"Fear of the Refresh Button"I'm finding on larger projects, where each floor breaks into multiple sheets, that refreshing auto annotations can/will undo much more work than it updates.Workflow, as standard, is create ductwork/piping/plumbing, then dynamic view, then drawing model and sheets. (Presently the only auto annos employed in drawing-model are Top, Bottom, Centerline, and Invert-Level start/stop elevations). After the drawing model is created, It's necessary to do some custodial work for presentation and re-arrange auto-annos, delete unnecessary auto-annos, and add DG anno cells. Now if a small group of components change elevation in the design model (e.g. a 15' run of 8x6 duct lowered 2" toward the floor), refresh auto annotations will reflect that change in the drawing model, but will also undo 60-70% of the custodial work throughout the whole floor. Depending on the size of the floor, redoing the custodial stuff can be extremely time consuming.The items that are undone are all the deleted auto-annos, some of the re-arranged auto-annos, and the DG anno cells that were placed that indicate vertical components (like duct that passes thru to the floor above or below). The later just disappear, the former reappear. (Oddly, only 40% of the re-arranged items are reset to default locations, the rest stay where I put them).The only workaround I've discovered applies only to the DG anno cells mentioned above. If I drop them once then they will survive a refresh, but the drop forces them to lose their association with the component....and here's the request:1. Please allow the Drawing Composition Task "Refresh Automatic Annotations" to present a tool-settings option: "Refresh Per Selection Set".This would actually eliminate two issues I've experienced with "Refresh": ...As noted above, and the "Visibility Calculator took longer than expected!" thingy.Thanks,Jeff
Ah... gotcha. Would you mind filing an SR with support so that an official request can be logged?
...auto anno already disabled... Thanks tho.
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Mechanical elevations: Duct, Piping, and Plumbing. Top, Centerline, Bottom, and Invert.
The elevations (auto-annos) will move along with their component when there is X and Y movement in the Design Model. But the annotation disappears when the component moves in the Z. In this case, only "Refresh" will display the updated elevation.
The core issue involves the global effect of "Refresh Auto-Annotations". Ie, the lack of ability to Refresh just one piece of annotation at a time. Too, the issue is that "Refresh" encompasses all aspects of the Drawing-Rule in one shot; Value, Location, and Hidden. Because...
After initial auto-anno generation, much time is spent rearranging them from their default drawing-rule locations (moving them), or deleting (or hiding) the unnecessary ones. Days later a single duct changes elevation in the design model, and "Refresh" is needed to display the updated elevation text. Since "Refresh" only functions globally and with all drawing-rule aspects, everything is regenerated from scratch and all the rearranging and deleting needs to be done again.
The request is the ability to apply "Refresh Auto-Annotations" globally or locally (to the whole file, or just to selected components), as a Tool-Settings option.
Thanks again
I'm a little lost on the core issue having read through this thread, but, if you disable Auto Annotation does that help?
No probs. You may also want to have a look at this thread. As with your use case, a lot of 'annotation' will increasingly be extracted from 'non-graphic' attributes that are attached to the graphic elements. The old days where the CAD graphics are done first and 'dressed up' manually, relying on the user to match door tags to the right door for example, are beccoming something to avoid... in the BIM world.
It seems to me that AecoSim is over-reliant on Drawing Rules / BV processing to update 'data' that is presented as annotation, at the moment. When BV updates a BV, it updates the graphics and the data. It runs its Visibility Calculator and resymbolises / re-generates all those Annotation Cells, Text elements etc as graphics. What seems to be missing is a way to bypass all of that heavy lifting, and maybe there should be an option to start with the annotation cells in the model and harvest the non-graphic attributes that the annotation cell is associated with, so that we can update/synch just the 'data' and not the 'graphic' as a whole... ie using BV to get the 'data' as a byproduct of the the 'graphics' when all we want is the 'data'.
Harvesting from the generated annotation elements will catch the modified and deleted info, but won't catch any new elements requiring annotations. I suppose the 'Update Annotation' tool could scan the model based on the Drawing Rules used to generate intial annotation and generate the newcomers.
Tip of the iceberg for sure. Thanks for all the reading. ...lot to digest.
Nice to know I wasn't first to think "selective refresh(updating)", (CVE or auto-anno) ...while we wait. :)