Annotation in Layouts: Is it Wrong? Do You? Are You Ashamed?

[Chazz]

For an old-schooler like me, it somehow just feels impure, tainted and unclean to annotate in the layout environment. This is undoubtedly leftover baggage from the bad old days of my childhood with PlotMaker, where I trained users to only lay up and plot in the layouts --nothing more.

However, lately I've been doing more live 3D assembly views and it would be nice to keep them live and be able to annotate them. Since annotation is currently not possible in the 3D window, doing it in the layout environment is the next best option.

Is anyone else here willing to confess the sin of annotating in the layout window? If so; Why did you do it and do you feel sullied or liberated? Speak up, we're here to support you.

[Anonymous]

Chazz wrote:
The studs and joists are profiles (with SEO's applied to the joist for the holes).....

Wow so many holes very time & speed consuming.

Chazz wrote:
I wish someone would make a nice, super-parametric steel framing collection but I have not seen one.

That be the day I say goodbye to ..........

Thanks,
Joseph

[Haneef Tayob]

I often annotate portions of 1:100 plans on the layout. I however restrict these to just circling certain rooms on the layout with references to other 1:20 detail room layouts.

These could be done on the actual drawing, but there's often too many layersets to keep control of.

BTW annotating the 3-d on the layout makes a lot of sense - thanks

[Chazz]

Joseph wrote:
Wow so many holes very time & speed consuming.

If you were just doing one, yes. But I'm doing scads of them and have everything organized in my workspace. I spank 'em out quick quick quick.

[Anonymous]

Chazz wrote:

Joseph wrote:
Wow so many holes very time & speed consuming.

If you were just doing one, yes. But I'm doing scads of them and have everything organized in my workspace. I spank 'em out quick quick quick.

Could you explain in a plane language the process?
Thanks,
Joseph

[Erich]

OK, so here is the stupid newbie question for the day:

What are the reasons to NOT annotate on the layout?

Coming from the AutoCAD world, my automatic preference is to annotate on my sheets and leave my "base" drawing free of notes. This allows my notes to move without accidentally moving drawing elements and also makes it easy to keep notes from interacting with other elements that might also be present on a sheet such as schedules, key plans, details, etc.

Now that I am switching the ArchiCAD I am trying to figure out what is the best practice and try to avoid developing too many bad habits along the way. I understand why, with Plot Maker, you would not want to do this. I can also understand why with a 3D detail you would want to annotate on the layout. What about a simple plan layout? As of now I am using simple "dumb" keynotes so extracting information from model parts is not part of the current equation. Am I missing something vital here? I hope to stand on the shoulders of those who came before me.

Thanks

[Chazz]

Erich wrote:
OK, so here is the stupid newbie question for the day: What are the reasons to NOT annotate on the layout?

No stupid questions. Sounds like you're off to a good start in AC and understand the power of maintaining best management practices.

Because many annotations can be associative (labels, markers, etc) you would never want to place these in the layouts. The other issue is that by annotating in layouts you need to revise in 2 places every time there is a change. If you move a wall, you would need to switch to the layout window to make sure the change didn't cover up a note or leader there. Also, depending on how you have the drawings set up in the layout they may move geographically when revisions are made, thus altering the registration of your annotations (ie leaders no longer pointing to the elements they're supposed to). There are probably more reasons that it's bad practice but those are the biggies for moi.

[Erich]

Chazz,

Thanks for the response. That makes perfect sense. It I had thought about it a bit more I may have seen this. Of course in AutoCAD everything is "dumb" and if something moves in one location you must always track it down in other places and correct it whether it is a note or a drawn element. I guess my mentality has not completely switched to the new way of thinking.

Also, with AC 11 you can set the layout as your trace reference and thereby avoid conflicts with any other information you might have on the sheet. A cute trick courtesy of Eric Bobrow.

[Chazz]

Another thought on the problems of annotating in the layout ......

If you are developing details for use in future projects, you can save the view (say, a 3Dish connection detail) but none of the annotation you applied in the layout environment will show up when you place that view in a new project layout. So, annotating in layouts makes your work less portable.

[Chazz]

Erich wrote:
you can set the layout as your trace reference and thereby avoid conflicts

Nice!