BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – BACKGROUND

TOOLS OF AG's TRADE - with Autocad Tips & Tricks

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To know AG & Mrs. AG some is to know their tools. 

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Who

It really is just AG and Mrs. AG in highly productive surroundings.

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Where and When

AG operates in cyberspace from early in the morning until mid-evening, that is, rarely after 6AM and sometimes much earlier and usually until about 7PM, 7 days a week.  (Time off for groceries and taking after a granddaughter and grandson - mostly Mrs. AG's job.)  AG does all the drawing.  Mrs. AG does all the serious designing - always on call.  Their launching pad is a small room that glows in the night's darkness for the many little winking green cyberlights on their cybergear.

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What

They run three computers -

Their computer setup is built to achieve three objectives

1. Lots of redundancy
2. Limited opportunity to lose data files - either drawing files or correspondence files
3. Limited opportunity to severely interrupt work for virus-spy ware-malware infiltration

Their chosen hookup - executed by none other than the computer-masterly Ray Jackson of the Atlanta Jackson's [rayjacksonatl@yahoo.com], their computer technology advisor - meets all three objectives admirably.

1. Redundancy comes from the network of PC1 and PC2 plus BTA1, the switches allowing either PC1 or PC2 to standalone or network either way or work (either PC1 or PC2 but not both at once) directly on BTA1 notably only off-network, or, in a real pinch, operate BTA1 standalone, and all three computers outfitted with virtually identical software
2. Lost data opportunities shrink remarkably with not only C-drives on the two Dells, but also a pair of drives in the HP run in RAID mirror image and an external data drive
3. Bugus interruptus is narrowed by superior bug screens and the HP offline

Take a look at this schematic and key to see whassup -

Note that the ViewSonic is distinctively superior - clear, bright, presents all of AG's screen views without fading, shredding text characters, barely distinguishing grays.

Gotta-Have Software

Not much, really, but hard to imagine working without what we have loaded.

BTA's Cyberville Software

Q:  What's missing?  A: A reliable converter of .jpg and .pdf files to high-quality resolution in .dwg format.  That's what's missing.

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Their Information Sources

Their sources of information include -

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AG's Autocad screen.

 Everyone does it differently a little to a lot.  This is a print-screen view (far right side chopped off) of a generalized setting for the AG.  (This screen and the one to follow are in Autocad 2000 off the CRT backup [looks the same in v2006].  The LCD screen is maxed out in resolution to show AG as much drawing area as possible, but that finer resolution reproduces poorly via .jpg renditions to follow.)  While other drawing controls may be added from time to time, most all of the controls on this screen are standards.

AG draws a project on a file, that is, all the sheets go into one basket.  For him, this approach has developed as the easiest way to get and keep different sheets straight, especially once he moves beyond floor plans.  Floor plans are where he and The Missus always begin, usually with an eye to a given architectural style but without drawn elevations.  Floor plans having gotten settled down - sometimes a long process of refinements - AG moves onto the floor plan-related sheets - foundation, electrical, and roof.  In story-and-half structures, of course, the roof plan must be sketched first in order to determine occupiable space on L2.  The AG almost always draws sidebar sketches of roof plans in 3D.  Plan details are added along the way.  Elevations conclude projects.

Keeping all sheets in one file offers the most immediate opportunities for resolutions of intralevel and interlevel layout checking and changing.  However, there are burdens: a) undisciplined backup can be disruptive, even disastrous; b) the MBs added up until the ACAD2004 format.  Disruption and disaster are begged when a day's work is saved improperly, inadvertently destroyed or written over, mislabeled, mistaken for its save-sequence or for other identity markers.  Simple seems to work best.  As for MBs buildup, the AG found that Autocad 2000 imported poorly, taking in MBs unseen, unused, and unwelcomed.  Small drawing files ballooned in active importing situations until ACAD2004 format.  Files with size past 20MB-30MB (his files sometimes ran to the-60s MBs) can become slow to acquire different views and zooms.  Autocad 2000's more difficult reaction to larger capacity was to give up on capability.  To wit, the AG worked a while back on an 18-sheet to-be-built with a roof sufficiently complex as to be unviewable in other than the plan view until he cut the 3D sketch sheet out to a separate file.  Autocad 2006 has lifted the heavy burden of horrendously large files, thankfully.

Here's a partial view of a completed projected reflecting all sheets in a single file.  This view is in isometric.  The arrangement of sheets (destined to plot in ARCH D) runs sequentially from left to right starting with a Cover Sheet through Plan Details, Floor Plans, Electrical Plans, Foundation Plans, and, finally, Roof Plans in this rendition.  The colorful wire frames at far right are the AG's several shots at a most desirable roof layout in 3D.

Of note, each sheet in a project will bear certain characteristics common to work product of Before The Architect, but not so common from others:

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.PDFs

They use 'em all the time. 

For years they applied Adobe Acrobat, that is, until it began failing on them.  Hard to imagine how much poorer that software's support could get. 

Searched around, they did, and signed up with Bluebeam (http://www.bluebeam.com).  Hard to imagine how much better that software's support could get.  And Bluebeam's fast.  Customer backup, spotty, in AG's opinion.

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Defenses against Autocad, Cyberville, and the forces of evil.

The AG had an intermittent problem running Autocad whereat a file got corrupted.  No one special corruption.  No one special path to get there.  No special warning either.  Could happen on initial opening and could happen during during the workday.  Problems - unable to access points, unable to fully launch a view beyond plan, unable to bring up a screen, etc. - do affect the AG more with file size.  Their drawing files now range mostly to not more than 30MB to 60MB during a draw in Autocad 2006 and a lot less - roughly a tenth - in Autocad 2006.  Corrupted files are nearly nonhappenings now.

Now, the stakes are different with bigger and bigger houses, longer and longer draws with more and more details: losing the day's work.  These are the protocols he's set for himself.

1. He'll draw on BTA 1, the independent PC with the RAID-imaged second drive, so a realtime copy is always resident. 

2. At the end of a day's work, copy the end product to the external drive.

3. Increment the working designate, i.e., from, say PDillardworking44.dwg to PDillardworking45.dwg and save to both the external data drive and BTA1 for the next day's work (note well that the Save control should be executed twice herewith in order to create not only the .dwg file on the first Save but also the .bak file on the second Save)

4. File yesterday's work on both drives in their own Archive folders so as to be sure AG acquires only the freshest of files each workday startup.

Alternatively, AG could draw on his Dell PC and save to BTA 1 with either c/d or jump drive medium and to the external drive via PC2's software switch for standalone control of BTA 1.

Finally, in the instance of a suspect file content or operation, immediately abort.  Beginning with that files .bak, engage a retrieval process that is 3-deep in the current day's work (i.e., the other .dwg file and both .bak files), and past that there is a daily log starting with yesterday's 6 files (i.e., 3 .dwg files and 3 .bak files).

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Extra Software.

Autocad is weak on some points - hatches, lines, and symbols.  The AG has serious assistance on two of the three levels from outside vendors.  It's worth noting, in AG's opinion, that in most instances, it's easier to import finished work to a drawing file than fiddle-diddle grunt and groan your way into ACAD with a complete generator of, say, cabinetry or extensive collection of symbols.

Hatches: Best in the business far as the AG is concerned = Rockware, Inc.'s CompugraphX.   There's a whole lot of geology going on at this site, so you better get past it to find what you're better off with than now.  That's http://www.rockware.com/home.html.  First-class assistance if you get tied up in your shorts like the AG has twice now in loading to new machinery.

Symbols:  1. For mouldings in section, cabinets in section, elevation, and plan view, and for countertops in section (but the big deal's the mouldings), there's Paragon Enterprises PeMillwork Manager. They're at http://pesymbols.com/. 2.The AG uses Autodesk Symbols some.    And some others he can't recall the name of and which isn't especially better than the one from Autodesk.  Help for the old guy on this one would be appreciated. 3. For windows, the AG uses Marvin's in downloads from their site, the disc version being no longer attractive.

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