PlotMaker

[Steve Jepson]

At the risk of exposing my ignorance, how is PlotMaker of any use if you have a .pdf writer ?
I think I quit using it when I quit making .plt files. Remember that? Now with .pdf, .dwf and such why do you need PlotMaker? I think I must be missing out on something important.

[Eduardo Rolon]

It looks as if you create your CD's in AC instead of PM. The options that PM has are:

1) Autotext
2) Tracking of all elevations, sections and details in your project with automatic changes to their page location and numbering
3) The Title Drawing option- never having to write another title to a drawing since PM will read it's name from the saved view in AC
4) Master Pages
5) Being able to organize and have all your CD's in one place, that will update after changes in AC

Remember that PM is used as a layout program for the CD's of a project and you link your views in AC to it. IMO using PM is one of the most time saving procedures of using AC. And from PM then you can print your Pdf.

[Anonymous]

Plotmaker 3.1 is time saving compared to plotmaker 2.3 (no need to save all drawings as .pmk and replacing them when changes are made in AC.

[James Murray]

Steve wrote:
something important.

Some repetition, not all I hope:

Independent control of pen settings. The ability to plot black/white/grayscale while working in color in AC. Color is critical to saying organized and efficient in AC. You could print all colors to black, but then you can't use grays.

Master layouts hold, and keep consistent, elements common to multiple/all drawings, first off, the title block.

You can work in AC while PM updates the drawings in the background.

You can easily print a PDF of the entire set.

Autotext is good, and automatic sheet numbering is simply tremendous.

Even more tremendous is the ability of detail markers to know where their drawings lie in the set. You can have PM place titles for you (I don't), or you can have your text and title objects learn their numbers from their arrangement in PM. (I do.) These features point to something else important to realize: AC is designed to be used with PM, and will probably become more so in the future.

In my perhaps-not-humble-enough opinion, PM is absolutely mandatory.

[Anonymous]

James,

You forgot multiple drawings including ArchiCAD views,PMKs, DWGs, TIFFs, etc. at different scales on the same sheet.

You can take my PlotMaker when you can pry it from my cold dead hard drive.

[Steve Jepson]

I hope you all can do better than that! For the small project I do, you haven’t listed anything you can’t do faster with a good Template and AC functions.

I am aware of all the “advantages” I have seen listed so far, and I know how to make them work but not more efficiently than in AC. I am working on it. Edit-Copy-Paste, the Resize Tool, Figure Tool, a few X-Refs, and starting out with a good Template goes a long, long way for me.

I have worked on projects with as many as 150 sheets and I can see the obvious advantages for projects of this size, but the bulk of my work is Custom Residential (6-10 sheets max) and my details are almost all on the same sheet or the same sheet they are referenced to.

Detail Maker? Why? Edit-Copy-Paste, and Resize.
Multiple file formats on the same sheet at different scales? AC has the Figure tool, X-Refs, and Modules for that.
Work in Color but print to black and white and with grey scales? We have the Ghost stories and xrefs for that.
Master Layouts? I am starting the projects with templates that already have this information.
Tracking of elevations, sections and details in your project with automatic changes to their page location and numbering? Not much help when most of my details are all on the same sheet anyway and ½ of them (or more) are x-refs or from the template.
Autotext and automatic sheet numbering? My templates already have the sheet numbers and detail titles as well as stories and publishing settings.

For me, the best thing I can say about PM is that it is more fun than using AC only. Also, the more I use it the more I like it. But it is not enough faster than my Templates and AC functions to make it worth the effort of setting up PM for the kind of house plans I make most often.

I would like to hear about something you can do in PM that is not made pointless by a good Template and/or AC functions. I think this list would be important, possibly even critical, but also very small.

[__archiben]

Steve wrote:
I would like to hear about something you can do in PM that is not made pointless by a good Template and/or AC functions. I think this list would be important, possibly even critical, but also very small.

i think that you have answered your own question:

I have worked on projects with as many as 150 sheets and I can see the obvious advantages for projects of this size, but the bulk of my work is Custom Residential (6-10 sheets max) and my details are almost all on the same sheet or the same sheet they are referenced to.

whilst you are working on your own with your own working methods and on pretty small projects, you may well find that you don't have a need for plotmaker, but come and work on my project with 400+ sheets and rising fast (we're less than a third of the way in to CD's), up to 6 teammates (all with their own ideas about workflow and how to go about the work), and a deadline looming every week.

if you can give me a template that handles all of this, keeps the documentation co-ordinated always, is idiot-proof to use and doesn't add a whole bunch of new working methods (each with their own exceptions for certain types of documentation no doubt!) to the ones that we already have difficulty maintaining then i'll accept it and ditch plotmaker.

it is essential

~/archiben

[James Murray]

Steve wrote:
I hope you all can do better than that!

Nope. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Judging from your reply, you have everything working well and you don't need help. Glad to hear it.

[Steve Jepson]

Well said ~/archiben!

That is a responce that even I can understand.

I have been using the Teamwork even though I have a one-man office just so I will be ready if I ever need to use it. (I have an imaginary staff) I would do well to master PM for the same reasons.

[__archiben]

Steve wrote:
Well said ~/archiben!

That is a responce that even I can understand.

I have been using the Teamwork even though I have a one-man office just so I will be ready if I ever need to use it. (I have an imaginary staff) I would do well to master PM for the same reasons.

i've always found that sarcasm never comes across well electronically.