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For SITE PLANs what is best in workflow


FBernardo

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Hi all,

 

i was wondering if anyone has a better/more efficient way of drafting a full planning documentation from a Location plan to detailing? (Presently i'm using single houses type files and referencing them to a "main" file that i call "SITE PLAN" and here i do location plans, landscaping, highway works etc) and leave the sheets with the house type plans for the single house type files. 

 

1. is this the best way of doing it? (in terms of file size, workflow/less time consuming)

2. for different type of plans i have to multiply the references so i can use different presentations from the house files, (to avoid changing layers, classes every time i want to publish a different sheet, usually making the drawings a bit heavy load) Any better ideas?

 

Kind Regards,

 

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Why not generate/create a symbol for the typical house plans? That would be more efficient then duplicated references. Assuming you have some variations of the same plan and not each and every plan being unique having a few symbols is in theory still more efficient than multiple references with adjusted presentations which all take more time to calculate/update than a symbol.

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3 hours ago, Art V said:

Why not generate/create a symbol for the typical house plans? That would be more efficient then duplicated references. Assuming you have some variations of the same plan and not each and every plan being unique having a few symbols is in theory still more efficient than multiple references with adjusted presentations which all take more time to calculate/update than a symbol.

 

what we are using is the possibility to have layers on and off, can i make those into a symbol ?

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You can have the symbol on a layer that is on or off, but not a layer in a symbol.  If the layer is off then the symbol is not visible (if it is on the layer being turned off) and vice versa.

 

You can have classes in a symbol but the symbol visibility is most likely controlled by the visibility of the class in which the symbol is inserted. I've never tried turning classes off and see how it affects the symbol so I can't be 100% sure about how it affects a symbol until I try. (In some CAD programs turning off a class that is inside a symbol also hides the symbol as a whole and not just the class part, but the way I work symbol visibility is mostly done by layer or by insertion class visibility so this was normally not an issue for me).

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8 minutes ago, Art V said:

You can have the symbol on a layer that is on or off, but not a layer in a symbol.  If the layer is off then the symbol is not visible (if it is on the layer being turned off) and vice versa.

 

ok, i'm using the references as the way you said with the symbols, i use the reference of foundations in a layer the ground floor in another and the roof in another.

 

so kinda putting in some examples, to be sure that i understood it correctly,

 

i can make the foundations plan from my several houses, into a symbol which i can then copy and will be lighter than the reference itself ?

 

Then how will the symbol behave with several rendering textures, as for example, i have the exterior walls with bricks, plinth and some timber cladding into them wouldn't it be the same "weight" in the symbol as it is in the reference ?

 

What we are doing is,

 

Drainage sheet will have the drainage layout and the foundations plan for the houses,

Landscape plan will be the Roof plan, private roads, tress...

Site plan will be with ground floor and other informations etc 

So you think making the symbols with the foundations, ground floor and roof would help and work in the same way ?

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23 hours ago, FBernardo said:

i can make the foundations plan from my several houses, into a symbol which i can then copy and will be lighter than the reference itself ?

Yes, because each reference may need to be checked for validity and updated if necessary, which takes more time than updating a symbol and then have all instances updated automatically. Plus that multiple instances of a symbol is lighter than multiple references. (In general, that is).

 

23 hours ago, FBernardo said:

Then how will the symbol behave with several rendering textures, as for example, i have the exterior walls with bricks, plinth and some timber cladding into them wouldn't it be the same "weight" in the symbol as it is in the reference ?

As I don't work this way I will now have to guess a bit, but generally if you have multiple instances of the same symbol it should be lighter overall than multiple reference windows of the same thing.

 

If you have only one instance of a symbol and only one copy of a reference then the difference may not be that big size wise, though the working drawing itself would be smaller in size as some of the items are in a different drawing. Though the overall size of the entire project may not be that different, and having a boatload of references might actually result in a larger project files total size as each reference file comes with the file/drawing overhead whereas you would have this file/drawing overhead would be lower if you have just one drawing file with symbols. But it would depend on the drawing and items etc. etc.

 

23 hours ago, FBernardo said:

What we are doing is,

 

Drainage sheet will have the drainage layout and the foundations plan for the houses,

Landscape plan will be the Roof plan, private roads, tress...

Site plan will be with ground floor and other informations etc 

So you think making the symbols with the foundations, ground floor and roof would help and work in the same way ?

My take on symbols vs references:

If it is used only once (or twice at most) in the drawing (e.g. as an underlay) and does not need updating due to changes in the working file then it can be a reference if you want to keep the size of the working drawing a bit reduced (e.g. the drainage for an entire street and lots along it).

 

If it is used several times in a drawing and may get updated or get derivations/alternative versions then I make it a symbol to keep it in the working drawing. E.g. if your house type plan is a "self containing unit" (e.g. lot) containing all the necessary information and you have twenty of type I and 10 of type II and another 10 of type III on a street then having it as three symbols with 20, 10 and 10 instances respectively  would make more sense to me than 20+10+10 = 40 references with all the issues that may cause.

 

Or a combination of the two, e.g. for the central/common/shared drainage parts for all lots could be a reference as that is not likely to change a lot and the drainage for a lot etc. with its connection to the common part as a symbol of which you have multiple instances in case the design for the house type changes.

 

One thing that can be a bit of an issue with referenced files is that if you have to update the referenced file because of changes in your working drawing you are working a bit blindly as you miss reference to the items causing the changes. It can be solved but, if I expect other items to have an impact on the referenced file I'd usually prefer to have that on a layer of its own in the working file until it "stabilises" and no further changes are expected and then split it off to a referenced file if I need to keep the file size down or need to share it with others using the same thing as e.g. an underlay.

 

Another issue with referenced files is that you really have to pay attention to keeping them together. If I would get a dollar/euro for every missing referenced file  for a requested drawing file I'd be having a nice retirement on a bounty island :-)

 

There is not really a right or wrong answer, just what works better for you depending on possible changes, sharing with other drawing files, how many times an item is used in the working drawing etc. etc.. It is a matter of trying to find the right balance between efficiency, ease of use, file size and possible failures with referenced files.

Edited by Art V
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On 3/17/2018 at 10:37 AM, FBernardo said:

2. for different type of plans i have to multiply the references so i can use different presentations from the house files, (to avoid changing layers, classes every time i want to publish a different sheet, usually making the drawings a bit heavy load) Any better ideas?

 

As an alternative option to using symbols could you try old style layer referencing instead of viewport referencing? That way you can import selected referenced house floor plan layers into your site plan and control their visibility settings for the various types of sheet layer viewports you require. You may require additional design layer viewports of the referenced layers so the house plans DLVP's can be moved into the correct location on the site.  Not sure if this is as file heavy as using symbols. Just putting it out there...

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Boh said:

 

As an alternative option to using symbols could you try old style layer referencing instead of viewport referencing? That way you can import selected referenced house floor plan layers into your site plan and control their visibility settings for the various types of sheet layer viewports you require. You may require additional design layer viewports of the referenced layers so the house plans DLVP's can be moved into the correct location on the site.  Not sure if this is as file heavy as using symbols. Just putting it out there...

 

 

 

How do you reference layers ?

 

The file is not that "huge" at least comparable to the ones Art V uses they're like small parks, but there is always so many issues with them that i really don't understand what is going on with the software. So what we started doing to avoid getting the files very heavy and with loads of layers (the group of layers for each house) we've tried put the same floors on the same layers and so on, but what we are seeing that works the best is referencing the file as we have almost the same control as if the building is in the file but is not. 

 

The problems start when the reference system go bust and roofs disappear (while in the file they're fine and working fine). My question here was to see other options besides this one and we might try the symbol system as Art V mentioned to see if it works for us...

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Boh said:

You can set referencese to layer style in the organisation dialogue. Note this is just a suggestion as layer referencing is a bit of a VW legacy tool so there could weel be a hiccup somewhere...

image.thumb.png.44de03fa50425e6d645b1ad3a9f3893d.png

image.thumb.png.12747b00f8ba95ca9ad47f3ef4860020.png

 

 

Many thanks for this! although it's an option i think it will not work for what we actually want as we're using 4 different styles of houses in a single site plan and i believe would make a big mess with too many layers! But is another option!

 

Another question is it possible to actually COPY classes from another file to an older one without copying an object within that class ?

 

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You can easily import classes between files without importing any objects. From the classes tab of the organisation dialogue or right click in the classes area of the navigation pallette and go "new..." Go import classes and browse to the file youwant to import from. This will only import the class. Note the "edit properties after creation" tickbox which is quite handy.

image.thumb.png.bdc3d9c53b19ebdae0952edb7441ed10.png

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3 minutes ago, Boh said:

You can easily import classes between files without importing any objects. From the classes tab of the organisation dialogue or right click in the classes area of the navigation pallette and go "new..." Go import classes and browse to the file youwant to import from. This will only import the class. Note the "edit properties after creation" tickbox which is quite handy.

image.thumb.png.bdc3d9c53b19ebdae0952edb7441ed10.png

 

 

 

OHHHH this is a nice magic trick :D can i import several at the same time ? (hope so) :D

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30 minutes ago, FBernardo said:

OHHHH this is a nice magic trick :D can i import several at the same time ? (hope so) :D

Yes, you can copy any number of classes at the same time from a single drawing, just select the ones you want to import and then hit the ok button. Repeat this for any other drawing from which you want to import classes.

 

One thing to be aware of, the drawings need to be in the same VW version format (e.g. both drawings need to be VW2018 files in your case, using VW2018) so if you want to import from an older VW version file (e.g. VW2016 file classes into VW2018) you will have to convert it to the same version of VW into which you want to import.

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Just now, Art V said:

Yes, you can copy any number of classes at the same time from a single drawing, just select the ones you want to import and then hit the ok button. Repeat this for any other drawing from which you want to import classes.

 

One thing to be aware of, the drawings need to be in the same VW version format (e.g. both drawings need to be VW2018 files in your case, using VW2018) so if you want to import from an older VW version file (e.g. VW2016 file classes into VW2018) you will have to convert it to the same version of VW into which you want to import.

 

Thanks for the heads up on this one! 

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1 hour ago, FBernardo said:

i believe would make a big mess with too many layers!

Depending on the number of layers and what you want to do, one way to manage layer combinations is to use saved views in combination with smart layer naming (e.g. T1, T2 etc. in the layer names for the various house types), but symbols might be easier to manage.

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3 hours ago, FBernardo said:

Have this been implemented yet? as i actually wanted to do something similar after a "bad" import from DWG file...

Not as far as I can tell, the easiest way to fix a bad import is to delete the imported layer and classes (including objects) and then import it again with the proper prefix.

 

This works best if you find out right after the import. If you find out much later that it should be changed it still works if you have not made any changes to the imported objects etc., otherwise it might be better to rename the class names.

 

For renaming class names there is a marionette script that you could try, see link below

 

It comes from the following discussion:

 

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20 minutes ago, Art V said:

Not as far as I can tell, the easiest way to fix a bad import is to delete the imported layer and classes (including objects) and then import it again with the proper prefix.

 

This works best if you find out right after the import. If you find out much later that it should be changed it still works if you have not made any changes to the imported objects etc., otherwise it might be better to rename the class names.

 

For renaming class names there is a marionette script that you could try, see link below

 

It comes from the following discussion:

 

 

 

This was a long due bad import i believe it was done in the VW2017 and i just picked it up to do some corrections and additional work on the file!

 

Well we will have to work with it until they figure it out how to change class names like the German side of the VW does! 

 

Thanks for the input and that file i might use it for another thing but i don't know if it will actually works for what i want.

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