Office Standards

[Moehl]

I'm working in a small architectural practice (myself and my boss) and we are still working on setting up some sort of "office standard" for classes and layers. Right now we make up class and layer names as needed, but this can be confusing at time. Does anyone have an office standard that they would suggest and be willing to share? Do you mostly use the standard VW naming system or the AIA standard naming system? I'm also working on creating a template file to help create some consistency in our drawings, what would be your suggestions for elements within this template file?

This is the template file i've put together so far...

[Ray Libby]

http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=125019#Post125019

[Moehl]

What is meant by the class group heading "Fabric"?

[Christiaan]

fabric | fabrik|

noun

1 cloth, typically produced by weaving or knitting textile fibers : heavy silk fabric | waterproof fabrics.

2 the walls, floor, and roof of a building.

? the body of a car or aircraft.

? figurative the essential structure of anything, esp. a society or culture : the fabric of society.

[Moehl]

That makes sense now, just never seen it used in class/layer naming before. I come from an AutoCAD background with only a short stint using AIA standards. I see that you classes have colors associated to the pen, which makes it easier to identify on screen similar to AutoCAD, do you print monochrome then? Also do you use the standard white background in VW vs. AutoCAD's black background? Some colors are hard to read on white? This was one of the stranges things trying to get use to.

If you've taken a look at what i've set up so far i'd be interested in hearing you comments...

[Christiaan]

Hi Moehl, when we print it's almost always via a Sheet Layer, so, at least for construction phase drawings, we set the Viewports to Black & White. Or if we want to keep a colour, say a red boundary line, then we'll override the attributes in the Viewport to all be black apart from the boundary line Class.

We use a standard white background. Hadn't thought about the use of this template with a black background.

I'll take a look at your template when I get to work.

[brudgers]

I recommend importing your classes from "VWarch.sta" unless you're just in love with the AIA standard...which I'm definately not particularly since it doesn't map as well to vectorworks entities as the VWarch classes.

Layers I recommend being more flexible but generally following the standard layers conventions from the model setup routines.

I don't recommend wasting a lot of time developing standards for a two person office, and I certainly don't recommend reinventing the wheel.

Start with what comes in the box and try to add to it in a logical way.

[Christiaan]

Couldn't see anything in your file Moehl.

Regarding brudgers comment about not reinventing the wheel, I certainly agree with that. Which is why we've built a template based on Uniclass.

[brudgers]

For a two person office without standards, the built in vectorworks classes and layers offer huge advantages.

Not only do they avoid developing naming standards and the major work of documenting them, more importantly they work with autoclassing and other features built into the software.

The VWarch.sta file classes make more sense than the AIA_architectural.sta

The reason is that VWarch.sta maps more directly to the autoclass objects. The finer grain of the AIA layer/class standard isn't pickedup by vectorworks.

In addition, the AIA layer/class standard doesn't map well onto Vectorworks layers as spatial containers. In Vectorworks using classes (per the AIA standard) to distinguish between new and existing is far more cumbersom than using cospatial layers.

[Christiaan]

more importantly they work with autoclassing and other features built into the software.

Thanks for reminding me. Autoclassing compatibility is next on my list for the above template.

[brudgers]

Thanks for reminding me. Autoclassing compatibility is next on my list for the above template.

That's why I wouldn't recommend going the custom class system unless there's a highly compelling reason.

In my experience, adopting a workflow usually makes more sense than creating one.