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need some help with an idea


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I think you have a tough road trying to find enough people to keep a guy busy full time. VW is in desperate need of better symbols and libraries, but depending on price - the demand is going to be light. I could see if you were modeling (and drafting to create hybrid symbols) accurate plumbing fixtures, and appliances, and entourage - you could open the market up a bit.

You could set it up where you have 2 or 3 different entrance opportunities. 1 - pay for a library - where people pay a fixed price for one or all libraries.

2 - pay for library membership - people pay for a membership to the library and will be allowed access to all new items created.

3 - commission a library - if you commission a library you will also get access to all existing libraries.

4 - contribute - if you contribute a library - vetted for quality - you will be given some access or discount on access to the current collection.

Sharing a dropbox folder would be a pretty leaky and low-tech way to handle distribution - but not a terrible way to start if you are serious about trying to monetize the work.

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Think this is a really great idea and extremely powerful for workflow.

I have tried to do something similar for our companies retail design projects but have had limited time to dedicate to the project.

We want to use this kind of tool to promote our preferred supplier products as we have negotiated deals with them that provide us a sales percentage as a finder's fee.

I agree with Tom tho, depending on cost the demand from users could be limited.

It might be worth speak directly to manufactures/suppliers to ask for funding to develop the libraries as a sales tool for them as it becomes essentially "free advertising" and then ask users to to simply buy object libraries.

I don't know, just my two cents on it...

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I get the idea in principle. Questions that come to mind for me -

- would everyone using these symbols have to have, to some extent, the same drawing setup? For example if I import one of these symbols, will it contain a load of extra classes that aren't already in my drawing? So, say I organise my classes by material, and I've already got a "steel" class, then when I import a symbol with steel components am I then going to have two "steel" classes with slightly different attributes? This is already a problem I have with importing 2d symbols provided by manufacturers, etc. I often end up importing the symbol into a separate file, tidy it up, maybe change everything to class "0" then take it into my drawing before re-assigning my own classes as necessary. And by the time I've done that, I almost might as well have drawn it from scratch myself. And don't get me started on imported symbols that contain way, way too much detail (say, a standard section for a roof light in which every single screw and its thread is drawn, bogging down the drawing with millions of unnecessary lines).

- would this have to be an all-or-nothing approach? I can see the attraction of being able to attach information to components of a drawing, in the way you describe. But if I start adding, say, paint colour details in this way, then do I have to record *all* paint colour detail in notes attached to drawing elements? For example, (currently) I might have a finishes schedule which would record the colour of a window frame but also of a wall or ceiling. That info would be fairly easy to attach to to a discrete element like a window but then do I have to work out a way of doing this for a wall too? Because, if I don't, and keep the wall colour recorded in a manually created schedule, then the benefit of having my automatically generated spreadsheet is lost, and potentially the situation is actually worse because I'm then trying to maintain two parallel systems of recording information.

These are quite dull and prosaic points. But it's this kind of stuff that always seems to defeat attempts to record information in a more efficient way.

A lot of stuff would be possible if we had one, agreed, standard way of setting up a drawing, which worked for everyone regardless of project type, and which everyone - including anyone making component symbols - complied with completely. But that's something we don't seem to have managed yet. I know that's partly what BIM is supposed to be about, but I think we're yet to see if it *really* works in real life and can work at all scales of projects and levels of detail.

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Col37400 i see your point.

to answer your question about classes,

please see image.

to keep things simple i placed everything in the omniclass filing system and kept the objects generic. so i do not have Steel Valves or PVC Valves. that would create a ton of symbols..

as for walls and windows... for the past 1.5 years i have just been direct modeling and trying to have everything in its place (place holder) & i have not had any walls or windows/doors to draw.

that being said, if i were to do a house now i would try doing the doors as i did the valves.. make a frame symbol, then leaf symbol, hinge, knob, kick plate etc and then extract the data the old way.. the problem i had with the door tool was that i could not control it to the level i needed and was always fighting it. i have not had to fight with VW for the last 1.5 years because i just make 3d symbols the way i like & everything works. no parametric (except dtm & trees)

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Ok, so if someone imported one of your symbols, they'd import the class the symbol is in, but not a hundred extra classes for its various components. Presumably they could go into the symbol after import and apply their own classes if that's how they dealt with materials and textures and so on.

But actually, why do they need to be in special classes anyway? Why not just have them all set to "none" - then people could import and assign classes as they wished.

I too find myself fighting most parametric symbols, and have never been that keen on them. However with windows and doors I can maybe see the point, largely because of the issue of cutting a hole for them... I could make my own door symbol in the way you describe but then I'd have to manually cut a hole for each wall I wanted to put it into - and move that hole each time I moved the door.

For things like, say, sanitaryware fittings, making home-made symbols works fine.

Edited by col37400
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Yes, you can have a Symbol with 3 parts.

2D geometry, 3D geometry and 3D cutting hole geometry.

So if you built your custom door symbol,

the cutting geometry will auto-cut the hole in Walls and will follow

if you move your Symbol of course :)

Edited by zoomer
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ok, i see that if we use BIM objects they should all have data attached to them. so lets say this is the case and all objects are like that 100%.

there still seems to be an area like "design notes" that are not part of the object. and these ideas that are captured during a "screen sharing design team review" should be captured and placed right in the model for everyone to see.

so if someone says "we need to drill a hole there..." then i can tear off a type of 3d sticky note and place in the model for all to see.

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