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You need standards to help work smoothly within a team, as well as to collaborate between several teams, like when the Architect and Engineers have to coordinate their work.

Within a team, it helps to have a standardized folder structure, as well as model, sheet and layer naming conventions.

As example, you would want all your plans to be in a PLN or Plans folder, and all your sheets, that reference these plans, in a SHT or Sheet folder.

If you have good layering standards and everyone in the team is aware of them, you will get all your walls, doors and windows drawn on the appropriate layers.

Having elements on the wrong layers can affect you at plotting time, or even ad pricing time, if the contractors are using the electronic version of your sheets, rather than the physical print out.

An example that I have seen a good many times is that of door jambs drawn on the same layer as the doors. In many offices the doors are turned off in the reflected ceiling plans and, if the jambs are on the same layer the transitions between adjacent ceiling grids will be affected, visually.

To get into a bit more detail.

The drawing naming conventions are important because, if you find yourself working on a large project, you will see that the drawing responsibilities are shared amongst the team.

You might be working on Core Layouts for months, while a friend is figuring out the spacing and, maybe, later, detailing of the cladding.

To work in concert, like this, the model (ACAD Model Space) drawings are generally split up in a way that closely mimics the order in which the building will be built.

You might have a CO for Core, ST for Structure (Columns and slab edges) GA for General Arrangement (these are the interior walls that go up as part of the base building package, but that are not strictly part of a fit-out, like the building's bathrooms, which are often delivered with the base building), CL for Cladding , EL for electrical and RC for ceiling plans.

In some cases the building is split up even further, if the team is large.

You might be working on the CL drawing but need to see the CO and ST, at the very least, in order to know where your cladding line is.

Having the proper type of drawings in the appropriate folders helps keep things in order, that way, if you are looking for an elevation drawing and you are in a well oiled team, you will know with confidence that you will find it in the ELE folder.

Model drawing naming conventions can be very intricate but generally will include a content marker, like CL, a floor reference and, in some cases, a further type marker, like p for plan and d for detail.

When it comes to layer naming, a good list should cover all the mostly used layers for the trade and have space for specials that the CAD coordinator for the team can add, as needed.

In England most large firms use a standard based on the European ones. It can be complicated and, often, the users prefer to look for layers by description.

In the US the AIA standards are used. An example layer would be A_WALL-FULL, which is an Architectural Full Height Partition, the Interior Architect's one would be called I_WALL-FULL, thus avoiding confusion between collaborating teams.

In MicroStation and, I am pretty sure in AutoCad also, the CAD manager can create various Level Manager filters that allow the user to filter to the levels that are pertinent to the drawing type or building element type. At my old office we had filters for drawing type and for building element.

For drawing type, an example would be GA, where only the levels generally expected to be drawn in a GA were left visible. An example for building element filter would be Walls.

One can also use the default Unnamed Filter, which works like a Google search, if you enter part in the description column header, only the levels containing that string in their description field will filter through.

Sheets are what you plot from. Both MicroStation and AutoCad have built in batch plotting capabilities but there are third party utilities that can make this process even easier.

Generally sheets are numbered in sequences that indicate the level of granularity or information.

The 0 series is always general information, like graphic legends, general notes and, in some cases, key plans.

The 1 series is the general plans (in some cases the general elevations are drawn in this series)

The 2 series is the blow up plans

The 3 seires is elevations

The 4 series is general sections (these would be any thing up to 1:50 or 1:20, depending on the building)

The 5 series is details (details are sections at a higher scale, with much more detail than the series 4 sections, that are generally aimed at establishing general sectional dimesions)

The 6 series is finish and equipment schedules, if those are not put in the 0 series.

At each level, starting from series 1, the sheets are referenced to other sheets, further down the sequence, showing greater and greater levels of detail.

All of what I say here is very general, even in an office that has really good standards, different projects will be tackled in different ways.

There are factors like size and experience of the team, or project schedule that need to be taken into consideration when deciding how to split up the project.

Generally this is done as soon as possible, but during the initial stages of the project, certainly at the schematic stage, most of what is presented is in sketch form.

By definition, a sketch is a sanpshot of a moment in time, a drawing that, were you to pull it up in two years, needs to look the same as the day it was first presented.

To do this, one either draws everything in a single drawing, or within separate models of a single drawing (this can be done in MicroStation, not sure it is possible in AutoCad now) or in separate, referenced, drawings within a folder that is named the same way as the final SK will be.

It is important to agree, early on, how SKs will be named (they, of course, belong in the SK folder in order to avoid the creation of different SKs with the same number.

I have always favoured A-SK-SDT_100820-1, where SDT are my initials and 100820-1 means it is my first SK for August 20th.

Some teams choose to set up a spread sheet to keep track of SK numbers, which are then sequential, but it only takes one forgetful team member to mess this system up

On my last big project the Project Architect did not want to use the user based numbering so we counted on people checking the SK folder before deciding on their SK numbers.

Only problem is that we, some times, ended up with a A-SK_1000, as well as a A-SK-1000

We're busy with preparation in the computer LAB at Belville Technical High School.  Academy IDT is presenting a free, introductory workshop on 3D modeling.  The short course uses Microstation and Sketchup to give school children a taste of what 3D modeling is all about.

After the progamme - the students will be able to interact with our professionals and ask questions about a career in draughting and design.

We're looking forward to seeing what the HTS Belville students can draw!

(Edited by Keith Cole - original submission Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 01:35 PM)

(Edited by Keith Cole - original submission Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 07:19 PM)