Introduction: How does the electronic review process work?

A Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, New Jersey writes in:

Can you show me step by step how the electronic review process works for Autodesk Design Review. What is this round tripping that Autodesk marketing literature refers to? Is it some kind of hallucinogen? How do I know that the original design really changed? Can I save shipping costs by using email?

Boy, Mr. Feder, you sure do ask a lot of questions for a guy from New Jersey.

AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor allow a user to publish a DWF file. An Autodesk Design Review user can mark up that DWF file and return it. The AutoCAD, Revit, or Inventor user can then view those markups in the original design application and make changes to the original design data. This process is referred to as round tripping since the design data starts with the author, goes to a reviewer, and makes its way back to the author. It is a complete cycle.

The markups created by Autodesk Design Review are stored in the DWF file. These can be viewed by other Autodesk Design Review users or even users of the Autodesk DWF Viewer. But more importantly, a design application user can view and work with the markups. Let's look at a simple AutoCAD example.

1. 
   The designer starts by creating his drawing (DWG file). For our purposes, he has a line and a circle. He does this in model space.

2. 
   To see what the drawing will look like when printed, the designer looks at the drawing in Layout1. For our purposes, the Page Setup command has been used to specify the DWF6 ePlot pc3 file and select an 8.5" by 11" sheet size. The designer is happy with what he has, so he saves his drawing.

3. 
   The designer publishes a DWF file. Note that the Layout tabs check box is checked so that Layout1 is used when publishing. The designer emails the DWF file to the reviewer.

4. 
   The reviewer views the DWF file in Autodesk Design Review. The DWF file looks just like Layout1 in the drawing (DWG file). It has an 8.5" by 11" virtual piece of paper. This what the DWF file would look like if printed.

5. 
   The reviewer knows this is the initial version, so he stamps it as PRELIMINARY. He would like a change made to the line, so he calls it out. He marks the status of the callout as "For Review." Autodesk Design Review highlights "For Review" items in blue to distinguish them from other markup items (such as the PRELIMINARY stamp). The reviewer emails the marked up DWF file to the designer.

6. 
   The designer uses the Markup Set Manager to load the DWF file into AutoCAD.

7. 
   The designer can see the markup items in Layout1. He can toggle the visibility of the markup items using the Markup Set Manager.

8. 
   The designer makes the change to the drawing. He does this in model space. He saves his drawing (DWG file).

9. 
   When the designer looks at his changed drawing in Layout1, he can see the effect of his change. He marks the status of the markup as "Done." He republishes the DWF file using the Markup Set Manager . He emails the DWF file to show his changes to the reviewer.

10. 
    The reviewer views the republished DWF file using Autodesk Design Review and can verify that the design has been changed. He can easily see that the status of his markup is marked as "Done" since Autodesk Design Review highlights these items in yellow.

The ability to electronically round trip design data is one of the reasons DWF goes beyond the paper.

Comments

[Scott Sheppard]

I have turned on comments for 2007!

[Peter Jones]

Hi Scott

Can you please set up a similar illustrated step by step flowchart for round tripping across Revit and Autocad programs?

We use Revit but most of our consultants use Autocad. Any advise welcome.

Regards

Peter Jones

[Scott Sheppard]

Thank you for the suggestion. As this article covers AutoCAD, I should also do one for Revit. I will post a follow up blog article. I am always looking for ideas as to what to write about.

[Greg McDowell]

I too would like to see how the round trip is done in Revit... I can not seem to find the right combination of tools to do what I think is supposed to work (where is the Republish Markup DWF equivalent?) Thanks!

[Thomas Lindner]

Could you please confirm whether the same process works with 3D DWF mark-ups in revit environment? A similar step by step guide -as useful as the above - would be much appreciated! Many thanks.