How anal are you with drafting? I wonder if this is where I burn up too much time.
For instance, do you update every drawing, all the time, for every little change or do you allow for some fudge factor? Say you change from metal to wood studs near the end of the project, do you go thru and redo every section and plan with the slightly different stud size, or do you just replace it and change the note as if you were hand drafting?
from what i understand the written word always trumps the drawing. so you could just manually override any dimensions that define that stud wall, or if it's not dimensioned, change the notes. if the changed dimension effects anything key to your design, redraw it all.
i'd like to hear what others with more experience have to say about this because i'm eternally unsettled by the 2d drawing process. i'd like to get into the BIM where there is just one model that needs to be updated one time.
most of our work requires 1 (typ very large/complex) plan, and few to no sections. We are able to put all drawing in one file and xref off that.
works great for what its worth.
last firm I worked at tried not to duplicate information on drawings to prevent your very problem. If a change order came it typically only required changing info in 1 or 2 places (from my understanding at least, I was a model monkey) .
signed-
limited professional experience cad monkey
This is why I use ArchiCAD, you can select all the interior walls and change them with one or two clicks.
I think in almost all cases (with the exception of details with cut lines) it's bad practice to override dimensions. It can lead to problems down the road, especially if someone else works on the drawings and those problems can snowball.
Strawbeary, was thinking about it, all our responses lean towards company policy and current best practices, are you perhaps dealing with things a little lower on the totem pole?
i am a do-right-on-paper kinda guy.
of course you will always be limited by time and money.
that is where most company policies come from.
being an archicad guy i am with bryan...one time does it all... the way it should be. the computer is used because it is exact. i hate getting into drawings where they aren't...
i have never been to a jobsite where at some time the GC did not pull out the tape measure for the drawings!
i desperately want to try out BIM, especially for my small projects...because if i could print out an accurate bill of materials i could probably convince one of these residential contractors to drop his bid by 10% just cause i saved him the time. but revit is five grand. how much is archicad?
but until then...lots of great advice. one contribution i might add is using notes that rely on masterspec numbers rather than verbiage. have a list of those masterspec notes and a general description on every page (ours fits beside our title block). then the specs give the full story. this system will save you tons of time when changes happen in VE...because you just "find and replace" that specific masterspec note number and it changes everything for you.
i've seen some really f'ed up CAD drawings before... for example, i was once dimensioning a floorplan and the dimensions were coming out REALLY wacky... it took me a while to figure out why, but eventually after looking at the drawing in AXON view i noticed that there were lines going off in the third dimension... i can possibly imagine how that happened... must have been something with OSNAP... i've also seen a drawing where NO lines actually met at corners... lines either came up 1/16" of an inch short of meeting or ran 1/16" of an inch past each other... this made dimensioning a lot of fun too...
it seems to me that it would take more time to draw things f'ed up than to do it correctly, but who knows... i pride myself in my impeccable drafting...
i really try to make any changes be reflected on ALL drawings that they effect... for example if you slide a door by 24", go into the reflected ceiling plan and slide the exit light too...
NEVER, EVER, EVER OVERRIDE DIMENSIONS!!!! it can cause huge problems... say for instance that the following scenario happens...
1) CAD drawing is sloppy and dimensions are off by 1/2"
2) CAD monkey overrides dimensions so that they read "correctly"
3) for some reason the building needs to get 5' larger in one direction, so another CAD monkey stretches the whole thing
4) now the dimensions are wrong and reflect the old building size
5) project gets built 5' to short resulting in a loss of 1000SF
6) someone gets fired...
this has happened before, although luckily we caught it in during the layout of the foundation before anything was poured...
if fixing the sloppy drawing is not a possibility, then just change the sensitivity of the dimensions to round off to the nearest inch or so, then if stuff gets stretched, the dimensions will change with the stretch...
ArchiCAD is about 4k. Superior to Revit from what I've heard (never used Revit personally tho) Upgrades are only about $600 when the next version comes along. Version 10 should be coming out soon, so it's probably best to wait for it.
This is how I learned to draw in CAD and my new firm thinks I'm crazy: I draw sections and details in the same drawing like the building is really going to be put together. Then I put the building section on a page in a viewport, and then blow up the details in that section on the same page with viewports. This means the building section has everything in it, even like backer rod and stuff and the sections are comprehensive instead of schematic.
Now, I am faced with changing this, to drawing schematic sections that are just outlines, and then drawing each detail separetly (in it's own file even). I'd never thought of drawing a building this way.
There appear to be advantages to both, what do others do?
strawberry,
i had to work on a project where the plans and sections were drawn like that and it bacame a nightmare to work on. it was a large project (160,000 sf) and the drawings were ridiculous. for example, if the window details changed you would have to edit 60+ windows on three different levels. same with the sections - there were about 20 building sections. i was glad that i only had to take it through DD. on a house or smaller project that might be alright, but i still think it doesn't matter if you window mullion is shown at 150mm in a 1/100 plan rather than 145mm. also your floor plans aren't 8 megs.
in my office our building sections are drawn at 1/8" with little detail, in fact unless it's absolutely necessary we leave building sections drawn from dd into our cd package. these sections are really for keying in the details and wall sections on other sheets. our wall sections are drawn at 1/2" or 3/4" depending on how tall the wall is and how many break lines are required. our plan dets are drawn at 3/4" and our details from the wall sections are drawn between 1-1/2" - 6".
what i hate is when knuckled heads draw unbelievable detailed wall sections, like the thickness of the horiz. reinforcing and masonry ties. all a waste of time and not very efficient, although your architect friends will be impressed - i guess more incredulous, than impressed, thinking wow you guys must make a lot of money to be wasting that much time drawing 3/4" wall sections with that level of detail....that level of detail is only really necessary at 1-1/2", 3" or 6"....remember who the end user of the drawings are and what they are meant to communicate.
If you end up sinking lots of time into a project as a result of client driven changes, try to get some additional money through an "Additonal Services" clause.
look into BIM style software i.e. Revit. If you change a detail in any sinlgle drawing it updates global; change one window detail and you can choose to automatically update all others like it regardless of the number or type of drawaings.
Mar 25, 06 9:11 am ·
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cadexact
How anal are you with drafting? I wonder if this is where I burn up too much time.
For instance, do you update every drawing, all the time, for every little change or do you allow for some fudge factor? Say you change from metal to wood studs near the end of the project, do you go thru and redo every section and plan with the slightly different stud size, or do you just replace it and change the note as if you were hand drafting?
from what i understand the written word always trumps the drawing. so you could just manually override any dimensions that define that stud wall, or if it's not dimensioned, change the notes. if the changed dimension effects anything key to your design, redraw it all.
i'd like to hear what others with more experience have to say about this because i'm eternally unsettled by the 2d drawing process. i'd like to get into the BIM where there is just one model that needs to be updated one time.
bump.
I really need to work on my efficiency. I seem to blow the fee on every project I work on.
any suggestions?
most of our work requires 1 (typ very large/complex) plan, and few to no sections. We are able to put all drawing in one file and xref off that.
works great for what its worth.
last firm I worked at tried not to duplicate information on drawings to prevent your very problem. If a change order came it typically only required changing info in 1 or 2 places (from my understanding at least, I was a model monkey) .
signed-
limited professional experience cad monkey
This is why I use ArchiCAD, you can select all the interior walls and change them with one or two clicks.
I think in almost all cases (with the exception of details with cut lines) it's bad practice to override dimensions. It can lead to problems down the road, especially if someone else works on the drawings and those problems can snowball.
Strawbeary, was thinking about it, all our responses lean towards company policy and current best practices, are you perhaps dealing with things a little lower on the totem pole?
i am a do-right-on-paper kinda guy.
of course you will always be limited by time and money.
that is where most company policies come from.
being an archicad guy i am with bryan...one time does it all... the way it should be. the computer is used because it is exact. i hate getting into drawings where they aren't...
i have never been to a jobsite where at some time the GC did not pull out the tape measure for the drawings!
i desperately want to try out BIM, especially for my small projects...because if i could print out an accurate bill of materials i could probably convince one of these residential contractors to drop his bid by 10% just cause i saved him the time. but revit is five grand. how much is archicad?
but until then...lots of great advice. one contribution i might add is using notes that rely on masterspec numbers rather than verbiage. have a list of those masterspec notes and a general description on every page (ours fits beside our title block). then the specs give the full story. this system will save you tons of time when changes happen in VE...because you just "find and replace" that specific masterspec note number and it changes everything for you.
i've seen some really f'ed up CAD drawings before... for example, i was once dimensioning a floorplan and the dimensions were coming out REALLY wacky... it took me a while to figure out why, but eventually after looking at the drawing in AXON view i noticed that there were lines going off in the third dimension... i can possibly imagine how that happened... must have been something with OSNAP... i've also seen a drawing where NO lines actually met at corners... lines either came up 1/16" of an inch short of meeting or ran 1/16" of an inch past each other... this made dimensioning a lot of fun too...
it seems to me that it would take more time to draw things f'ed up than to do it correctly, but who knows... i pride myself in my impeccable drafting...
i really try to make any changes be reflected on ALL drawings that they effect... for example if you slide a door by 24", go into the reflected ceiling plan and slide the exit light too...
NEVER, EVER, EVER OVERRIDE DIMENSIONS!!!! it can cause huge problems... say for instance that the following scenario happens...
1) CAD drawing is sloppy and dimensions are off by 1/2"
2) CAD monkey overrides dimensions so that they read "correctly"
3) for some reason the building needs to get 5' larger in one direction, so another CAD monkey stretches the whole thing
4) now the dimensions are wrong and reflect the old building size
5) project gets built 5' to short resulting in a loss of 1000SF
6) someone gets fired...
this has happened before, although luckily we caught it in during the layout of the foundation before anything was poured...
if fixing the sloppy drawing is not a possibility, then just change the sensitivity of the dimensions to round off to the nearest inch or so, then if stuff gets stretched, the dimensions will change with the stretch...
ArchiCAD is about 4k. Superior to Revit from what I've heard (never used Revit personally tho) Upgrades are only about $600 when the next version comes along. Version 10 should be coming out soon, so it's probably best to wait for it.
This is how I learned to draw in CAD and my new firm thinks I'm crazy: I draw sections and details in the same drawing like the building is really going to be put together. Then I put the building section on a page in a viewport, and then blow up the details in that section on the same page with viewports. This means the building section has everything in it, even like backer rod and stuff and the sections are comprehensive instead of schematic.
Now, I am faced with changing this, to drawing schematic sections that are just outlines, and then drawing each detail separetly (in it's own file even). I'd never thought of drawing a building this way.
There appear to be advantages to both, what do others do?
strawberry,
i had to work on a project where the plans and sections were drawn like that and it bacame a nightmare to work on. it was a large project (160,000 sf) and the drawings were ridiculous. for example, if the window details changed you would have to edit 60+ windows on three different levels. same with the sections - there were about 20 building sections. i was glad that i only had to take it through DD. on a house or smaller project that might be alright, but i still think it doesn't matter if you window mullion is shown at 150mm in a 1/100 plan rather than 145mm. also your floor plans aren't 8 megs.
in my office our building sections are drawn at 1/8" with little detail, in fact unless it's absolutely necessary we leave building sections drawn from dd into our cd package. these sections are really for keying in the details and wall sections on other sheets. our wall sections are drawn at 1/2" or 3/4" depending on how tall the wall is and how many break lines are required. our plan dets are drawn at 3/4" and our details from the wall sections are drawn between 1-1/2" - 6".
what i hate is when knuckled heads draw unbelievable detailed wall sections, like the thickness of the horiz. reinforcing and masonry ties. all a waste of time and not very efficient, although your architect friends will be impressed - i guess more incredulous, than impressed, thinking wow you guys must make a lot of money to be wasting that much time drawing 3/4" wall sections with that level of detail....that level of detail is only really necessary at 1-1/2", 3" or 6"....remember who the end user of the drawings are and what they are meant to communicate.
Thanks. I am definetely going to learn the new way. My old firm didn't make any money, and maybe that's why. We just killed ourselves on the drafting.
If you end up sinking lots of time into a project as a result of client driven changes, try to get some additional money through an "Additonal Services" clause.
Strawberry,
look into BIM style software i.e. Revit. If you change a detail in any sinlgle drawing it updates global; change one window detail and you can choose to automatically update all others like it regardless of the number or type of drawaings.
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