I joined a new office and they use muliple sheets per file. I came from an office that used one sheet per file with the sheet border rotated.
Does anybody have an option on what the best practice should be?
The pros for single sheets I thought of is:
Thanks
While I helped implement a 1 sheet per file policy a long time ago when I was at a DOT, many things have changed and I have found that sometimes, one sheet per model, but multiple sheet models per file is a reasonable workflow. However, other times, separate files with single sheet files make more sense.
Your 1st point is spot on. I'm not sure I follow your second point. Third point, we sometimes use a design model with all needed reference files attached which is then attached with live nesting to the sheet file. Sometimes we still use an AutoCAD style approach - design model/model space with sheet model/paper space/layout. This can still use the live nested all references attached master design model with this. But it can also be used to attach directly to a sheet model.
We also try to always bring the sheet to the model so the sheet coordinates are still true and we scale the border up, so distances are also true.
If you use the AutoCAD-like model space/paper space, you can perform design wide operations in the model and they will show up in the paper space.via the selfe referenced model into the sheet.
One place I always use multiple sheets in one file is InRoads Cross Sections. Since most annotations are done with InRoads, there is not much sharing the workload.
And all of these also still allow one to attach adjacent sheets for checking how sheets work together, or to copy a note from one sheet to the next.
Charles (Chuck) Rheault CADD Manager
MDOT State Highway Administration
Answer Verified By: Hollywood
You are mixing 2 or 3 different methods.
1) Multiple sheet per file.
2) Aligning sheets with model Coordinate Space
3) Scaling methods 1:1 vs Scale references to sheet size
As for multiple sheets.
Pros
- Easier File Management
Cons
- Limits amount of people who can work on a project
- May make for large file. Therefore slower to open and larger backups.
We're an A/E firm and generally use the one sheet model per DGN file, although if we need to present essentially the same info in another way (for presentation or maybe a plot with just a sub-set of the annotation), we try to use another sheet model in the same DGN. Even in situations where we could get the result by turning off levels, I prefer to have another model defined so if someone needs to replicate that plot, they know where to go (plots are stamped w/ DGN file and model).
My second point was basically this "We also try to always bring the sheet to the model so the sheet coordinates are still true and we scale the border up, so distances are also true."
If you have a 12 sheet plan sheet are the all in one dgn?