Beyond the Paper

Marking up a Model

Although the title of this posting conjures up images of doodling on Heidi Klum or Fabio with a Flair pen, that's not it. :-) Senior DWF Product Manager, Hilde Sevens, taught an Autodesk University 2006 class entitled "Share 3D Autodesk Inventor Designs, Animations, and Assembly Instructions with Your Extended Team." In her class, Hilde shared some tips related to marking up a 3D mechanical model as part of an electronic review process.

You can keep team members up-to-date with design review status and changes throughout the design review process.

1. When creating a markup on a 3D model, selecting the Callout Tool will generate a new snapshot of the model (you can markup the snapshot).
   

2. Create a Markup on the new sheet by using the Callout Tool and selecting the custom Callout.
   

3. Update the markup Status by selecting the markup in the Markup Palette and Changing to ‘for review’ in the Properties Palette. You can also add a comment in the notes field to clarify to your customer why you are requesting the change.

4. Notice how the markup color changes when you change its status. This helps the user of the DWF get immediate feedback as to which Markups are For Review, a Question or Done.

Also of note, when creating the markup you can hold Shift to constrain the markup.

Thanks Hilde.

Obtaining X and Y distance measurements with Autodesk Design Review

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

Autodesk Design Review gives me the ability to measure between two points? It returns one value. How can I get the X and Y components of that value separately? Who do I look like - Pythagoras of Samos?

Boy, Mr. Feder, you sure do ask a lot of questions for a guy from New Jersey. Just the mention of the Pythagorean Theorem brings back painful high school memories. What are trying to do - make me sick?

1. Autodesk Design Review does allow you to measure the distance between two points. For example, you can take a measurement from the corner of a rectangle to the center of a circle.
   
   To get the separate X and Y distance values, the trick will be to add perpendicular lines and use points from those lines to take additional measurements.

2. Autodesk Design Review provides the ability to "snap" to geometry. It provides feedback with a small red circle to identify the point it will select. So it is easy for you to pick the exact center of the circle.
   

3. You can use line drawing tool from the markup palette to draw.
   

4. After selecting the center of the circle, by holding down the shift key while moving the mouse downward, you can constrain the line to be straight down. After drawing the first line, you can then select the corner of the rectangle. Notice how Autodesk Design Review shows the small red circle to indicate you have selected the corner point.
   

5. After selecting the corner point of the rectangle, hold the shift key down, and draw another line by moving the mouse to the right. Holding the shift key down constrains the line drawing to go straight across. You now have two perpendicular lines.
   

6. In addition to snapping to geometry in the DWF file, Autodesk Design Review also snaps to the geometry created by markups. So using the measurement tool, you can snap to the points of the lines you have drawn and get separate X and Y measurements.
   

The ability to get measurements electronically is more accurate than what can be done with calipers and traditional paper. This is another way DWF goes beyond the paper. For those of you too young to remember the original Saturday Night Live American TV show, there really is no Mr. Richard Feder.

Trick for DWF Compare using Custom Symbols

In April of last year, I published an article entitled Tips for Custom Symbols in Autodesk Design Review with information on markup from Solutions Engineer for Autodesk Collaboration Solutions, Jason Pratt. One of the tips in the article involved being able to compare two versions of the same DWF using a trick.

In a recent example supplied by Jason, he had two DWF files of the same name in different directories:

Revised: C:\revised\Caron.dwf
Original: C:\Documents and Settings\prattj\Desktop\Caron.dwf

The detailed steps to perform the comparison include.

1. Load the revised C:\revised\Caron.dwf into Autodesk Design Review.

2. 
   Select the ability to import custom symbols from the Autodesk Design Review stamps pull-down menu.

3. 
   Choose the original DWF file, in this case located on Jason's Desktop, to import as a custom symbol.

4. 
   Import each sheet as a symbol. In Jason's case, he got one symbol for each sheet in the Caron.dwf file.

5. 
   Now Autodesk Design Review has a new set of custom symbols. There is one symbol per sheet. So for, example, when looking at sheet "A0.3 Existing Site Plan" in the revised Caron.dwf, Jason can insert the "A0.3 Existing Site Plan" custom symbol. When he does this, he now has the revised sheet from the DWF along with the items from the original sheet as markup. This allows him to easily see what has changed between the two versions of the A0.3 Existing Site Plan sheet.

Thanks Jason.

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.

Autodesk Design Review measures accurately regardless of line weight

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

When measuring with Autodesk Design Review, what am I measuring? Am I measuring what appears in paper space or am I measuring what was created in model space?

A DWF is an information model. When you measure, you are actually measuring the entities used to create that model. Autodesk Design Review is viewport aware, so it takes into account the scale of the viewport -- even in paper space. I was curious if line weights, which are really just a representation of the object in paper space, would impact the measurement calculations.

To test this, I created a simple DWG that had two squares. One had a default line weight of 0.25 mm. The other had a line weight of 2.0 millimeters.

I then published Layout1 to a DWF file.

When I measured the areas using Autodesk Design Review, I got matching area measurement results. Each 4 by 4 square measured as 16 units.

Autodesk Design Review used the dimensions of the objects as inserted in model space, not the "area of the paper" occupied by these objects in paper space. This is as it should be when you have an information model instead of a picture of a model.

Accelerate the Design Review Cycle

Autodesk Product Marketing Manager, Gabrielle Friedly, reports that Autodesk Design Review and DWF enable building designers to conduct fast, effective all-digital design reviews with non-CAD users.

"Writing down 30 comments could take us four hours or more. But with Design Review, you can put your comments within the context of the design, which makes things so much easier for both the engineer and the contractor. In fact, we can do the same amount of work in half an hour or 45 minutes."
Mark Douglas,
MKM & Associates

Extra. Extra! Read more about it:

Download ADR Building.pdf

Thanks Gabrielle. By the way, Mark Douglas is a fellow blogger with his In the Dynamic Interface blog. Check it out.

The fastest route from A to built

Product Marketing Manager, Gabrielle Friedly, reports on the state of the practice methods for getting buildings built. This includes use of Autodesk Design Review as part of an electronic review process.

Download DesignReviewBuilding.pdf (1139.4K)

Use of tools like the Autodesk DWF Viewer and Autodesk Design Review allow design data to be shared with nonCAD users in an efficient process. The easy to use interfaces of tools suited to these users allow them to leverage the data to their needs. With paper, the ink on the paper is all they see and what they see every time.

Does Autodesk Design Review work with DWG files?

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

I heard that Autodesk Design Review supports AutoCAD drawings, yet it won't open my DWG. What's up with that?

Autodesk Design Review is both an application name and a product name much like "New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping." When customers obtain Autodesk Design Review, they actually receive four applications:

1. Autodesk Design Review 2007, to review, mark up, and measure DWF files
2. Autodesk DWG TrueView 2007, to view and publish DWF from DWG files
3. Autodesk Inventor View 1.0, to view and publish DWF from Inventor files
4. Autodesk DWF Writer 3.1.1, to publish DWF from any non-Autodesk application

You can import a DWG into Autodesk Design Review and it will publish it to DWF on the fly. A DWF sheet is created for each paper space layout in the DWG. A sheet is also created for model space using the last saved view. The user can then markup and/or measure the resulting DWF file. The Autodesk Design Review application does this by invoking Autodesk DWG TrueView and having it publish a DWF file on behalf of the user. So for Autodesk Design Review to be able to import a DWG, Autodesk DWG TrueView needs to be installed.

Unlike DWG, DWF files do not require "object enablers." An object enabler is a freeware application that allows custom object data created in special versions of AutoCAD (e.g. Architectural Desktop, Mechanical Desktop) to be accessed outside the AutoCAD environment. Autodesk DWG TrueView 2007 comes with object enablers for Autodesk Architectural Desktop. Other object enablers can be downloaded from the object enablers download page of the Autodesk web site.

Thanks Richard for your inquiry.

Updated Electrical Symbols to use as Markup

In April, Solutions Engineer - ACS Sales, Jason Pratt, shared a set of electrical symbols. He has updated the 1/8 scale ones so that they can be rotated. Download Symbols-8-new.dwf The file contains electrical symbol libraries in 1/8" scale that you can load into Autodesk Design Review. The symbol set includes typical electrical symbols like outlets, switches, ceiling fans, light fixtures, etc.

When you import the DWF file into Autodesk Design Review,

you request one symbol per sheet:

You then get 32 electrical symbols that you can use as custom stamps:

Thanks Jason. These symbols are really killer. (Yes this week is Halloween - not Friday the 13th.)

Be at home in the field

Product Marketing Manager, Gabrielle Friedly, reports that customers can be at home in the field. Her story features use of DWF in the geospatial industry:

Download DesignRev07_Detail_Geospat.pdf (847.5K)

The flexibility of being able to access up to date information helps DWF go beyond the paper. With paper, the information is only as current as when it was printed.