What a Facility Owner wants you to know

    I cannot count how many times I have spoken to the AEC industry on a perspective from the Owner's side. It is so important to have our voice heard, for design teams to learn from us as we learn from them and we meet together to create a sustainable lifecycle for our buildings and data.

    But with the last team who approached me, I was not sure what to present on, and the organizer, Karen Kensak, suggested something like Digital Twins. I was like, UGH not another shiny technology, when people do not even deliver what they are contracted for most of the time. 

    So... that became the topic of my conversation. They do not record their presentations, so I decided to record my own and post it, because it is a really important discussion. 

    Behind every technical analysis I have responded with over the years, is a disappointment that most design teams are not consistently meeting contracted requirements. 

    Yes, I lay plenty of blame on the Owner's side, from the PMs not understanding or caring to Finance closing out books and sending out final payments before requirements have been met... but just because someone lets you get away with something, does not mean you should.

    If you do not care to watch an entire video, and prefer podcasts instead, I did touch on some of the same topics (although a little less forthrightly) on an episode of BIMThoughts last year. After hearing the playback of that interview, I felt I should make a presentation addressing how I always dance around the real issue for us owners, but did not get around to it... until today.

    We have such passion and energy in our industry, among those of us who share knowledge. But not everyone is like us. They do not understand or do not care or have too many time pressures, whatever the issue is, if we close the loop, it will benefit all of us.

if you do not see a video embedded here, try switching your browser to "View Web Version" or click directly on this YouTube link. 

    Not only will it make the next renovation easier, faster, and cheaper for all parties involved, it should help our economy as a whole. As I refer back to (yet again) the NIST study that shows that there are billions of dollars of lost information in our industry every year, most of which is borne by the capital facilities portion, aka, our clients.

    I also mentioned in my talk, the article I wrote about the 'alphabet soup' of acronyms for FM, so here is the link: TLA/FLAs for FIM/IWMS

Facilities Management Q&A forum: https://www.augi.com/forums/forumdisp... Salary Survey 2021 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021AUGIsurvey Are you looking for a new job? https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021JobSearch

BIMThoughts episode on BIM in FM (and Data)

The crew over at BIMThoughts invited me to speak to facilities management issues for their listeners. I swear, it was a lot more fun than FM sounds. 

Podcast on YouTube

We spoke about everything from contracts to project management, reality capture, ground penetrating radar, CAFM, IWMS, CMMS, BAS or smart buildings, key control, security, data silos, asset management, lease management, hot-desking, occupancy planning and projection, densification and de-densification due to the pandemic, pivoting workspaces from in person meetings to virtual meetings, paper to CAD, CAD to BIM, paperless offices, digital twins, data exchange, energy management, waste management, consumer level existing conditions assessment tools, The Incredibles and the Three Amigos.

It kind of makes my head spin. But, we facilities folks are the crux of our buildings... the starting and ending point of renovations and expansions. I'm pretty proud of all that we touch and the data that we receive, supply and look after with such care.

The FM SME who receives the construction documents at the end of a project has the vital charge of curating their components for all of the other stakeholders on the owner's side. 

Show Notes

• Episode Hashtag: #MoreThanJustHVAC
• Here is where you can find Melanie on the World Wide Web:
  • Website: Mistress of the Dorkness
  • LinkedIn: Melanie Stone
  • Twitter: @MistresDorkness
• A great post from Melanie’s Blog
  • What does an Owner want with BIM?
• Looking for a job in occupancy planning?
  • Company looking to fill a lot of occupancy planning & related roles

This is a sketch of the episode done by Jisell Howe, it’s awesome! You should also check out her blog.

Methods of polylining and Boundary/BPOLY

So, as a Facilities person using AutoCAD (although Revit can sometimes be finicky about 'bounding' properties and having to manually add/adjust bounding lines, too), polylining is a must for all of us.

I still occasionally run across users who are not familiar with the Boundary command (or BPoly).

I use this command to create polylines from enclosed areas, but, you can also create Regions with it. 

Obviously, in this process, you have to be aware of the polylining standards being used. Whether it is BOMA or some client-specific method. 

If you're plining an area with a predictable pattern (such as a cube farm), setting up construction lines (CONSTRUCTION LINE or RAY) at the midpoint of the walls can be a way to provide yourself with enclosed areas to use the Boundary (BOUNDARY or BPOLY) command on. 
Make sure you have a distinct layer set as Current, so that you can isolate it (LAYISO). 

Annoyingly, in Autocad 2021, it appears that the default LAYISO behavior is to lock layers, rather than the prior default of turning them off, so you'll have to LAYISO > S to change the settings to O. 

If they are the same size, I tend to just draw a rectangle and copy or array as appropriate.

If you have less regular areas, such as an office suite or cafeteria, you will most likely  manually polyline the smaller spaces, then use Boundary on the remaining open space (lobby or seating). 

Just remember handy tools like the M2P OSNAP, where you can click two points and your pline will snap to the midpoint between them, so you can use RECTANG instead of PL to make your bounding lines, where appropriate. 

I actually set up an M2P shortcut on my tool palette, just so I can keep clicking along. 

When working in a busy drawing, I tend to keep my running osnaps to a minimum so I don't snap to the wrong thing, and just select more specific snaps from my TP when they are required. 

So, once you have your surrounding spaces polylined to make an enclosed space, then you can use BPOLY. 

Here the cyan line is my exterior gross, the magenta represents the interior gross line, the blue is for the room boundaries and the yellow is a pair of break lines that prevents islands (Tririga would show an island space as a Child space, but, I believe ARCHIBUS and FM:Systems would freak out about it, islands are a no-no. And, though I am currently a Tririga user, we still avoid islands and do not utilize child spaces with our client.). I feel pretty safe with with an 1/8" gap (.1 if you want to save on the keyboard input). 

A tip for generating the exterior gross line is by using the AREA command. 

My next step would be to select the interior gross line, a room boundary and one of the yellow breaklines and type LAYISO, so all of the other layers are turned OFF. Run the boundary command, select a point inside of the area, and your polyline is generated. 

Confused about the difference between freezing a layer and turning it off?
http://mistressofthedorkness.blogspot.com/2019/09/turning-off-or-freezing-layer-in.html

Now, I did have a reader tell me awhile back that he created a VBA program that would isolate to the desired layers and start the boundary command. I have done a bit of VBA in the past and even had the honor of assisting Lee Ambrosius in his programming labs at AU for years, but, I haven't quite gotten around to making my own program. 
But, even if you're not comfortable with programming, you could also speed things up by isolating these layers and use the Layer States dropdown on the expanded Layers panel on the home tab of the ribbon to create a new layer state and while in the Layer States Manager, Export that setting to import into other drawings. 
Because, of course, if you're using CAFM/IWMS, you are using the exact same layer names every time.

Happy Polylining, folks! 

Turning Off or Freezing a Layer in Autocad, what's the difference?

Awhile back, I was training a client on how to prepare his files in AutoCAD, prior to registering them in his CAFM/IWMS system, ARCHIBUS. My colleague, James Castruccio, introduced me and spoke very highly of my CAD expertise to the gentleman I was training. While I was conducting the training, over a GoToMeeting, he was performing other work on the project and just listening in.

There was a point at which I was in the Layer Properties Manager palette and James piped up with a question, stating that he had always wondered why we sometimes freeze layers and other times turn them off, and could I educate him as to the differences?

Deer Car GIF from Deer GIFs

You know, I have been doing this for so long, and have never had to articulate that before, having just sort of internalized the situations in which I would use one over the other.

Reflecting back on the topic, in the past, there were more functionality differences, before computing power and refresh rates, etc caught up to the functions of a full featured CAD program, but, I will try to focus on what is still applicable in more modern releases.

How are Freezing and Turning Off a Layer Similar? 
Let's start with the things these two options have in common? 

1. Makes a layer invisible to the user
2. Control from the Ribbon (Layers Panel of the Home tab)
3. Control from the Layer Properties Manager
4. Invoke from the Command Line interface
1. LAYFRZ
2. LAYOFF
5. DWG Compare ignores layers that are Off or Frozen

How are they Different? 

LAYOFF - Autocad's memory still holds the geometry

LAYFRZ - Autocad forgets the entities 
               - this can speed up panning, zooming and regenerating
               - is ignored by Extents
               - is ignored during Rendering

TIP: When attaching an XREF, it is a good idea to have a dedicated layer for each one. So, you can easily FREEZE the layer and hide all of the external reference's layers, allowing an easy ZE or publish to extents, focusing only on the contents of the drawing you are working in.

LAYON - Does not force a regeneration of the drawing

LAYTHW - Forces a regen

OFF - Can be made the current layer

FROZEN - Cannot be made current

WARNING: When your current layer is turned OFF, any objects you create or insert will immediately become invisible and remain that way, until you turn the layer back on.

FROZEN - Entities are not selectable by any means or methods

OFF - Layers may be selected using the ALL option

WARNING: If you use the ALL option of the SELECT command, and choose to move or erase objects, even the objects on OFF layers will be affected.

OFF - Blocks with multiple layers might still be partially visible, even if the layer the block is inserted on has been turned OFF

FROZEN - Freezing the layer of a block will make all entities invisible

FROZEN - Layers can be frozen by Viewport

OFF - Cannot be controlled independently by VP

Other Layer Controls: 

LAYISO invokes the OFF option, not the FROZEN option

LOCK - Unlike freezing or turning off a layer, when you lock a layer, it is still visible, just not able to be manipulated at all

If I have missed any differences or caveats to these to functions, please let me know in the comments.

Oh, and just to prove my street cred as someone who knows her layers, here is a t-shirt that my colleague The CAD Geek had made for me when we went toe to toe as the head of families for AutoCAD Family Feud at AU 2016. Thanks for the great conversation piece, Donnie! 

A listing of my articles

So, I'm just back from a day with #AutoCAD Influencers in San Francisco. Everyone admired the JavaScript dress I chose for the event (sorry, Svaha doesn't have anything with AutoLisp on it, but, I do use JavaScript quite a bit in my current role, so I will take it).

Always a good time visiting with Autodesk, talking to people involved with the process of creating or optimizing features and marketing the software, as well as the other users and managers like myself.
I didn't even think about the fact that we were getting together on C.AD (aka Pi) Day. Thanks to Donnie for pointing that out.

I tweeted from the event as @MistresDorkness and @AUGIatAU as well as posting on Google+ and Facebook. (Those of you who are my FB friends, if you're interested in seeing complete photo documentation of the trip, please check out my 'Work Stuff' album there.)

Before heading out to sunny California, I had to turn in my article for my HotNews column. The only distinction being that it will be the last edition of my polls and surveys column, due to participation falloff, since the poll was moved from the homepage to a page under the survey's channel of the AUGI site. I certainly hope that everyone has enjoyed the insight into our membership which these quick polls have given us the past few years.

Be sure to keep an eye on your email for AUGI bulletins and social media postings regarding when the Salary Survey will run this summer.

If you'd like to see a listing of my articles, including the ones I wrote about polls and surveys for AUGI, please see my Additional Content page.


2017:

Job Search Poll - Writer

2016 Year in Review - Writer

Fabulous Freebies for CAD Users 2017 - Contributing Expert

A User’s Take on AutoCAD 2018’s Top Features - Contributing Expert

2016:

Knowledge sharing in the workplace - Writer

Sources of Industry Learning - Writer
AUGI 15th Annual Salary Survey - Author and Data Analyst
Negotiating Salary - Writer
Salary Survey Correction - Data Analyst
Primary Design Tool - Writer
Most Effective Learning Methods - Writer
AutoCAD Customization Languages - Writer
Performance Reviews - Writer
Email Subscription Poll - Writer
Cost of Poor Communication - Writer
Custom and 3rd Party Software - Writer
Annual Job Search Poll - Writer
Who Deploys Software? - Writer
CAD Manager Highlights - Data Analyst

2015:

Career Advancement Goals - Writer
Do you 3D print in-house? - Writer
Hardware Review - Lenovo P700 Workstation (Engineering.com) - Author
Does the classroom prepare new employees? - Writer
AutoCAD 2016 tips in pictures - photographer
AUGI 14th Annual Salary Survey - Author and Data Analyst
In-house customization and programming - Writer
Salary Resources - Writer
Are you currently job searching? - Writer
Processes and Procedures Documentation - Writer
Essential 3rd party applications - Writer
How to Get Started in Social Media - Tipster
When do you upgrade your Autodesk software? - Writer
Do you have a side job? (gigonomics) - Writer
10 Years of Blogging - Writer
AutoCAD and LT: No Experience Required 2016 - Technical Editor
Most Frequently Used Command - Writer
A day in the life of a CAD user - Reality Star
2014 Surveys in Review - Writer
Setting Achievable Goals - Writer
AU2014 General Session - Reporter


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AutoCAD 2016 impressions in pictures

My workload this year hasn't left much time for blogging, but, I've spent some time in smaller/faster formats like Twitter and Instagram just to capture some thoughts (I'm MissDorkness on Instagram and MistresDorkness & AUGIatAU on Twitter).

#ACAD2016 now supports frames on MTEXT

#AutoCAD 2016 does drag and drop for Layouts

Point clouds are much more intuitive to work with, partially thanks to Dynamic UCS in 2016.

There are other improvements that are worth reading up on...

This feature is about leaving hatch draw order unchanged... I don't know what release its from, but, it is worth mentioning.

Dork Side Tips: Very Valuable Variables & Commands

Well, this wraps up my recap of the Tips from the Dork Side, and the extra tips and commentary slipped within, I hope something has proven useful.

Very Valuable Variables                                                                          

I wish this were a fictional account, but, true story, I once saw someone asking a question on a social media network about how to bring back their missing File Open/Select File dialog. The reply was “That stupid thing happens all the time, you have to reinstall AutoCAD.” Imagine my look of horror. I couldn’t post “Just type FILEDIA!” fast enough. 

(This system variable can be changed by a crash, or by running a routine that suppresses the dialog but fails to turn it back on at the end.)

AutoCAD allows so many things to be controlled by System Variables, and it is hard to learn or recall more than a handful of them. I encourage you to poke around the help files and see what some of them do (start with the below list). 

And, if you’re experiencing weird behavior, just post your question in the AUGI forums, where you’ll get much better advice from experienced peers about the cause and solution than the poor guy mentioned above.

Have you tried…?

Here are some system variables you can look up and experiment with:

HPGAPTOL

IMAGEFRAME

MAXSORT

MTJIGSTRING

PEDITACCEPT

PUBLISHCOLLATE

UCSFOLLOW

VISRETAIN

XREFTYPE

And, if you have not used any of the commands in the below list, give them a try:

AECTOACAD

APPLOAD

ARRAY

DIMSPACE

FLATSHOT

LAYERSTATE

LAYMRG

MLEADER

PASTESPEC

RECOVERALL

RENAME

SETBYLAYER

SSM

TABLE

XLIST

I hope I have shown you something you hadn’t seen yet. If you have some favorite commands and methods of your own, please stop by the AutoCAD Tips and Tricks forum to share.

Dork Side Tips: Repath Xrefs, Snip Xrefs, Prevent Palette Docking

 

Just for Reference…

Do you need to re-path x-refs for a large number of drawings? A quick and easy way to accomplish this is by using the Reference Manager application. Go to your Windows Start menu, click Programs, then Autodesk, then AutoCAD, and you’ll find the Reference Manager application. Click the Add Drawings button, and the program will show you the data for each of the selected drawing. Once you select the necessary attachments, you’ll be able to edit a path or perform a Find and Replace on them.

For a first look at how'd you'd go about programming something yourself, using lisp and scripts, check out this class called "Changing Hundreds of AutoCAD Drawings in a Hurry." 

Snip Snip

Working in a large hospital, our projects are usually a pretty small part of each massive floor plate, so we use the XCLIP command quite a bit to omit irrelevant extents of a plan. Did you know that, since AutoCAD 2008, you can invert the clip selection, cutting a hole in your existing plan that you can fill in with new data?

Selecting the xref will bring up the contextual External Reference ribbon tab. Select Create Clipping Boundary, select Invert clip (or type I), then select a polyline boundary or drag a rectangle around the needed area.

Prevent Docking

To move a Tool Palette out of your way without having it dock on the edge of your screen, simply hold down the Control key while you’re moving it and it will remain floating.



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