At our office, as was the case in other places I have worked, our detail organization leaves much to be desired. I am not talking about our library of standard details, rather about the organization of details within individual projects.
To give you some background: We are a small, mostly residential firm running Autocad 2011. While we don't utilize the 3d capabilities of Autocad, we do use the Project Navigator hierarchy to organize our constructs (all line work), views (annotated drawings) and sheets. We like the system very much and it has been effective in organizing the elements of a project. Each type of drawing gets its own construct (elevations are drawn in their own .dwg) then they are collected and annotated in the views. The system works well for most drawing types, but it breaks down with details because there are so many of them and they are often interrelated. We generally end up with one construct with dozens of details strewn about the model space. Often there was some kind of grid or organization in the beginning, but it generally falls apart as new schemes and designs are explored.
It's not a big deal if you have been working on the project from the beginning, but I couldn't imagine joining the team and trying to navigate through our drawings to find and edit a particular detail.
I am soliciting for advice and input on how other firms organize details in Autocad. Do you have each detail in its own view, construct or .dwg, or do you operate like us, with a giant, messy model space drawing where all the details live? In which case, how do you keep your model space organized?
Do you have a good resource online or in print for cad organization and workflow?
I have used a couple of methods in AutoCAD for organizing details.
The first method is kind of primitive, but effective. It involves creating a grid in model space for the details that would match the layout in paper space. You would have a grid for each scale you would use for your details. Then, in paper space you have viewports, one on top of the other set for the correct drawing scale. The detail numbers and titles can be in model or paper space. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but I hope it makes sense. I like this setup because you have all of your details in one drawing, making it easy to copy drawing elements from similar details.
The second method is to have a separate drawing file for each detail. Then you x-ref them into model space in an organized fashion (you could even set up a grid as described above). What I like about this setup is that it is easy to divide up the details among multiple team members. It is also easy to add details to your library.
Hope that is helpful.
Jan 20, 11 5:05 pm ·
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Organization of CAD Details
At our office, as was the case in other places I have worked, our detail organization leaves much to be desired. I am not talking about our library of standard details, rather about the organization of details within individual projects.
To give you some background: We are a small, mostly residential firm running Autocad 2011. While we don't utilize the 3d capabilities of Autocad, we do use the Project Navigator hierarchy to organize our constructs (all line work), views (annotated drawings) and sheets. We like the system very much and it has been effective in organizing the elements of a project. Each type of drawing gets its own construct (elevations are drawn in their own .dwg) then they are collected and annotated in the views. The system works well for most drawing types, but it breaks down with details because there are so many of them and they are often interrelated. We generally end up with one construct with dozens of details strewn about the model space. Often there was some kind of grid or organization in the beginning, but it generally falls apart as new schemes and designs are explored.
It's not a big deal if you have been working on the project from the beginning, but I couldn't imagine joining the team and trying to navigate through our drawings to find and edit a particular detail.
I am soliciting for advice and input on how other firms organize details in Autocad. Do you have each detail in its own view, construct or .dwg, or do you operate like us, with a giant, messy model space drawing where all the details live? In which case, how do you keep your model space organized?
Do you have a good resource online or in print for cad organization and workflow?
Thanks for your input.
Keef
I have used a couple of methods in AutoCAD for organizing details.
The first method is kind of primitive, but effective. It involves creating a grid in model space for the details that would match the layout in paper space. You would have a grid for each scale you would use for your details. Then, in paper space you have viewports, one on top of the other set for the correct drawing scale. The detail numbers and titles can be in model or paper space. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but I hope it makes sense. I like this setup because you have all of your details in one drawing, making it easy to copy drawing elements from similar details.
The second method is to have a separate drawing file for each detail. Then you x-ref them into model space in an organized fashion (you could even set up a grid as described above). What I like about this setup is that it is easy to divide up the details among multiple team members. It is also easy to add details to your library.
Hope that is helpful.
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