Automated Revision Tracking.

[BillZ]

Anyone have any ideas about tracking revisions made to our drawings? Would adding attributes to our borders be a good way? I would like to list all changes made to the back side of the drawing when printed. This is just preliminary thinking here.
All input welcome.

Bill

 

[BillZ]

R. Robert Bell,

<<< We use a block with two attributes >>> Is this a title block and is it part of the regular border? Are you just using ddatte to add the revisions? Why would the description be on a frozen layer? Wouldn't you want the revisions visible on the drawing? I think we do. We have printers with duplexers and print things on both sides from AutoCAD. I'm thinking of making a separate border along side of the drawing for revisions. That would leave more space inside the dwg border for the drawing.

It would be nice to come up with some way to force a revision any time the dwg is edited and saved. (Other than a big guy with a whip standing there.)

Bill

 

[Walt Engle]

Anyone have any ideas about tracking revisions made to our drawings? Would adding attributes to our borders be a good way? I would like to list all changes made to the back side of the drawing when printed. This is just preliminary thinking here.
All input welcome.

Bill

Several years ago Exxon employed an engineer/programmer to solve this problem and as far as I know they still use it.

All their borders (A, B, C & D ANSI size sheets) have attributes for all information, i.e., drawing name, drafter, date dwg is started, dwg number, engineer, approval date, etc. The original drawing number always has a '-0' at the end, such as S2456-0 which indicates it is the original. (as an aside, the 'S' indicates it is a structural dwg, 'A' would indicate an architectural dwg, etc.)

As revisions are made and approved, the '-0' is changed to '-1', '-2', etc, such as S2456-3. As each revision is made, the revisions are clouded with a revision triangle and the appropriate revision number inside the triangle.

In this manner, they may end up with several S2456 drawings, but each drawing will reflect the progression of revisions, dates, etc, and becase the last number is alway different, they do not overwrite previous revisions.

 

[BillZ]

Thanks,
So they save as the drawing each time they make a revision?
Interesting.

Bill

 

[Walt Engle]

Thanks,
So they save as the drawing each time they make a revision?
Interesting.

Bill

Yes. Example: S100-0 would be a structural drawing, the first of a series beginning with 100 and the original without any revisions -0 (zero).

The first time a drawing is revised, the new drawing number would be S100-1. The second revision would be S100-2.

Along with the revision number and new drawing number would be "clouds" around the objects that were revised and a small triangle inside the cloud with a number representing the revision, such as 1, 2, etc.

The important thing is that the borders with title block were standardized with attributes including the revision number, so that when a revision was made all that needed to be done was to change the attribute for the revision, the drawing number and add the information about the revision (along with the cloud, triangle, etc).

Sounds complicated, but is really, really fast and accurate.