Drafting quality ugliness

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

About a third of the drawings I have been coming across recently have basic drafting problems --nobody seems to use geometry layouts, things that should be equal are not equal by 1/16", things start having funny dimensions, etc. *Very basic* drafting problems, coming from architects etc. And nobody seems to care.

About a year ago I thought such a situation scandalous and extraordinary, but now I am starting to assume it as ordinary and just the way some people do drawings. Was I lucky before? Am I being very unlucky recently? Is that just the way things are and I was not aware?

[Anonymous]

"The GC isnt going to come into your office and start fussing about the fact that a dimension line on the foundation is in the wrong layer."

sorry to disappoint you again...but I know several agency that would, including DOD, NJ Transit and others.....the point of Archicad is that you can have a BIM deliverable........in fact American Tax payer dollars go toward developing check software.....and you can download it for free.....

https://tsc.wes.army.mil/tsws_acad/TSWS_DownLoad.asp

it's worth checking out

[Vitruvius]

"sorry to disappoint you again...but I know several agency that would, including DOD, NJ Transit and others....."

I think the essence of the thread, which I agree with, is that if you can't draw well by hand you can't draw well on a computer. A well considered set of plans is like a well crafted business letter - concise, clear and elegant. And conversely sloppy plans are indicative of a makeshift and disorganized design process.

The drawing isn't the product (the building is) but it speaks volumes in respect of your approach to a project. I've had contractors tell me that my documents are exceptional - and, I believe that serves my clients very well in terms of facilitating every aspect of the construction process.

[Anonymous]

Keith, check your PM

[KeesW]

Interesting thread!
I think that draughting quality depends much more on the operator than the software. I am fairly fussy and particular and love Ching's books. When I first looked at Archicad, I was disappointed with its output. However, when I saw the first issue of 'Framework for Archicad 6', the quality of the working drawing plan and detail examples blew me away and I immediately ordered my first Archicad (version 5.1, I think). Training and working throught the tutorials makes all the difference.
Kees

[Dwight]

Like that awful color blue that is default for use in the dimensions. Simply ick!
Call taste police.

[Anonymous]

We usually use the 2 section markers method. One is the eventually disassociated drafting section marker in which we do all our work and the other is the associated section marker which can be updated as regularly as you like which we copy the 'new bits' from, to the disassociated section.

We put the 'extra' section marker on a separate hidden layer.

[Erika Epstein]

Roolio,
Why two markers?
Since 9 sections are now able to switch back and forth between auto-rebuild, manual rebuild and drafting. If you drag-a-copy of your section/elevation away from its origin, one section can now do all that you want.

[Anonymous]

Erika

Interesting method. However, if you move your elevation it makes it harder to copy stuff from elevation to elevation or back to plan (like construction grids) without that extra step of moving it back into position, and extra steps usually (for me and most others) mean a greater chance of making mistakes.

Roolio

[Erika Epstein]

"However, if you move your elevation it makes it harder to copy stuff "

I don't think it is difficult if you get in the habit of dragging-a-copy multiple of 25' for sections & elevations and multiples of 5' for smaller items like details.


For those occassions where you do want to have a non-live section/elevation it makes it much easier. You only have to select the item(s) that have changed to be dragged into place. Far easier and faster IMHO than copying and pasting between multiple windows. It also reduces user errors when there are multiple people working on the same file.

[__archiben]

Erika wrote:
I don't think it is difficult if you get in the habit of dragging-a-copy multiple of 25' for sections & elevations and multiples of 5' for smaller items like details.

if you get into the habit, it's a relatively good way of maintaining 'live' and 'drafted' section/elevations together in harmony . . .

but i would go one step further than erika........

i typically model my building ground floor structure at z = 0. project zero. it is also typically the case that a building is very rarely situated at the project zero reality: sea level or whichever surveyor's/ordance datum you use.

so by setting the reference levels correctly in 'Preferences>Working Units and Levels...' and then offsetting your copied sect/elevation by that amount you can take advantage of the various dimensioning tools and associated reference levels . . .

~/archiben