Architect's Stamp in Titleblock - your approach?

[JHAM]

Hi all,

 

Our office recently made the jump from VW 2013 (2d only) to 2017!  We have been slowly changing our workflow to a more BIM approach and are changing a lot of standards in our office.  

 

We'd really like to hear how your workflow works with placing your Architect's stamp on the final set of drawings.

 

In 2013, we had a 2d symbol of our Titleblock, with a 2d symbol of the stamp located outside of the sheets margins. We would print with a "Progress Print" stamp in the titleblock until we were ready to issue the documents, then we would edit the 2d Titleblock symbol and move the stamp into the titleblock and print area.   This worked well because the referenced 2d symbol would update in all drawings, on all sheets. It did not work well when we needed to send DWG files to our consultants. The 2d symbols would move with the DWG.

 

In 2017, our titleblock is no longer a 2d symbol, and is now integrated into the sheet border, the way it should be.   Our stamp and "progress print" are both inside the printer margins, but on different classes that we could toggle on and off.  This seemed like the best approach at the time, but it is still not satisfactory.

We are having problems with keeping the stamp class off. It is off in all of the saved views, but as soon as you enter a viewport that has the class on, when you navigate back to the sheet layer, the class stays on. We cannot find a way to save the class settings relative to the sheet layers, and the stamp keeps popping back up.     We've found where we can easily turn off the class in all of the viewports at once (right-click the class, visibilities).

In addition to the class settings frustrations, the stamp is still possibly in the drawings when we export to DWG for our consultants. We are debating adding the stamp at the very end in adobe -- taking it out of Vectorworks completely -- but still aren't satisfied.

 

Our question -- is there a better way?   How do you handle placing your seal in the final documents?

[Matt Overton]

Doesn't the sheet boarder still use a symbol for it's basic geometry?

 

So couldn't you do the same thing when you are ready to sign add image of the signed stamp to a file specific version of the Titleblock symbol.

That way all working projects use the most up to date symbol, signed of projects will be archived with the right Title block embedded in the file. 

 

That is how we do it with VAA titleblocks but there is also Stamp Field in those title blocks that can be used for progress stamps.

[Taproot]

On 12/14/2016 at 11:26 AM, JHAM said:

Our question -- is there a better way?   How do you handle placing your seal in the final documents?

 

JHAM: 

 

We ran into a similar issue.  We wanted some flexibility with the stamp portion of our titleblock, namely:

1. A "DRAFT" note for preliminary work

2. An unsigned stamp (for jurisdictions that require 'wet-stamped' drawings)

3. A digitally signed stamp.

 

Our solution was to modify the titleblock symbol to include a "Draft" stamp on top of a white rectangle (mask) on top of the license stamps.

Then as the set develops, we just modify the symbol by adjusting which objects are in front of  the mask.

 

[Jim Smith]

Presently we use a symbol, but until required the STAMP Class is grey. I like the idea of altering the symbol prior to printing, as is saves turning classes on (even if it's with the Eye Dropper tool.)