Dimensioning with AutoCAD - Section 6

CHAPTER 28: CAD STANDARDS

After studying the dimensions and other tasks of annotation in Autocad, especially the last point related to the styles and to know the possibilities of the Design Center, among other topics, we can conclude something that at this point it will be obvious: in the projects of Architecture and engineering in which, due to its size, many designers participate, it is necessary to establish clear criteria on the characteristics of the layers, the text styles, the line styles, the styles of dimensions and, as we will see later, the styles drawn.
In the 22 chapter, we also mentioned that in corporate environments, it is most likely that Autocad cartoonists have to adhere to the standards established by the company where they work to define the layers. We said the same about text styles and lines when we reviewed the Design Center. The reader will remember that we suggested the use of template files with the objects common to all the drawings and the definition of styles that they had.
All this is really very clear to understand, and even to follow, but what would happen if a project involving dozens of cartoonists occurred to him to create a new style of quota because he forgot what style he needed and uses it in your drawings? Can the reader imagine what it would be like for the person in charge of the project to check that the hundreds of drawings made by his team strictly comply with the established list of layers, text styles, lines and styles of dimensions, not only for his name refers, but also with respect to all its characteristics? Wow! That would drive anyone crazy. I can already imagine the reaction of the project manager to find, after many hours of review, that one of his drafters invented some layers out there and a few names of text styles and that is why the construction company returned the files mentioning inconsistencies in the project. Imagine, in turn, that the construction company received the files and that, following the established criteria, leaked layers and printed planes and more planes to discover that there are missing objects in the drawing because they were in other layers of similar name, but not equal. Can the reader imagine all the money this could mean? In addition, someone would surely lose his job.
So with that said, I don't see the need to stress how important it is for businesses to create and maintain naming and characteristic standards for these four objects: layers, text styles, line styles, and dimension styles. The supervision of adherence to these standards is a task that Autocad takes care of automatically with a tool called, precisely, "CAD Standards".
With CAD Standards it is possible to create a file with all the necessary object definitions and then, with the command that we will see later, compare our drawings with that file to see if they meet all the established standards. Autocad will detect any of the following two possibilities:

a) There is a layer or style of text, line or dimension that is not in the file list that serves as the norm. In that case, it is possible to convert that layer or style to any of the layers or styles defined, thereby transforming the name and characteristics of the object.

b) That a layer or style has the same name established in the standards file, but that its characteristics differ. The solution is to make Autocad change the necessary characteristics to adjust them to those of the file that defines the rules.

Therefore, the first thing is to create the standards file. For that simply we must create all the definitions of layers and styles in a file that does not necessarily have to have objects of drawing and to record it like a file of norms of Autocad.

Once the company rules file has been created, we open the drawing to compare and we first use the Configure button in the CAD Rules section of the Manage tab to create an association between both files. The dialog box that is generated is very similar to others that we have already used. Finally, we can proceed to verify the rules. The Check button or the Verifymasters command starts the process through the following dialog box. The rest is to approve the homologation changes that the box itself indicates.