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Automating annotations and adding levels

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weirDeveloper

Structural
Feb 17, 2011
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Hi,

I'm starting to use table-driven designs, and playing around with DriveWorksExpress looking at automating as much as possible. We create lots of similar drawings. Creating the models we use has now become quick and easy, and I'd like to know if I can somehow speed up adding the annotations to the drawings.

Is there a way of adding notes to a Excel sheet and importing the notes into a drawing? If I could just drop all the notes onto a drawing and then drag them into position manually, it would save me a lot of work. Any suggestions?

A related matter perhaps - in the drawings, I need to include horizontal lines representing heights above sea level. The lines pass through pertinent parts of the drawing, so that you can easily read the heights of various parts. Currently, I add these lines manually, drawing in the lowest level, and then measuring the diatnace to the next line and adding the base level. It's not that hard, but I have quite a few lines to do for each drawing, and the requirements often change after the first draft, so I have to do them again. It's easy to make a mistake too, that propagates up the levels.

Is there a way I could automate the creation of these lines and associated text so that they are all created at the correct height in the drawing, and I could position them by just manually dragging them horizontally?

Maybe I'm asking too much, but I'm really getting to appreciate how much automation you can use to create models, and I wonder if I'm missing better ways of adding these annotations and levels.

Thanks.

 
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