Calling All AutoCAD Users - D-Tools Forum

David_Haddad · 10-01-2009, 03:05 AM

I am considering moving to AutoCAD for all the obvious reasons - it's what every architect uses, no more dealing with importing into Visio, it's a true CAD solution, easy exchange of files in native AutoCAD format and so on. For those of you who have already either made the jump or used the AutoCAD version since the beginning, I have the following questions:

1. Does it contain all the functionality of the Visio integration?

2. Right now D-Tools pretty much "just works" with Visio, with the exception of a few things that drive me nuts like not being able to copy and paste D-Tools shapes. Does it also "just work" with AutoCAD? I am just hoping that I am not going to be gaining some things and losing others. I want everything I have now in Visio except with AutoCAD. Of course getting even more would be nice, but not less.

3. Can I work just as quickly? Or hopefully quicker?

4. I assume I can easily insert images into an AutoCAD drawing?

I do not care about the learning curve, so no need to comment on that unless you want to.

Thanks,

David

David_Haddad · 10-01-2009, 03:23 AM

Looking at the samples that come with D-Tools, here are some things that jump out.

5. Why do the rack elevations look like stick drawings? Super basic, racks don't even look like racks, equipment doesn't even look like equipment, instead a component is just a rectangle with a name on it. Obviously these are not AutoCAD limitations, so why do I see this type of representation in most of the AutoCAD drawings I have seen?

6. Schematics also look very basic. The schematic shapes look the same but the shapes and lines are not particularly nicely laid out.

7. Can schematic shapes work the same as in Visio, where I select to see all I/O's, or only connected I/O's?

8. Do you AutoCAD users use both? AutoCAD for some things and Visio for others such as rack layout? Simply because of the huge library of rack shapes available for Visio id you use NetZoom etc.

NareshN · 10-01-2009, 06:31 AM

David,

The AutoCAD schematics does not have the ability to see only connected ports. Otherwise feature wise they are pretty much the same.

Naresh

grichards · 10-01-2009, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

1. Does it contain all the functionality of the Visio integration?

Doesn't seem like it's too much different, other than the features that are inherently different between autoCad and Visio. The qualifier here is that i don't have a world of experience with Visio+dTools.

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

2. Right now D-Tools pretty much "just works" with Visio, with the exception of a few things that drive me nuts like not being able to copy and paste D-Tools shapes. Does it also "just work" with AutoCAD? I am just hoping that I am not going to be gaining some things and losing others. I want everything I have now in Visio except with AutoCAD. Of course getting even more would be nice, but not less.

if you feel it "just works" with Visio, you'll probably feel that it "just works" with autoCad. You can copy/paste in autoCad, but you have to do it a certain way, and you loose connection with the PDM on your pasted block instances which is counter intuitive to the way you would probably want it to work (based on your comments in the "copy paste" thread). autoCad is not the holy grail of dTools drawings, its got its fair share of bugginess/workarounds/frustrations....sadly

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

3. Can I work just as quickly? Or hopefully quicker?

Probably not. I'm not using a super-smoking machine, but its not bad (dual P4 @ 3gHz, 3GbRAM). dialogues can be slow. It just doesn't feel as smooth as one would hope.

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

4. I assume I can easily insert images into an AutoCAD drawing?

Yes.

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

5. Why do the rack elevations look like stick drawings? Super basic, racks don't even look like racks, equipment doesn't even look like equipment, instead a component is just a rectangle with a name on it. Obviously these are not AutoCAD limitations, so why do I see this type of representation in most of the AutoCAD drawings I have seen?

thats just what you get with dTools+autoCad. someone made the comment at DTU last year that SI5 was essentially built from the foundation of a big visio stencil library, and my guess is this is why the Visio shapes are more fleshed out and the autoCad shapes are just there.

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

6. Schematics also look very basic. The schematic shapes look the same but the shapes and lines are not particularly nicely laid out.

We stopped using the schematic view. once your job gets past a certain scale the schematics become non-printable (unless you're okay with lines shooting off the side of your plot or managing dozens of dwg files for a single system) and crash bugs start popping up when you're trying to make connections on large drawings. Other bugs pop-up as well, like wire's making big looping paths. These might have been fixed, but we stopped trying to utilize autoCad schematic and i haven't seen the bugs addressed on the 5.5 and SP1 release notes

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

7. Can schematic shapes work the same as in Visio, where I select to see all I/O's, or only connected I/O's?

Not the last i checked

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

8. Do you AutoCAD users use both? AutoCAD for some things and Visio for others such as rack layout? Simply because of the huge library of rack shapes available for Visio id you use NetZoom etc.

We sometimes use visio for simple concept drawings while building an estimate. otherwise it's all autoCad, largely because of corporate knowledge and a large block library that has been built around our drawing standards and practices.

In short, as i mentioned, autoCad is not the holy grail of dtools drawing integration. We've run into our fair share of hiccups with autoCad but thats not to say that Visio is any better or worse. You'll probably hit a couple snags and figure a way around them. If your business/engineering process can benefit from autoCad in other ways then go ahead with the switch, but if your decision is based solely on how well it integrates with SI5.x i don't think your going to find that it has a significantly improved implementation. Maybe a little worse... unfortunately

fryeguy · 10-01-2009, 05:52 PM

David:

I can't comment much on the marriage of D-Tools & AutoCAD because after trying to implement this when it 1st became available many moons ago I found it to be garabage. Now I know that much has been done to make it better. I am just starting to dive in again with the goal of being 100% in AutoCAD the end of 2010.

What I can comment on is the fact that AutoCAD is leaps and bounds ahead of anything that Visio can do. Whether we are talking about Layer control, printing functionality, block (shape) management and customization, compatibility with the rest of the world, customization through mulitple automation interfaces (VBA, .NET, Autolisp, scripting), Xrefs for managing floor plans, you name it AutoCAD can do it and do it well.

Here is the trick: finding a group of truly experienced AutoCAD folks to really guide and shape the way the two applications work together.

What I offer is 18 years of banging away in AutoCAD and many other similar programs as well as extensive beta testing and usability studies at Autodesk (they are right down the street).

Yesterday, I created an invite only group on here for those that are serious about collaborating on getting the most out of AutoCAD. My goal is to create an outline of items that users want to address including some best practices for how to get the most from AutoCAD and how D-Tools should interact with AutoCAD. I am totally open to suggestions from anyone who wants to make this a reality.

fryeguy · 10-01-2009, 06:04 PM

Quote:

but if your decision is based solely on how well it integrates with SI5.x i don't think your going to find that it has a significantly improved implementation. Maybe a little worse... unfortunately

I would tend to agree with this statement. This goes back to what I said before, the problem is that a bunch of developers trying to take D-Tools and make it work with AutoCAD without really knowing how to work with AutoCAD is going to (at best) make an application interface that is mediocre, and at worst it will do all sorts of things that annoy you to no end and make life impossible.

A few years ago I sat on a conference call w/ the development team. They wanted my opinions about how the two should work together. I assumed it would go like this: "So we are thinking about implementing this feature and we think it should work like this...what are your thoughts?" But the conversation was more like this: "So what ideas do you have about how AutoCAD and D-Tools should work together?"

The point is, they didn't know how the two should work because the only reference point they had was Visio. Not to knock Visio, because I use it all the time, but the only thing AutoCAD and Visio have in common is that they can be used to create drawings and line diagrams.

Our job as users, is to work together and come up with some best practices that can be shared with the community and the developers in order to make "D-Cad" great.

David_Haddad · 10-01-2009, 06:20 PM

Thank you grichards and fryeguy for your thorough answers. To clarify, I'm not really hoping that it's going to have better integration, just that the integration will work as well. It sounds like it will, or be close to it. And after thinking about it, if it's not quite as good in one area, than I could always use Visio for that area. For instance, I like using NetZoom with Visio for thier hundreds of thousands of rack shapes. So I could always do a rack build in Visio and a floorplan in AutoCAD.

Can a single DTL file be tied to both AutoCAD and Visio drawings so I can have one D-Tools file across both?

grichards · 10-01-2009, 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by David_Haddad

Can a single DTL file be tied to both AutoCAD and Visio drawings so I can have one D-Tools file across both?

Yes

fryeguy · 10-01-2009, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Can a single DTL file be tied to both AutoCAD and Visio drawings?

you just can't open them at the same time...

**Kevin Mikelonis** · 10-02-2009, 02:08 AM

David,

Think about using CAD for your plan views and elevations for your collaboration with architects, and keep using visio for schematics and rack drawings.