@jflamm well I am more of a computational and qc/qa person and I like solving problems or trying to figure out why something is not correct. ?ÿBut i need the drafting as well. I know what i want to do between Terramodell commands and Autocad 14 commands floating around in my head I get all choked up trying to figure out how to get civil3d to do something lol. Unfortunately I have not had the time I would like yet just drafting yet. We are so busy I have been computing grades and such. I like TBC and excel and my hp for that.?ÿ
I will say it does take patience for sure. I need to go back working horses as that is the greatest patience teacher ever. ?ÿMy brother has the a patience of Job. Literally. He does nothing but horses all the time. Starting colts and such. ?ÿProblem horses or as he puts it problem people causing horses to have issues lol. He would make a heck of a drafter. He has always been very artistic. Lol.?ÿ
One company I worked for had as a standard of using the Roman fonts, RomanS for b/d's, Roman C, D & T for things like Lot callout, road names, and other large sized things.
I'm partial to Arial/Arial Black and Tahoma myself.
I might be in the minority, but am not a fan of the Romans and simplex styles...aside from the plotting issues, they look too dated to me. When all I've got to work with is a black & white drawing, I like it to look like it was made in this century.
@rover83 nice. ?ÿI will be taking all of this into thought for sure. ?ÿI am sure as I get more stick time I will develop my own opinion as well along with whoever is stamping it until i pass my exam. Thank you
When you compare Swiss, Arial, Tahoma, and Calibri letter by letter there is not much of a difference. But when you compare a paragraph written in each of these fonts you can see it.?ÿ It really is more about the proportional spacing than it is about symbol shape.?ÿ?ÿ
For this reason I recommend that you make a policy of using MTEXT for all your annotations instead of TEXT (fka DTEXT). Using MTEXT also allows you to use Bolding and Italics, columnization, and makes background masking of the text block possible.
I use Arial for most of the reason mentioned already.?ÿ One consideration for me is the ability of my bearings and distances to hold up to multiple scans or copies.?ÿ Thinner artsy-fartsy fonts will be illegible once scanned, printed, then copied.?ÿ This might be a viewed as a good feature for the text in your professional seal, but I always want my bearing text legible.?ÿ?ÿ
Also, please do the world a favor a go with 0.1 annotative and not 0.08.
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@norman-oklahoma Thats a good reason. I ran into a issue cleaning up a legend the other day. Some had been done in MTEXT some in DTEXT. I had a time getting it to look right. Now i know why lol. I ended up deleting the DTEXt only because it was less of them to redo and copy editing the MTEXT. I am so green on this civil3d I don??t even know what questions to ask yet. ?ÿBut I learn something with every time i am in it. I have been so busy lately with computations I will have to re learn what little i have so far. ?ÿI resort back to TBC on computations and excel hp calculator. ?ÿI have been taught 3 different ways to compute points in civil3d along a line or lines. I have yet to learn how it is quicker yet than TBC but one of my crew chiefs loves points. He is slowly coming around to staking to dxf and sees the benefit on a lot of things as he has flexibility on site when a piece of equipment is in the way. I have lots to learn. Thank you. Now back to whittling on a cows hoof. Degnabit abscess and foot rot. I am beat today. Mud up to my knees and lame cows.
Tahoma for major labels such as Notes, street names, etc.
Simplex for everything else.
I don??t like true type fonts, especially Arial, on maps except for major labels. I started adult life as a Draftsman so I guess that affects my thinking on such things.
I??m working on the work preliminary to a boundary survey near Lake Arrowhead and I have a stack of professionally hand drafted maps, they look really good and each one has a unique character. One of the complaints of early 1980s Draftsmen up here was it was more of a hobby than a living because civil engineers are such inveterate cheapskates but maybe down there they were paid better.
@murphy gotcha. .1 not .08. Yes bearings and distance should be able to stand up to time. For sure. I hope to pass the next two exams and get on with learning and stamping my own work soon. I still have a lot to learn for sure. I am comfortable with comps and small details. I just struggle with the drafting and getting it to plotter stage. That final piece scares me for some reason more than anything else. I guess because i have not done it enough. ?ÿWe do have a big alta coming up and i am supposed to get to do everything on it so i get stick time. I will be doing all the control adjustments all the deed research and make any boundary decisions. And the LS is supposed to let me fail but prod me in correct direction. It??s his seal so he will be involved. He just wants me to make as many decisions as possible and explain why as we go through the process. I am trying to hustle up some small projects prior and i will do field work and drafting on weekends and research all on my dime and he will review follow make me think. Just have to find some friends who need a survey. And are willing to pay company for use of there equipment etc. i just want charge my hours is all. We don??t do many small jobs but i want that drafting time and boundary decisions time.
Yech...DTEXT...ugh.
@dave-karoly I never had much time doing it but when I started surveying. My first drafting class was manual drafting. I never had that natural artist touch. But i did several lot surveys manually drafting. On rainy days and such. Still have a leroy letter set to this day. But cad was coming into play and the old blue line machines causing eyes to water and making coffee taste funny lol. My ex she was a natural. She could free hand as good as most with lettering sets. ?ÿThey used her for all edits. Some people just have that touch. I can still hear my drafting professor. Stop choking your pencil. Stop pressing so hard. I guess i am lucky that once i get this cad civil3d stuff down my lines will be straight ????
@dave-karoly I never had much time doing it but when I started surveying. My first drafting class was manual drafting. I never had that natural artist touch. But i did several lot surveys manually drafting. On rainy days and such. Still have a leroy letter set to this day. But cad was coming into play and the old blue line machines causing eyes to water and making coffee taste funny lol. My ex she was a natural. She could free hand as good as most with lettering sets. ?ÿThey used her for all edits. Some people just have that touch. I can still hear my drafting professor. Stop choking your pencil. Stop pressing so hard. I guess i am lucky that once i get this cad civil3d stuff down my lines will be straight ????
we had a drafter from Poland, her hand lettering looked like Leroy, the best drafter I ever saw.
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@dave-karoly Some people just have that touch. My son is very artistic naturally. And my youngest daughter. She is 8 and she has better handwriting than I do. It??s something about it when you see it in those with a gift. Just draws your eyes and such. My other two daughters are not gifted that way. Like singing we can all learn to do it but some just have this voice. Me I can??t carry a note in a bucket. My 11 year old now she just gets biology and science. She picks up on it so fast. Vet comes out starts explaining things and she just caries on a conversation about all thes words she reads about I can??t spell or pronounce. My vet sais that girl has a gift. The good Lord just gives some different talents which makes us all better I reckon.
Ok as I am learning this whole civil3d drafting thing and pulling my hair out. ?ÿI have started looking at different font styles. What do you like on your plats and as built drawings and why. ?ÿI am starting to develop my own little mark or brand as I get more time in. I spent all day today reviewing plans for errors and consistency as they were being done by different people to be combined. I noticed a lot of different choices sometimes even on same drawing. So as I did the checks and made comments my ls said how do you notice those things. I said i have no idea but it??s different. Anyway I want to kinda pick y??alls brains that have been doing this for a long time. What is going to be the most legible years from now. ?ÿWhat is easy on the eyes once it hits paper. I know hand drafting I have seen many that were far more cleaner looking than what was printed. I like fonts that make it easier to see the 8 vs 0 as they fade and words that are clean. ?ÿI just don??t know what exactly has proven name wise to be the best. Simplex my boss likes. Leroy I tested the other day in TBC. Any advice for a rookie drafter. Are much appreciated.?ÿ
Simplex, vendetta, and ariel are what I typically. Simplex for most everything, vendetta or ariel for plat notes.?ÿ
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I usually use arial.?ÿ Any of the sans serif typefaces would be my preference for the majority of the text on a map.?ÿ Maybe use a serif style in the title area if wanting to be "fancy".
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I actually like the appearance of monospaced typefaces, such as courier, within a block of text.?ÿ But the equal space per letter makes them REALLY take up some room on the page.
