAVATES THE HATCH DIALOGE BOX
;; TED KRUSH 5/01/02_Zc35

(defun C:H ()
  (command "undo" "m")
  (setq clay (getvar "clayer"))
  (COMMAND "-LAYER" "T" "hATCH" "M" "HATCH" "C" "10" "HATCH" "")
;
  (initdia)
  (COMMAND "_BHATCH")
  (princ)
) ;_ end of defun

Code: [Select]
(defun C:MV (/ clay)
  (command "undo" "m")
  (setvar "cmdecho" 0)
  (setq clay (getvar "clayer"))
  ;;
  (COMMAND "-LAYER" "M" "VPORT" "C" "51" "VPORT" "P" "N" "VPORT" "")
  ;; ;;
  (COMMAND "MVIEW" pause pause)
  ;;
  (setvar "clayer" clay)
  (princ)
) ;_ end of MV.Lsp

Code: [Select]
(defun C:DL (/ clay)
  (command "undo" "m")
  (setvar "cmdecho" 0)
  (setq clay (getvar "clayer"))
  (COMMAND "-LAYER" "T" "DIMS" "M" "DIMS" "C" "201" "DIMS" "")
  (COMMAND "-LAYER" "T" "0" "")
  ;;
  (SETQ DSS (GETVAR "DIMSTYLE"))
  (COMMAND "DIMSTYLE" "R" DSS)
  ;;
  (setvar "cmdecho" 1)
  ;;
  (COMMAND "DIMLINEAR" pause pause pause)
  ;;
  (setvar "clayer" clay)
  (princ)
) ;_ end of DL.Lsp

All them not five minutes each to code.  The last one is great example of copy, paste and change the Dim Liner command to some other dimension command.  I understand that you can have fancy code with 6 ways to Sunday to call a command and code the Standards to that certain command.  ROI is a fuzzy math way of looking at something to see if it fits your paradigm and nothing more.  If your are saving something, you are still saving that something, whether you get your return in year or or 20 years.  Also coding promotes consistency and accuracy, not just a time savings.  Have you look at items to factor into your ROI?   I have a piece of code that all it does is draw a solid donut to be attached the reference bubbles.  It sizes itself off the current dim scale.  that it, it simply promotes consistency and it saves me from thinking.

You have to crawl before you can run.  and you are trying (by the sounds of it) to run a marathon.  I get an little time here or there; I code something.  I need a stress break, I code something or make some tweak to something.  Have a long range goal and map to get there, then baby step it and enjoy the scenery that is along side the path to your goal. 


Caution the above code is quick and dirty code.  It works for me with no issues = but heck I am command liner. 
If anyone wants a copy for their use or pleasure - have at it. 
IF you pretty it up or make it better let me know, I love learning new ways.
I + XI = X is true ...  ... if you change your perspective.

I no longer CAD or Model, I just hang out here picking up the empties beer cans

Josh Nieman

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #13 on: October 25, 2007, 01:39:42 PM »
The stuff you mention is fine and dandy, that's the type of stuff I use... that's actually the extent of my knowledge, even, heh... basically... MACROS with a few extra bells and whistles.

What I'm talking about is stuff to expedite 3d modeling in ways that CADaver often laments.

Krushert

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Re: Anyone own NCS or AIA CAD Standard Guide/Manual ?
« Reply #14 on: October 25, 2007, 01:43:32 PM »
What I'm talking about is stuff to expedite 3d modeling in ways that CADaver often laments.
Okay how do you think CADaver got there?
I + XI = X is true ...  ... if you change your perspective.

I no longer CAD or Model, I just hang out here picking up the empties beer cans