Sheet Sets

[goodmansheldon]

January 30, 2008

Dear Sirs:

"ELIMINATE MULTIPLE LAYOUT TABS. Each drawing you plan to use in the sheet set should have only one layout to be used as a sheet in the sheet set. This is important for access to sheets by multiple users. Only one sheet in each drawing can be open at a time."

They seem to be saying that you can only have one layout per sheet and use only one layout from each drawing file. And then you can use only one
named model view per sheet.

Please clarify.

Very truly yours,

Sheldon Goodman
PRODUCTION PRIORITIES
sheldongoodman@sbcglobal.net

[rkmcswain]

You can use multiple layouts from the same DWG file. Check out the Civil SSM example in the \Sample directory.

[startrek]

This is very interesting, rkmcswain you are correct as usual, Sheldon you can use as many layouts as you have in the drawing....BUT the big question is :
CAN DIFFERENT LAYOUTS THAT BELONG TO ONE DRAWING be opened by different users at the same time, if opened from the sheet set ??????
I ment - not READ ONLY.......... Did anybody try????????
I am gona try as soon as I get to work, but my guess is that it will be in READ ONLY (IF AT ALL) - just a guess that needs to be checked.
VERY INTERESTING QUESTION INDEED.

[startrek]

OK I check it out - only one person can open from the sheet set drawing with multiple layouts included in sheet set. Open one layout and ALL LAYOUTS in the sheet set that belong to that drawing will be locked and avaylable for others in READ OLY format.
Clicking on other layouts in the sheet set will simply switch between layouts in the drawing.

[Paul Aubin]

Only one person in a drawing at a time. It is my opinion and recomendation that while possible to have multiple layout tabs registered in the sheet set from the same file, it is better to have each sheet be its own file with one layout tab each. Much cleaner that way and avoids the multiple user problem too. Use template files (DWT) to maintain consistency.

[startrek]

Paul I agree with you 100%, and that is our company common practice,
however Sheldon is doing the other way - in his case sheet set will NOT work the way he expected. But it was interesting to check anyway - even in read only format layouts can be usefull for copying parts for reuse, although it is not a real advantage.
One layout/one user per sheet is a good practice, although it creates a lots of drawings.

[rkmcswain]

Just to clarify.
I wasn't trying to suggest that multiple users could access different layouts from the same drawing (at the same time).

Whether you are using Sheet Set Manager or not has no bearing on the fact that only one user can have a DWG file open for WRITE.

[jamesw]

We use sheetsets with multiple sheets per dwg.

All articles and tutorials that I have read. would lead one to believe that you can only have one sheet per dwg. This is not the case. Yes, having munltiple sheets per dwg precludes someone else from modifying a different layout withing the same dwg, but it does not prevent someone from opening the dwg in read only mode to view the dwg.

In a situation where there was a design team of many people working on a large design build project, there definitely may be a problem of dwg acess, so in this case I agree that one sheet per dwg is the way to go.

In all other cases I feel that the one sheet per dwg is taking a step back to the days of Acad release 10. That is just my personal opinion.

[startrek]

It is also depends of to what extent you are using Sheet Set and Fields.
In a favor to one layout per sheet - in our company common practice to match drawing number and drawing file name. For example if drawing number is PR-WA-01 then file name is PR-WA-01.DWG
And in respond to TITLE BLOCK attribute that holds drawing name we insert FIELD. So if more sheets added or renumbered we can do it outside AutoCAD from windows explorer.
But than again - it is AutoCAD, so there are always more than one way to do things -
that is what I like about AutoCAD !!!

[jamesw]

I agree with you Startrek. I did have to take a nonstandard approach when creating the original Template for our sheetsets with our titleblocks.

I resolved the Titleblock issue in our office many years ago with a combination of an xref and insert. When sheetsets came out I saw the potential but found that it would mean a total rewrite of the way that we did things. A total rewrite was really not an option.

We have offices in 3 states and I write the menu and code for all 3 offices, so everyone works the same and everyone is use to a single pick in the menu to create a project titlesheet.

After much experimentation I added Fields where necessary and left the rest of our setup alone. The end result is a system that works great with sheetset manager but is not set up the way that the manual recommends.

As you said. With AutoCAD there is always more than one way to get the job done. Not an exact quote, but close enough.