Free Facilities Management FM class handouts

Did you know that Autodesk University and the Revit Technology Conference partner with AUGI to hold old course handouts and presentations?

Well, now you do. They're hosted in the forums, so, if you're searching for a topic, these tutorials and lectures can also show up in results. Covering AutoCAD, DWF, collaboration, information management, BIM, IPD, Revit etc.

I compiled a list of those classes that are applicable to the owner's side.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?149593-FM-Class-handouts-from-AU

Obviously some of the software-based courses (like FMDesktop rip) are out of date, but, some of the concepts are still valuable, like this one:

FM104-1: Using Autodesk® FMDesktop for Space Management on a Shoestring Budget
Instructor: James E. (Jimmy) Niles
Class Description: This class will introduce the process and procedures to implement a space management system on a limited budget. We will explore the use of Autodesk FMDesktop to track departments, research grants, employees, room use, and more, for any size organization (whether it is 10,000 or 10 million square feet). We will also discuss how to make information readily available over the intranet or Internet by using third-party off-the-shelf products.

Class handouts will continue to be uploaded as they become available, so be sure to check back. I'll update that thread in the Facilities Management - In Practice forum as I see them, but, of course, I always encourage CAFM/CMMS folks to check out the CAD Management and Programming classes, too. When you're making changes on a large scale across your campus, you'll want to brush up on the automation available to speed that process up.

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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 forgets 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.

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Dork Side Tips: Keyboard Navigation

Flight of the Keyboard Navigator

If you are old-school like me, you might always keep one hand on the keyboard. I habitually keep a few programs and many drawings open and like to navigate using typed commands:

Use Alt + Tab to toggle between open files and programs

Use Ctrl + Tab to toggle between different open AutoCAD files

Use Ctrl + PgUp & PgDn to toggle between layouts / modelspace – Page Down to move right, Page Up to move left

Use Ctrl + R to cycle through viewports

Using the keyboard when Coding VB.net

The above tip reminded me of something from my programming classes back in college. We used Visual Studio, but, none of the instructors directly covered the various ways to progress after making your autocomplete options. I noticed that all of them chose one method and used it over and over, rather than switching between them, which I found to be more efficient. When you're typing out a bunch of code, you don't want to move your hand off the keys to click an option with your mouse or the arrow keys or hit an unnecessary space if one could be added for you automatically.

When using Intellisense (like AutoCAD's command complete feature), you type a couple of letters, and objects/commands/variables etc pop up.

• Pressing SPACE will fill in the selected item and insert a space after it. 
• And, of course, hitting ENTER will fill in the selected item, and move your cursor to the next line. 
• Obviously, you don't want a space after every single component of your code, so, hitting TAB will fill in the selected item, and keep your cursor at the end of it, so that you may continue typing.

 You can also toggle between the Intellisense tabs (Common and All), using the keyboard ALT< and ALT> (not that you need it with the simple example given in my code, but, trust me, it can come in handy).

I haven't spent enough time programming to have picked up any other keyboard navigation tips in Visual Studio. But, if you've got some additional to share, I'd love to learn them, too.

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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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Dork Side Tips: C'mon baby, lets DVIEW Twist

I hope I gave everyone an earworm with that punny section heading, because I can't call the DVIEW command without breaking into song.
Continuing on with my Tips from the Dork Side...

C'mon baby, let's DVIEW Twist

Buildings are never built perfectly in line with magnetic north, or with each other. My campus’s plan (see yesterday's blog post for a brief explanation of how my campus is assembled) is accurate in direction, but, that means that when I want to use AutoCAD to print out a floor plan for just one of the buildings, they will not appear straight on the plot. I set up layouts for each of the buildings, so that I can print them ‘straight’.

Pull up a layout tab and click into the viewport, zooming into your preferred area. Type DVIEWand select an object. You will be prompted to select from different available options, type TW for the twist option, then rotate the view for best fit, without having moved the modelspace entities at all.

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Dork Side Tips: Lay it all out

This tip from the dork side bears a little more explanation when it is standalone.

Working in a large facility inside the city limits, our construction is, by necessity, always butting up against another building. Obviously, once that happens, renovations often spill over from one building to another. So, also by necessity, our floor plates, and thereby our background plans, cover all of the buildings in a single file. 

I created a composite set for each discipline (ease of use for mechanics, engineers and future renovations for each trade):

Mechanical Ductwork

Mechanical Piping

Domestic Water

Electrical Power

Electrical Lighting

Electrical - Auxiliary Systems (nurse call, fire alarms, etc)

Fire Protection Piping

While I work on the Engineering staff, and we are not responsible for the architectural components, I have recently started two additional sets just for reference:

Architectural - Reflected Ceiling Plans

Architectural - Room Usage 

For each of these sets, I copy over the content from each renovation project's record documents.

All I started with was a set of floor plans, so I had to create each of the above-mentioned sets from scratch. Obviously, I created one, and used it as a template for the remainder (using the below tip, the Sheet Set Manager or SSM, and recently, Fields for the titleblocks).

Now for the tip:

After I set up separate layouts for each building on a given level, I want to import the layouts into the drawing for another level. Open up your next drawing and just right-click on a layout tab and select From Template…, change the Files of Type: selection to .dwg and select the drawing you just set up your layouts in. You will be able to select one or more of the layouts available in the drawing you are using as your template.

You can also import layouts into other drawings by using Design Center, although this will not bring along their Page Setups. Go to the Output tab of the ribbon and click the Page Setup Manager to import from there, if needed.

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