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Clear Strategy For Annotations


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We need a clear 'best practices' / strategy for annotations. There are clear arguments for annotating in both / either the design layer or in Annotations section of the viewport. This is made all the worse by the fact that the software itself does not seem to have a clear sense of where these annotations should go.

Some tools are designed to annotate in the viewport annotations, but others like the space / room-tag are designed to be placed in the design layers. Personally - I am on the design layer annotation team - I think the notes are too volatile and easily lost if in the annotations and I think it is too slow to have to bounce between VP annotations and design layers to make changes. I also have noticed that annotations in Viewports do not export correctly or predictably when sending drawings in DWGs.

That said - I understand the arguments for annotating in Viewports... Really - there needs to be a clear strategy to this - and all annotation tools should be designed specifically to work the system. While there is something to be said for versatility in this regard - in the end, it just confusing and leads to discrepancy inside the drawings.

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This is definitely an architecture issue. In my theatre/museum/event work I've only ever annotated in the sheet layer viewport annotations. The design layers are strictly for the model and 3d objects. The one exception is visual annotations (e.g.. arrows for movement or rotation) which tend to be 3d NURBS objects. My models are very detailed though, so section cuts tend to represent reality.

Kevin

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It is true that right now - we are drawing in 2D. It could be that the VP wins out when we move toward BIM. It just frustrates me that then there are some tools that force a split on where the annotations are. Detail tags are in the Annotations - but room tags are in the design. Then the exporting issue is really troublesome.

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I once Imported a file from a consultant who had Viewports within Viewports (not sure what the original software was) - it caused hours of difficulty attempting to edit.

On the topic, I concur, we do need a more robust way of annotating. On complex projects, the last thing one needs is having to add or edit notation multiple times; this is the breeding ground of mistakes.

While I see and tend to use the Annotation Layer for all annotations, I would prefer to have 99% of all Notes & Annotation on the Design Layer - like in the MiniCad days. I hasten to add, having said that, that we need a way to Scale Text, and Text dependent items Effectively (Grid Bubbles, Room Names, Detail & Elevation Call Outs, etc, etc). Presently in different scaled Sheets, one must replace Text dependent items from a Design Layer with either copies on the Annotation Layer or, in the example of Grids Bubbles, replace with scaled down Viewports otherwise the Grid Bubble takes up too much drawing real-estate.

Presently Scaling Text, while welcome, isn't really ready for prime time IMHO.

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That is an interesting idea. The only problem would then be that you would then have to make a viewport of the viewport. But it is something to test.

Sorry Tom, what I meant is do Detail Viewports only live on a sheet layer? Or can you create a detail viewport like a section viewport - both on a design layer and a sheet layer?

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