Search the Community

I work as a Project Engineer with practically every one of my jobs requiring drafters to use Autocad to create drawings/plan sets. I've used Lisps for a while now and they are handy when I need to complete a task that I know I have a lisp for it helps complete the task much quicker and efficiently. The drafters I work with have 0-10 years of experience but all of which are unfamiliar with Lisp Routines. Any ideas on how to implement Lisp Routines/other useful drafting techniques into their tool-set that will help them complete plans more accurately and efficiently?

Good day everyone, I am hoping to find some practitioners (Site Engineers, Construction Managers, Schedulers, Cost Estimators, BIM coordinators, Consultants, Designers with understanding of the on-site BIM implementation, etc.) working with Revit interested in answering a few questions about what kind of additional functionalities could improve Revit's applicability for Small and Medium Contracting Enterprises (SMCEs), i.e. for small residential projects. My thesis' aim is to create an add-on in Revit's Application Programming Interface (API) (C#) that could provide some value for those companies and make the Revit's users' lives easier. The tool is intended to be user-friendly and not introducing additional complexity to the works. Even though I have some ideas, a list of functions to implement in the add-on as well as general design have not yet been determined. I worked as a full-time structural designer for 1.5 years, yet I do not have a hands-on experience from the site. It is of crucial importance to me that my add-on will be applicable in real-life situations and that is why I decided to perform interviews with experienced practitioners and later also evaluate the functionality. I will probably do some of them offline, at Aarhus, Denmark, where I study but I also have a feeling that reaching out to a larger audience online could provide additional good results. So here are the questions - if you do not have an opinion or do not want to share then just avoid the particular question: What is your companies name and size (employee-wise)? What is your job position and what are your main responsibilities? For how long have you been using BIM technologies? What are you using BIM for in your work? What kind of software does your company use (BIM or non-BIM)? What is it used for? In your opinion, what are the main 3 reasons why some of the small and medium contracting companies do not use BIM? On what kind of projects did you find use of BIM the most beneficial and how did it benefit the project? Use of which Revit functions is the most beneficial for your projects? Does your company use add-ons for Revit? If yes - which ones and what are their pros and cons? If no – why not? What Revit functions you use are not sufficient / optimally working in your opinion? How could they be improved? What is Revit lacking that could enhance the user’s experience from your perspective? Do you use any kind of “home-made” supporting tools (add-ons, worksheets, macros, etc.) for your company related to contracting work that improve project’s efficiency? If yes what are they and what is their purpose? If no, would you consider using them? What to avoid when creating an add-on your company would use? Any additional suggestions for a Revit add-on designed for an SMCE? Questions 8 and 11 are of the highest importance for the research. Also please ask if something about any of the questions is unclear. I can revise them. Additionally, I would be happy to start a discussion on the subject. It is possible that I might want to cite answers from some of you in my report if you will give me the permission of course. Looking forward to your responses!

Hi, I have a requirement in layer management. There are many layers in a drawing. I need to give some layers as input through some application like excel or anything else. As a result the drawing should be opened with the input layers to be visible and remaining layer in off state or hidden.

This sounded like a simple question, but I can't find a simple answer. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. We're reorganizing our detail library (again). Windows has a tag system that works for photos and Office docs, but it doesn't work for drawings. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I'd like to piggyback on these tags so that we can find details easily. So far all I've found are utilities that add more layers of complexity. There's the "propulate" command in AutoCAD, but it only works within the software. I need something that works for everyone, even non-drafters. So here's my question. Is there a simple way to implement Windows tags for drawings? By "simple" I mean on the level of toggling a Registry setting, not installing and learning new software.

If I use our stb to plot to our printer, the print looks right. If I plot it using “DWG To PDF.pc3” the lines are lighter. Any suggestions? I can switch to using ctb's instead.

Hey guys, This seems like an impossible maneuver, but I'd kick myself if I didn't ask the question. What'd I'd like to do: Essentially draw a selection box/window around an object in model space, and it is auto-magically captured inside of a viewport on a brand new Layout tab (duplicating the layout settings of an already existing "master" tab). I'm so used to using the "Print Window" feature, it seems liked it'd be possible to snapshot objects in this manner in a more permanent fashion, making plotting quicker and easier. Especially if I need to do multiple prints. Thoughts? Suggestions? Alternatives? Thanks guys!

dear friends, i have been in this drafting field for nearly 8 years, but i am not satisfied with this i think what ever designer or draftsman gives he is limited below an engineer level whether he is a checker or more than that. i want to know what is the highest position to reach in this drafting field. y i am asking is so that i can change my field or to continue my field.. pl. clarify

Hi guys. I wonder if anybody could help me? I need to add certain menus and applications into CAD, but I haven't done work like this for so long, my mind has gone blank. I need to know where to place the following files within the standard CAD directory, so when I load the cui file, it will know where to take the information from. This is all inherited, so I understand if it isn't as simple as I hope it will be! The files are: .dll .cui .mnr .stb .mnl .xml + a standard titleblock .dwg Obviously, if just placing them in directories isn't going to work, then I'll have to get in touch with the company that originally created the files. I just wanted to avoid doing that if possible. Thanks, I hope you can help.

When I came on to my current company a few months ago, CAD management was completely absent and when I informed my manager I thought we should have some type of CAD policy users can look to for guidance, he promptly made me the de facto CAD Manager As such, I'm trying to research the best way to manage the various projects we currently have in development. Specifically we have two specific contracts with completely different drawing requirements (i.e. different Layers, Title Blocks, etc.) and one of those contracts has different requirements depending on the type of drawing (electrical, piping, structure, etc). I have setup read-only drawing templates for each specific discipline of each project and currently the designer will just open the relevant drawing and save it with a new name. There are several drawbacks to this, the first being that for one project, the zone numbers on each sheet of the format are continuous (i.e. Sheet 01 has zones 1 thru 8, Sheet 2 has zones 9 thru 16, etc.). I've manually created 10 sheets thinking none of the drawings currently being worked would have more than that. Our electrical lead just informed me he has a wiring table drawing that he anticipates will have upwards of 50 sheets. I know there is a better way to create the necessary sheets and I do have some experience with lsp files but not enough to figure out what I should do. I have created a lsp routine and associated dcl that displays the various projects we are working on. The user selects the project and clicks the 'OK' button which in turn loads the lsp file linked to the selection. That lsp file starts a new drawing and loads the correct layers. I'd like to add a sheet function that either asks the user how many sheets they want to create or load just the first two sheets. If it only loads the first two sheets, I'd like to create an add/subtract sheet routine that when ran will detect how many sheets are currently in the drawing, then add or subtract sheets based on what is needed. I'd appreciate some opinions on how I could go about doing all or some of this. Thanks in advance. Lonnie