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Feb 4, 2009 12:31 AM
Last Post By: dei-feif
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NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 7, 2009 4:25 PM
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(Pardon me if I'm a little inexperienced/ignorant; I'm a civil engineering student who's interning as a CAD tech...)
Our firm is moving from Land Desktop 2008 to Civil 3D 2009, and we're currently creating standards and templates for the move. We've decided to use the NCS imperial templates and adapt the basic styles into company standards. I'm right in the middle of creating profile, alignment, and view styles, but I need a well-informed opinion before I make a further move.
All of our CAD techs, interns, and EITs are used to using a pre-configured set of layers, but the NCS has its own set of layers. All of the corridor, alignment, etc styles in the NCS files depend up those layer names, so changing the layer names would be a huge hassle. Re-training all of our employees would also be a huge hassle. My question is: What do you think of the NCS pre-configured layers? Is it worth teaching 10 people to use a new set of layers, or is it better to just change the layer names and have to re-create all of the NCS object styles?
A side question: We usually call our layers something like P-Road-CL for proposed road centerline, or E-Sew-Trunk for existing sewer trunkline. However the NCS definitions use C-ROAD and C-SS-PIPE. What's the C stand for?
Thanks in advance for the help.
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 7, 2009 5:23 PM
in response to: cfrerich
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I would without a doubt switch to NCS. it will be
better in the long run. Civil3D will automatically create these layers for
styles and line work, to rename these layers is just time you will waste and
will most likely become less productive in the long run. once the layers are understood, they will be easy
to understand. G = General H = HazMat V = Survey / Existing B = Geotech W = Civil Works C = Civil L = Landscape S = Structural A = Architectural I = Interiors X = Other Disciplines. those are just a few. if you switch to full blown
NCS you can also use that in marketing. Many local governments, schools and
others are switching to NCS and if you want to work on a US Government job, you
will need to use this. good luck Jon Baker Jehn Engineering Arvada, Colorado
(Pardon
me if I'm a little inexperienced/ignorant; I'm a civil engineering student
who's interning as a CAD tech...) Our firm is moving from Land Desktop 2008 to
Civil 3D 2009, and we're currently creating standards and templates for the
move. We've decided to use the NCS imperial templates and adapt the basic
styles into company standards. I'm right in the middle of creating profile,
alignment, and view styles, but I need a well-informed opinion before I make a
further move. All of our CAD techs, interns, and EITs are used to using a
pre-configured set of layers, but the NCS has its own set of layers. All of
the corridor, alignment, etc styles in the NCS files depend up those layer
names, so changing the layer names would be a huge hassle. Re-training all of
our employees would also be a huge hassle. My question is: What do you think
of the NCS pre-configured layers? Is it worth teaching 10 people to use a new
set of layers, or is it better to just change the layer names and have to
re-create all of the NCS object styles? A side question: We usually call our
layers something like P-Road-CL for proposed road centerline, or E-Sew-Trunk
for existing sewer trunkline. However the NCS definitions use C-ROAD and
C-SS-PIPE. What's the C stand for? Thanks in advance for the
help.
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 7, 2009 5:30 PM
in response to: Jon Baker
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ps, C-STRM-PIPE would be "proposed storm
pipe" the way i have understood NCS is this; 1 digit designator (see list below) 4 digit designator is for the class of item IE;
STRM = storm, SSEW = sanitary sewer, etc.. 4 digit designator is for more description IE; pipe
conc manh etc..
I would without a doubt switch to NCS. it will be
better in the long run. Civil3D will automatically create these layers
for styles and line work, to rename these layers is just time you will waste
and will most likely become less productive in the long run. once the layers are understood, they will be easy
to understand. G = General H = HazMat V = Survey / Existing B = Geotech W = Civil Works C = Civil L = Landscape S = Structural A = Architectural I = Interiors X = Other Disciplines. those are just a few. if you switch to full blown
NCS you can also use that in marketing. Many local governments, schools and
others are switching to NCS and if you want to work on a US Government job,
you will need to use this. good luck Jon Baker Jehn Engineering Arvada, Colorado
(Pardon
me if I'm a little inexperienced/ignorant; I'm a civil engineering student
who's interning as a CAD tech...) Our firm is moving from Land Desktop 2008
to Civil 3D 2009, and we're currently creating standards and templates for
the move. We've decided to use the NCS imperial templates and adapt the
basic styles into company standards. I'm right in the middle of creating
profile, alignment, and view styles, but I need a well-informed opinion
before I make a further move. All of our CAD techs, interns, and EITs are
used to using a pre-configured set of layers, but the NCS has its own set of
layers. All of the corridor, alignment, etc styles in the NCS files depend
up those layer names, so changing the layer names would be a huge hassle.
Re-training all of our employees would also be a huge hassle. My question
is: What do you think of the NCS pre-configured layers? Is it worth teaching
10 people to use a new set of layers, or is it better to just change the
layer names and have to re-create all of the NCS object styles? A side
question: We usually call our layers something like P-Road-CL for proposed
road centerline, or E-Sew-Trunk for existing sewer trunkline. However the
NCS definitions use C-ROAD and C-SS-PIPE. What's the C stand for? Thanks in
advance for the help.
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Posts:
8
Registered:
01/07/09
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 7, 2009 5:38 PM
in response to: Jon Baker
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Thanks Jon. Now that I've been playing around with them for 4 or 5 hours now, they're starting to feel more intuitive already.
-Chris
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Posts:
1,149
Registered:
04/27/05
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 7, 2009 6:27 PM
in response to: Jon Baker
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Civil3D will automatically create these layers for
styles and line work, to rename these layers is just time you will waste and
will most likely become less productive in the long run.
Jon, I'm not sure I agree with that fully. Civil 3D will not create the layers (with a couple exceptions like figure prefixes). If you rename a layer, the layer is still used in the style, it just now has a new name. For example, create a new file using the ncs extended template. Look at the display tab for the surface style "Border Only" and you'll see the border is set to use the layer "C-TINN-BNDY". Use the rename command and rename that layer to something else, such as "BOB". Go back to the surface style and you'll see the border is now set to use the layer "BOB". In my experience, companies that aren't going to spend the time to fully set up a template upfront can accomplish quite a bit using the NCS templates. However it they have layers already set up for their office, they can simply rename the layers in the NCS template and change their properties (color, linetype, etc.) and off they go. Brian Hailey http://www.cad-1.comhttp://www.AtYourDeskTraining.com |
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Posts:
8
Registered:
01/07/09
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 7, 2009 8:09 PM
in response to: BrianHailey
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We will definitely be changing the line properties already; we've got a really good setup for getting plots to look exactly like we like.
I'm just wondering if it will be worth my time to rename all of the layers and to make sure that all styles that reference those layers still work.
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Posts:
1,149
Registered:
04/27/05
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 7, 2009 8:13 PM
in response to: cfrerich
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The styles reference the layer, no matter what it is named. If you rename the layer, the style is still looking to that layer. There is a handle that is stored with the layer that the style is actually referencing so feel free to rename as you please. There are a couple places to be concerned with. Under drawing settings, layers tab, these do not reference an existing layer. If the layer exists, it will place the object on that layer, if it doesn't, it will create the layer. Brian Hailey http://www.cad-1.comhttp://www.AtYourDeskTraining.com |
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Posts:
152
Registered:
04/19/05
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 27, 2009 10:00 PM
in response to: cfrerich
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Even Autodesk doesn't get ALL the NCS layer names correct (thats my opinion ok take it easy) or they may be more descriptive/detailed than you want. We just switched every thing over to the NCS layer naming convention. I have tried to leave as many things as I could the way they are because I do not want to go through all those style again next time we upgrade. Theres no guarantee Autodesk wont change something but at lease the ones that don't change will already be set up in our standard layer list, colors, line types etc. Either way you go you will have to do some sort of editing some where, just try to figure out what is going to work best for your company. You can get a copy of the NSC version 4 from http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org/ncs/ |
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Posts:
3,918
Registered:
11/18/06
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 27, 2009 10:52 PM
in response to: kdepfyffer
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Even Autodesk doesn't get ALL the NCS layer names correct (thats my opinion ok take it easy) or they may be more descriptive/detailed than you want. We just switched every thing over to the NCS layer naming convention. I have tried to leave as many things as I could the way they are because I do not want to go through all those style again next time we upgrade. Theres no guarantee Autodesk wont change something but at lease the ones that don't change will already be set up in our standard layer list, colors, line types etc.
You should not need to go through all your styles every time you upgrade, regardless of whether you use NCS layers or not. -- Sinc http://www.ejsurveying.comhttp://www.quuxsoft.com |
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Posts:
3,918
Registered:
11/18/06
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Jan 27, 2009 10:54 PM
in response to: kdepfyffer
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That's exactly why we don't use them. If they really wanted everyone to use this standard, it wouldn't cost $400. We definitely do not consider it worth paying $400 for. -- Sinc http://www.ejsurveying.comhttp://www.quuxsoft.com |
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Feb 2, 2009 7:21 PM
in response to: dei-feif
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and on top of $400 "investment" you only get a
book, either PDF or paper. you do not get any DWG templates, Blocks, or Lisp
routines. you actually have to recreate everything to match the NCS.
it does have its drawbacks, and I do not see the
need to charge $400 for the upgrade since all the group rules have been setup
with version 1. lol. and minor updates for the rest of the versions.
I know that many government jobs require NCS, but
also they provide the standards to use. so there would really be no need to buy
them.
>
You can get a copy of the NSC version 4 from
http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org/ncs/ That's exactly why we don't use
them. If they really wanted everyone to use this standard, it wouldn't cost
$400. We definitely do not consider it worth paying $400 for. -- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com http://www.quuxsoft.com
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Posts:
3,918
Registered:
11/18/06
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Re: NCS layer names?
Posted:
Feb 4, 2009 12:30 AM
in response to: Jon Baker
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We have other reasons for disliking the NCS standards. One of the big ones is that Autocad isn't really designed to use them. With lots of layers in a drawing, it's handy to be able to type some letters in the layer drop-down in the Layers toolbar, and have it jump to a layer starting with the letters you type. Once upon a time (ca. the 2004-2005 versions of the product), this worked relatively well. For example, we could type "VE" quickly, and the layer dropdown would quickly jump to the first layer that started with "VE". Then things changed. Now, if you type "VE" quickly in the layer dropdown, it will quickly jump to the first layer starting with "V", then immediately jump to the first layer starting with "E". Now, couple this with the fact that, per NCS standards, all our layers start with the same layer. Argh! So much for the "quick jump" ability in the Layers toolbar. Not to mention, the XLIST command doesn't list many letters. NCS layer names are long, and the "interesting part" is at the end, which usually can't be seen in the XLIST, especially if the XREF drawing name is long. A similar problem hits pretty much anything that lists layers. Especially for layers in XREFs, the layer names can get really long, and all the interesting part is at the end. For the Layer Manager, the solution is to just make the field that displays the Layer Name really big, but in other places, it's not so easy. And at times, it can be really annoying, having the end of the layer name truncated. Then there are other things that we find annoying in the layout of the NCS layers, making them not the best thing for our work. For example, they like to have these "V-NODE" layers. We do not find that useful. We find it much more useful to append a suffix to the very end of the layer. And again, to attempt to keep layer names as short as possible, we use "PT" for "Point", instead of "NODE". By appending "-PT" to the very end of the layer name, we can keep the Points for a particular purpose grouped with the related linework. For example, we typically put edge of asphalt on a VP-EOA layer (V = Survey, P = Pavement, or V-PAVE from NCS, shortened to "VP" for the reasons mentioned earlier). The Cogo Points associated with this edge of asphalt would be on the layer VP-EOA-PT. Normally, this means that the linework layer and the associated point layer are listed right next to each other in the Layer Manager, which is very useful. And if we need to, we can use a Layer Filter to display only layers ending in "-PT", and we can see a listing of just our Point layers. We find it counter-productive to start all our Point layers with "V-NODE". Before getting to this last point, I haven't actually seen the NCS standards (haven't wanted to pay the $400), but I've had to use the DOD A/E/C CADD standards. And I get the impression those are much like the NCS standards. But at least with the DOD A/E/C CADD standards, they are created with CTBs and Layers in mind. We use STBs, and we also use Civil 3D, which has Styles. Styles dramatically impact the way we use Layers. Assuming the NCS standards are like the DOD standards, they know nothing of Styles. As such, they are basically outdated standards, geared toward "old-school" technology and methods we no longer use. There's more. But those are the big points. We actually like some of the ideas in the NCS standards, and the idea that anyone can see a layer and know its purpose. But we dislike a lot of things about it, too. And considering the fact that few of the people we work with use the NCS layers, we have nothing urging us to adopt them. -- Sinc http://www.ejsurveying.comhttp://www.quuxsoft.com |
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