I have to use other people's drawings all the time here since we do construction and not design. Designers really need to learn how to use CAD. You should never have to move and rotate the real world design data just because you want it to appear straight up and down on the screen.
They have tools for this. That is why DVIEW and layout tabs exist! It's not a huge deal, but I have several drawing files, some of which are on state plane and some are just in the middle of nowhere or down and to the left of the origin.
I have to waste time sitting around putting Humpty Dumpty back together in the right place now...
Dan
I feel your pain
At a former employer, we would perform a suervy for a cell site/tower. The designers would have their layout already completed in space and not in any coordinate system. They would get the plans approved and then request a stake out of the tower, facility and true north. I asked for and would receive the design files for the stake out calcs and discover that the suvey had been moved to the design.
That's when the fun starts. It took YEARS to get them to change their ways. It ttok tiem and money to correct the problem.
I do believe I would rather deal with what's stated here than with 95% or more of architects "drawings"...
I feel your pain. But I think you are tilting at windmills if you expect architects to change their ways. They "know CAD" very well. What they don't know is coordinate systems. I think we should be focusing on how we bring their work products back to the real world more efficiently. That is how we make the big bucks.
You know what? I am a land surveyor, not a CAD tech. I can use Carlson just fine for my purposes but, just recently, I got into a large job for a LARGE engineering firm. The CAD manager that I attempted to work with in order to deliver the final product was a bear to deal with, and basically called me stupid and inept. Which I agree I was, IF YOU'RE DEALING AT THAT LEVEL OF CAD! But my practice just doesn't call for it, nor am I inclined to stuff my head full of high end CAD use.
So, learn to deal with other peoples ineptness and try to remember that you're inexperienced in some things, too, and there are probably folks who have shaken their head at you.
My biggest problem is engineers who want everything in model space, no annotative text and saved down to some ancient version. Then they complain everything doesn't display properly.
I have a cad file here from a Municipal Public Works office for a small industrial park where the cad operator copied the site 6 times to open spaces on the screen so they could perform the grading on one site, the utilities on another, landscaping, etc. etc. All of this was done on assumed coordinates and extremely minimal property control to come from. Apparently they haven't grasped the concept of layer states to turn things off and on.
I'm always amazed at people who don't user layers. I'm not even talking about some standardized layers, just layers. Everything is on Layer0 or if I sent them a drawing, everything is in the layer I happened to have left the drawing in.
More than that, I'm always surprised by linework that doesn't meet and endpoints, perpendicular intersections that aren't quite perpendicular, curves that are actually not curves, or if they are curves are not tangent.
I can understand why people don't use paper space. I like paper space a lot and that's mostly what I use now, but it is possible to create technically accurate drawings without it.
The big thing to me is that CAD isn't the same as a paper drawing that merely conveyed a graphic idea of a thing. It is actual data now. Things could be fudged a little with pen and paper, not so with digital.
As we are well in to the digital age, I offer my strongest concurrence that, for the love of all that is good, let's get the digital product right! The time for excuses and Idon'twanna bellyaching is over. As the Good Book says: "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent."
Dan Patterson, post: 335883, member: 1179 wrote: I have to use other people's drawings all the time here since we do construction and not design. Designers really need to learn how to use CAD. You should never have to move and rotate the real world design data just because you want it to appear straight up and down on the screen.
They have tools for this. That is why DVIEW and layout tabs exist! It's not a huge deal, but I have several drawing files, some of which are on state plane and some are just in the middle of nowhere or down and to the left of the origin.
I have to waste time sitting around putting Humpty Dumpty back together in the right place now...
I truly feel your pain Dan, my personal solution to this conundrum is to take the provided engineering file and xref it into my drawing, and align the xref up to state plane, then set my units for dist and angle as high as they will go, and note the insertion x,y and rotation angle, that way if I get anything later from the engineer I can insert it at the same x,y rot and it usually comes in to the right place. Also if I need any geometry from the xref I used to trace over it using osnaps but have since discovered the ncopy command which allows you to copy entities from xrefs directly into your drawing, it's a handy way to find out what layer stuff is on also, ncopy into your dwg view it's layer name and undo so it strips that layer back out of your drawing.
Randy
Like others here, I am referring to the "basic" use of cad. Layers. Colors. Line ends meet. Arcs. REAL dimensions.
Most architectural "drawings" I have seen are pretty much rubbish. Interior dimensions of a house are greater than the exterior. The dimension of a line is not what the line actually measures (how the H do they do that anyway???). There have been times the architect could not explain how the design (drawing) was done perhaps because a cad jockey drew it and the architect did not actually check the work.
I don't want nor expect miracles. I want the basic drawing to be correct.
You should see the "drawing" of a "survey" I'm trying to work with. This national company that doesn't have a surveyor even living in the state expects me to believe that the elevations shown were shot by conventional methods. I've only been doing this for 15 years, my boss for about 30 and the best we can get for topo shots is not nats ass 50' exactly. It's called tracing the improvements from an aerial and using LIDAR for elevations. Called the company and both of the surveyors with the same name happen to be out in the field somewhere in Indiana, yet he's signing surveys he said he was on the ground for in Florida. I won't even start on the cad............... nowhere near state plane coords and rotated halfway to hell.............
Unless it is extremely good CAD work from someone I trust, I don't import anything into my CAD file. I will determine what the intent was in the design from their drawing (e.g. building wall is 5' from the boundary, pavement corner is perpendicular intersection, curb radius is 25', etc.) then I draw it myself in my drawing. I do this for a lot of reasons. I'll copy paste some polylines to make sure I haven't grossly missed their design, but if it's within half an "architect's inch" (which is probably actually submeter), I call it good. Then I know how things connect and I know what I'm staking and how it is related to everything else.
Randy Rain, post: 335957, member: 35 wrote: I truly feel your pain Dan, my personal solution to this conundrum is to take the provided engineering file and xref it into my drawing, and align the xref up to state plane, then set my units for dist and angle as high as they will go, and note the insertion x,y and rotation angle, that way if I get anything later from the engineer I can insert it at the same x,y rot and it usually comes in to the right place. Also if I need any geometry from the xref I used to trace over it using osnaps but have since discovered the ncopy command which allows you to copy entities from xrefs directly into your drawing, it's a handy way to find out what layer stuff is on also, ncopy into your dwg view it's layer name and undo so it strips that layer back out of your drawing.
Randy
Randy,
If you are just looking to find the layer name, instead of the ncopy use xlist. This will list the properties straight from the xref'd drawing.
NCOPY and XLIST are a huge help. Thanks for the tip!
I love that one. Your like "wow the lot frontage on this property is 2.5 feet!"
foggyidea, post: 335906, member: 155 wrote: You know what? I am a land surveyor, not a CAD tech. I can use Carlson just fine for my purposes but, just recently, I got into a large job for a LARGE engineering firm. The CAD manager that I attempted to work with in order to deliver the final product was a bear to deal with, and basically called me stupid and inept. Which I agree I was, IF YOU'RE DEALING AT THAT LEVEL OF CAD! But my practice just doesn't call for it, nor am I inclined to stuff my head full of high end CAD use.
So, learn to deal with other peoples ineptness and try to remember that you're inexperienced in some things, too, and there are probably folks who have shaken their head at you.
You can always subcontract someone who knows CAD. I would put myself at knowing about 15% of CAD and I know quite a bit. My guys BMG about the layer standard we have for a big engineering firm. We have hundreds of layers and it bogs down the Layer Manager, but that is part of the reason why they made Group Filters.
Bullseye Florida, post: 335907, member: 10456 wrote: My biggest problem is engineers who want everything in model space, no annotative text and saved down to some ancient version. Then they complain everything doesn't display properly.
I do everything in Model Space - Paper Space is for folks who don't understand scales...
Jim in AZ, post: 336078, member: 249 wrote: I do everything in Model Space - Paper Space is for folks who don't understand scales...
I thought paper space was for people who do understand scales.
Jim in AZ, post: 336078, member: 249 wrote: I do everything in Model Space - Paper Space is for folks who don't understand scales...
I call BS on that Jim I hope that you were being facetious. If you are truly doing everything in model space then you are missing out on a whole hell of a lot of very powerful, productivity enhancing, tools that are built into your software. The cad equivalent of still dragging a chain through the woods.
Randy