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thanks everyone for joining today if you're here it might mean that you're trying to wrap your head around the mechanism in advanced steel for creating our drawings or possibly you're wanting to build upon what you've already done hopefully this webcast will help here is the agenda for today we're going to start with an out of box drawing using one of the drawing processes and we're going to take a look at that drawing in order to determine what drawing styles are used whenever a drawing process gets run once we determine that we will use that style to create a new one and then make some changes to it we'll also create a new labeling strategy and i'll talk more about that when the time comes after that we'll set up our new drawing style and get it connected to the drawing process and i'll talk about how those are all linked together here in just a moment once we've got that done then we'll use the new process and we'll talk about uh some ways to put some finishing touches on that after we get it up and running all right let's have a look at the overall workflow of the drawing process when you run one of the drawing processes a number of tasks take place in a sequence first the main step gets called this step contains all of the settings that are involved the first setting of the main step is the step definition this setting tells us what model objects will be the focal point of the drawing the next setting is the detail drawing or drawings so we i'll be referring to this section as the file name selector since that's what the actual setting is called and it is used to wrap the drawings together and then produce that drawing file this setting also determines which prototype will be used the prototype is the template file that contains the title block and any lists that are needed such as the bill of materials bolt lists cut lists and things like that this setting also controls the format of the file name for the drawing the next setting dictates the scales that will be available for each of the views produced and after that the process will call the drawing style these are the mappings that make the connection so they're the mappings between all the objects that you want on your drawing and the drawing style the drawing style contains the specifics for each view that will get created this particular setting is called detail style maps and finally there is a slot for additional steps these are here for any extra views or details that need to be part of a drawing but they're not included in the main step we will not be covering this one today all right so due to the detail style maps and that that's what makes the connection to a drawing style let's look at what happens underneath the drawing style so after the process makes its calls it runs the drawing styles from the detail style maps and the drawing styles will then produce all of the settings for the individual views such as the top the front of the right etc how they will be arranged on the drawing how each view will be dimensioned which parts will be labeled the scale of each view the view titles that are underneath each view as well as all of the details when the drawing style gets called by the drawing process the styles set the view up then they access the settings underneath each of the view definitions the object presentation and the dimensions so let's look at those so we're just uh branching down a little further underneath one of the outer box styles here the view definition is the top container for the rest of the settings so in the same way that the drawing process itself is a container full of settings the drawing style is also a container underneath that container is another container for the view definitions and each of these view definitions will get its own name so a top view will be one definition a front view will be a completely different definition with all its own settings underneath each view name there is a setting for the view direction and how it will be clipped the next setting is the object presentation and labeling which is where we go to set things like the tags for each part in an assembly the setting also controls the appearance of the line work that's interviewed such as solid versus hidden versus dashed etc it also controls the labeling and anything having to do with labeling is stored under a labeling strategy this controls the information shown along with the leader appearance format what the font might look like what's actually in the label you know what information do you want that label to present and we'll be looking at this a little closer today the last setting here is for the dimensions so the dimension settings are a container of their own anything having to do with those are stored under a dimension request so if you're thinking about labels or your notes in your leaders you'll be think you'll be going into labeling strategies anything dimensions will be controlled underneath a dimension request so a drawing process calls a drawing style the style calls the views the views call the labels and the dimensions arranges them then sends them back to the drawing process and the process adds the prototype or the title block along with the bill of materials and other information if all of these settings are done to your specification you'll have an automated drawing with just a few button clicks the challenge here is these settings are vast and deep in one of you that have been into the process manager or the drawing style manager you may already know this so i won't sugarcoat this it may take some time to get these settings the way that you want which means there is going to be some upfront setup but once it's done the drawings will create themselves into your company standard okay let's take a look at today's example you're going to see this drawing created in a few moments at a glance you might think it looks fine however we're all detailers here and because of that we always need to look closer we need to look down to the period so let's take a closer look at the views that are on that particular drawing it does have some labels it's got some dimensions it's got a view title graphics look okay but there's one item that was not labeled and it happens to be the main part in this assembly that's the first thing so here's our labels for all the beams that are in this assembly except for one and uh we would like to have everything be labeled or at least what we want to be labeled so there's the first thing the second thing after taking a closer look at the bill of materials that came from this prototype one of the beams is listed twice and the mark is different or the label if you will that's the main part for some reason it's shown in the bill of materials two times even though there's only one of them in the assembly and so we want to fix both of those things here uh we want that marked to look like the others so if the other beams have a b 1000 type of mark we'd like that part to have the same type of label and we also don't want it duplicated in the bill of materials the third thing is down in the title block um i noticed that filled in some project information and now i've got an attribute that is overlapping uh some text in the in the title block area and i'd like to do something about that drawing number um it's just the number that was spit out when i ran the drawing process it could be a one it could be a two it could be 28 depending on how many times i ran the process and so i'd like to get control over that so those are the three things that we are going to address in today's example okay so for the first part of the demonstration here i'm going to select the main part to get started and we're just going to run the out-of-box process so i'm just going to go select it um from the list it is a selected assembly so i'm going into the five category here and i'm going to use the one called selected assemblies page full and cd now i'm just going to click use here i'll accept the defaults for the number once that's complete i'll go to the document manager and open the drawing and here's the same drawing that you saw just a moment ago there it is a closer look shows there's no label on the main part build materials that main part is listed twice also has a different mark and the title block needs to be cleaned up so the only thing we need to do here is determine which drawing styles were used to create the views to do that you'll locate the green boundary that surrounds all of the views be careful here because each view has its own boundary here in the details you'll see the view requests in the top pane and in the bottom pane you'll see the name of the drawing style we found out what we need so we can close the drawing and we will delete it from the document manager since we are going to be recreating this during our testing so it doesn't matter whether we save it here and we do have to delete it from the document manager in order to recreate a drawing of this assembly all right so that's the first step we know what we need to know let's start our custom drawing style so now we're going to go into the drawing style manager we're going to go under the user branch and we're just going to take a look at that style now the name of it was 5 u and c so we're going to go underneath the 5 category there it is it's got two views that are being requested the top and the front when we look at the settings underneath the object presentation and labeling has the same name 5 u and c so we're going to focus on that that's one of the things we'll need to change and if we go to the view properties you'll see the scale that was used for each of those views now we're going to duplicate this drawing style so we'll go back up to the top of that branch and while we're at it let's create a new category we're going to go up to the user branch to create this we'll just call it custom this is for organizational purposes so when we duplicate our style we're going to store it under that new branch so here i'm just going to right click on the style give it a new name and i like to add custom to the end of these names this makes them stand out in the tree on the left and once the style is copied i'll drag it to the custom branch notice that the new custom style is still using the original view request though so we'll need to make a copy of each of those as well i'll start with the front next to object presentation excuse me next to the view name i'm just going to click new give it a new name so i'm keeping the same name as the original and just adding custom to the back end you'll see me do that quite a bit now that i've created the view name i'm going to go to object presentation and click on set and this right here is why the main part wasn't labeled because the labeling is turned off for that object type but if i try to change it here and i'm going to get a notice that i'm about to modify the original the original set of rules so we have to create a new one for the object presentation once we create this new object presentation now i can change the labeling that's used for the main part in this case it's the one called mp beam and here we can choose an out of box label mark with leader that's the one that's being used for all of the other parts so we got to do is plug it in here and i'll click apply to save the changes so far then i'll use the back button just to go back one screen and finish this view request i'm going to go to the view properties and set the scale making it a little bit bigger just so it fills out the drawing a little better and that's it for the new front view let's do the top since i'm here i'll try to change the scale but again i get notified that i'm about to change the out of box one so i'm going to cancel and i'll reset that scale looks like it didn't change back so i'll reset it and then go back to the view definition and create a new view name always start at the top now i'm ready to make a new object presentation but this time i can select it from the list because we already created it so i'll choose five unc custom here and in the properties there you see the change that we made before so once you create one you can then start using it in other view definitions lastly i'll update the scale and we are done with the drawing style for now let's open the drawing process manager and get our new style plugged in like before i'll create a custom category to store the changes this category is under drawing processes instead of dragging this one then i can right click and choose properties to move it in once i duplicate it so first thing we do need to duplicate the drawing process that we want to use this is done in the same manner as the drawing style so the last one i drag and dropped it into the custom category this time i'll right click and choose properties and then you can change the category so two ways to organize your styles and your processes that custom category will also show up under the process steps grouping on the left so we got this process duplicated let's duplicate the main step for that process do this in the same manner as before click on new step name it and while you're at it place it in the custom category next go down to the detail style map and click properties on the right look for the style called five unc that's the original one that's the one we're going to replace be careful here though you don't want to change it yet you have to create a new detail style map first so if you look at the top it's the original name so we're going to click new step and we're going to duplicate the detail style map like everything else now we can change the drawing style right there there's our custom category for the drawing styles and that's it so those are the three things we change the process then this main step and then the detail style map okay let's try it out remember to select the main part in the model first and then go back into the drawing process manager the custom process will still be selected from before so all you have to do is click use we'll stick with the defaults for now just click ok and then go to the document manager and open the drawing as you can see here we have an automatic label for the main part like the others now let's take a closer look at this label it's a bit close to the end of the beams and the leader appears short or sweet so may not be exactly what you want so we're going to close the drawing and go back to the drawing style manager and see what we can do now to save time from here you won't see me delete the drawing from the document manager anymore but that step does have to be done if you're going to recreate an assembly drawing you'll get a message from advanced steel that the assembly has already been detailed and it and the drawing process will die right there so um but just to save time here i've only showed you the one time but just remember each time we leave a drawing for this exercise you will need to delete that drawing from the document manager before you go make your changes and use it again all right back in the drawing style manager go to labeling strategies the strategy we're using right now is called mark with leader we need to look at the arranger control in here there will be a list of arrangement strategies at the top and after some trial and error i found that the one called top or bottom 100 is pretty close to what i want so that's the one i'm going to start with here but be careful don't change the setting yet because we need to duplicate the overall labeling strategy first so we're going to click new on the labeling strategy then we can choose a different arrangement strategy from the list we can do that down here at the bottom of the labeling strategy it's the last setting or you can choose arrangement control on the left and then selected from the list at the top if you want it's the same setting so now that we have a new labeling strategy it has to be added to the drawing style so we'll go back to the drawing styles tab then we'll choose from one of our custom view requests go into object presentation and we'll swap out mark with leader with our new one from here it's okay to get the modification because we're updating our custom style and not an original all right let's try the drawing process again okay we're getting a little closer our label is moved now it's in the center of the beam but it's still just not quite uh right so it's overlapping another object the leader is still a bit short so we'll again we'll close the drawing remove it from the document manager and go back into the drawing style and back into the labeling strategy and down into the arranger control where we were before under the arrangement of iteration steps is where we're headed before we do that we do want to create a new arranger strategy then we can make our changes we're going to change we're going to increase the minimum and maximum distance here and that will allow for more length on the leader line and it brings the label a little further away from the objects so this area here that's what that controls is how close a label can be to a beam and how far away it's minimum and maximum so we're going to just we're going to increase each one of those so it's a little bit further away but it can only be a maximum of one inch away from the object that it's labeling so i like to think of the arrangement of iteration steps as the leader line length that's how i've been uh associating that okay so now that we've got that change taken care of let's try the drawing process again remember to select the main part first also while we're at it here we are going to set the option to make sure that the label will not overlap other objects and there you go the label is more centered and it has a better leader now the last thing to do here is to plug in the new labeling strategy to the other objects they still have a short leader the label is more towards the end of the beam we'd like it to be more center so back into the drawing style one more time while i'm still in the arrangement strategy though i'm going to update the name so that the measurements in the name there coincide with what we did for the minimum and maximum distance now we'll go back to objects presentation that's back in the drawing style and anywhere i see the original mark with leader in the labeling column i'm going to replace it with our new custom mark with leader and we'll accept the confirm modification dialog for each of these because we're modifying our custom style now so it's okay and another run of the drawing process should show the new labels for all objects all right and there you go so now we've got our labels updated lastly let's take care of the title block and the bill of materials all right this time i'm going to select the main part ahead of time because we're going back into the drawing process manager and we're going to make our changes and then go ahead and run it from there next to the file name selector i'm going to click properties again i'll need to create a new one before making any changes the new button in this case is on the left in the dialog here i'm going to fill in the name of my prototype the drawing that has my title block in it and while i'm at it i'll also update the file name i'm going to change that prefix and i'm pretending that i use a different standard so instead of the drawing saying assemblies sheet and then the number it'll have that prefix and that's it go ahead and hit use and this time i'm going to set my own drawing number let's back up just a little bit a little miss click on the keyboard there here we go so i'm giving a new drawing number here and here's the new file you saw the file name it's been updated here's our new bill of materials so the duplicate has been fixed and the main part has a similar label as the other parts in the assembly the title block there's our new number and the overlapping text that we saw in the beginning has been fixed all right so that's a drawing we can save and that is our new drawing style connected to our new drawing process okay that was quite a few steps there so let's review what we did we started with an out of box drawing process we reviewed the drawing determined which drawing styles were used we did that by double clicking on the boundary box for all views based on that we created a new drawing style as well as new view requests that are stored underneath it after we created the new view requests we created a new object presentation and under there is where we made our first actual change and that was to plug in a label for the main part after that we created a new labeling strategy to incorporate the rest of the changes the ones we made for the the leader as well as where the label was positioned in the view once we created our new custom labeling strategy we swapped it into the object's presentation so that's a review of the steps for the drawing style let's review the changes we made to the drawing process once the style was ready we went to the drawing process manager we duplicated the main step as well as the the overall process from there we mapped in our new drawing style which is done under the detail style map so just remember for each level that you're at you want to duplicate that before you make any changes underneath it so once we created a new detail style map and we plugged in our new drawing style and then we plug the style map into the main step the last thing we did was we duplicated the file name selector and replaced the prototype file and all you do is type in the name of that drawing and we also change the format for the file name by updating the prefix that sits out front of the number now i know that's a lot to digest at least in my opinion it is and we're just talking about one change or two changes of all of the possible changes that would need to be made and remember in the beginning i did mention that the settings in the drawing style manager they are very vast and very deep uh so um i feel your pain if you are one of those that is feeling that when it comes to the drawing settings so i want to give you a few tips first and foremost please take your time i know that's hard to do uh given how busy your your days may be deadlines and so forth but whenever you can this is critical you might have to recreate the same drawing multiple times in order to test it out and find out where the settings are where they're located in the manager dialogues right first we have to find the settings once you find them getting them to work is it's a downhill ride from there and that's what what i've discovered is just locating the setting that you want to change that's where you need to take your time but it will also take time so along with that um whatever patience you can have the better all right now as you saw that i was in and out of the settings quite a few times while creating the drawing i did that just so i could focus on the one or two settings instead of having to try and watch all of my settings behave together so i think if this is peeling back the onion start with the view request get that going before you go any deeper once it works then go to the next layer of the onion and also remember to duplicate each one of those sub settings before you make any changes that way you can preserve the out of box um and and you have something to fall back on if you decide to sometimes start over and things like that but whenever you can please avoid changing the out of box settings and that's why i also make that custom category whenever i can or some other category you don't have to call it custom you can give it your company name if you want but just make your own category to keep your changes separate from the out of box because it it probably won't take long for those to get lost you'll just have trouble seeing them in the list that runs down the left side of both of that dialogue also or as a reminder make sure you duplicate each level of the settings and do that before you make your changes and lastly be thoughtful of the names that you use when you're creating your new styles and all of the sub settings this will help ensure that they're easy to find later i found that if i tack on the word custom for example to the end of my file names but keep the rest of the file name the original that tells me which style i started with but then with custom sticking out on the right side like that it's easy to see in that list so however you decide to sort with my thought here is just think of some way to name so they stand out for you