Best practice for keeping design notes? 5

[EngDM]

No matter how hard I try to be organized, I find myself having to re-run calcs to make sure I have design notes. What are your strategies for design notes? Sometimes I will punch in some values into my calculator and use the result of that but omit noting down how I got that value; I want to find a solution to this that doesn't add lots of time to design notes over the course of a project.

I've considered getting a tablet to do all my calcs on but I worry that using a stylus is too different, and the tablet screen wouldn't be the size of a paper so there would be a lot of scrolling.

 

[phamENG]

I was going through the same thing. I've tried a few different things, but the one I'm using now (and like most) is a pen display with OneNote. You can get large pen displays, and that will solve your size of paper issue, but the smaller one works well enough for me. Note that these are not the same as pen tablets, which don't have a screen. Those are a little disorienting as you're looking up at the screen while moving the stylus on the desk. I can do it, but it's a little disorienting. The display adds another monitor, so make sure your graphics card can handle another output. I spent a day debugging the driver and coordinating the CPU's onboard graphics and the dedicated GeForce chip in my laptop, but eventually got it running with two monitors and the pen display (laptop if folded up and plugged into the dock).

With OneNote I can make tabs for each project, and within the tab create new "sheets" for different calculations.

These are not formal calculations, just a record of assumptions, design decisions, rough hand calcs, etc.

 

[hetgen]

Try Mathcad or similar engineering calculation software.

The free version of Mathcad, I don't recall what they name it, is sufficient for basic structural calculation.

 

[phamENG]

If you want a free version of Mathcad, check out SMath.

 

[KootK]

I have historically been one of MathCAD's biggest fans. And I still maintain an expensive subscription license because I like it that much. That said, I no longer promote MathCAD Prime or it's free cousin MathCAD Express for use by others in production structural engineering environments. Prime is just too expensive and they've adjusted the watermark in MathCAD Express to now be an obtrusive thing that cuts diagonally across the page rather than just an unobtrusive footer thing. I'll still use Express occasionally as just sort of a desktop calculator but that's about it.

In my opinion, this "watermark terrorism" is effectively PTC reneging on their previous commitment to offer up free versions of MathCAD suitable for professional use in perpetuity. And yeah, I do know that one can still obtain older versions of Express without the watermark with a little effort.

 

[Enable]

I was first introduced to MathCAD by it being a requirement for a course on cable design I took some time back, and I did not enjoy the experience. So I'm not a fan myself, but I know many use it so it's probably just my dislike for symbolic, graphical, or point and click interfaces / computational programs.

I use / prefer R for pretty much all notes / calculations. Coupled with RStudio and Markdown capabilities, you can make a stellar looking display with control over pretty much everything. R can do all your calculations, which you can hide in the background if you want, and at the end you can print a nice looking graphical sheet to have as an easy reference.

I use R for both design, and project note keeping.

 

[Agent666]

Enable, do you have an example output you can share (like what can you create when printing to PDF for example, whats the end result). I never in a million years would have tweaked to using R for this, but I guess without having looked into it that is a bit like a Jupyter notebook like experience?

As for me, I use OneNote for this documentation type of thing, with a surface pro and surface pen. In fact all of our company calcs are done in OneNote, so we just have our own personal notebook for anything that's not job specific that we can just retain and organise however you like. Being able to search, even within images you might paste is pretty handy for finding that little bit of information you knew you squirreled away several years ago.

I use it a lot for documenting the basis of design for spreadsheets, all the rough calcs working out the methods, etc, basically the stuff/thought process that is otherwise lost after a spreadsheet is complete. For example, derive some equation for something, and you have retained the working and can come back to it in 5 years time and figure out what that random equation was in your spreadsheet. Can sync the notebooks to multiple machines and even your phone for ease of reference if you use a shared notebook on OneDrive.

Is OneNote the best tool for calcs, not really. But to be honest not found anything better or worse. Sort of learn to live with it type of affair.

We have a license for an older version of MathCAD, but I always found it a bit clunky, ultimately preferring Excel just because that is what 99% of structural engineers tend to be comfortable with.

https://engineervsheep.com

 

[EngDM]

I was first introduced to MathCAD by it being a requirement for a course on cable design I took some time back, and I did not enjoy the experience. So I'm not a fan myself, but I know many use it so it's probably just my dislike for symbolic, graphical, or point and click interfaces / computational programs.

I use / prefer R for pretty much all notes / calculations. Coupled with RStudio and Markdown capabilities, you can make a stellar looking display with control over pretty much everything. R can do all your calculations, which you can hide in the background if you want, and at the end you can print a nice looking graphical sheet to have as an easy reference.

I use R for both design, and project note keeping.

I've never thought of using R for this, that actually might be handy for making clear and concise notes whenever the client or my superiors ask for calcs. Combine that with a pen display as suggested by phamENG is likely the route I will take. I've tried using a pen tablet but the lack of screen was a deal-breaker.

I was going through the same thing. I've tried a few different things, but the one I'm using now (and like most) is a pen display with OneNote.

What pen display do you use, I don't want to get the most expensive if you have experience with another one.

 

[phamENG]

Check the link in my post. XP-Pen makes the one I use. Not perfect, but gets the job done. The display itself is nice and the stylus works really well - it's almost just like using a pen on paper. Almost. Occasionally it bugs out and turns into a pen tablet - the stylus point appears on one of my other screens - and I have to reboot the computer. And, like I said, it took some fiddling to get the graphics cards and display drivers to play nice with each other. But it was pretty cheap compared so some that are out there. I bought it on sale, but right now the 12" (which I have) is going for $250 (US).

 

[skeletron]

I use 11x17 PDF template with a title-block then either snip&paste screenshots or results, or provide some textbox comments. Add new PDF's to the file as required. Spreadsheets are formatted to print, so I append those results to the file where required. Where I use back-of-the-envelope calcs, I either go old school and do pen+paper notes or I use SMath to bang out some unit calculation and then snip&paste. The pen+paper calcs get scanned in as 11x17 (only way my scanner will accept looseleaf grid paper) and then I add that to the file.

I typically have my analysis folder broken down into sub-folders for models, results, markups, and then the main folder always contains a file called "CALC blah blah blah SUBMITTAL" with a date.

I struggle with finding a good method for record keeping. I'm still a pen&paper guy for the most part, although slowly being tempted to gravitate to the stylus/tablet method in the near future. I think if you're running calcs and designing (drawing) it's partly a case of getting disciplined to process/save/organize/continue all at the same time.

EDIT: In my jurisdiction and for my scope of work, we don't have to do any calculation submittals. So my method is mainly based on record keeping for whenever my firm gets audited. I think there's less problems with having one file, then supplying a zip file with a bunch of PDFs and no "narration" of the analysis.

 

[kipfoot]

My calcs are always a mixture of graphics and text. I use a pdf printer driver to plot a portion of the plan, a catalog cut, a portion of a simpson table, section of the code, etc. to a calculation sheet and print it so I can make notes with a pencil (I love the blackwing natural, but usually I'm using a pentel P209). For example, I can't proceed with a shear wall design unless I have a calc sheet with an architectural elevation that I've drawn on to show where I determined the tributary area for wind. All this goes in a three ring binder and somewhere down the road gets scanned into a pdf file.

phamENG: does the XP-Pen work like an additional screen? For example, can you open something in bluebeam and use the XP-pen interface to draw with the Markup|Pen function?

 

[dhengr]

ManitobaStructural:
Make them legible and semi-coherent, so someone in the future (maybe even you, in a month or two) can decipher them with some reasonable degree of min. engineering mechanics effort. Put page numbers in the upper right corner so they can be put in order. And, if you need FEA to design a simple beam, etc., or CAD (or BIM) to draw an ugly isometric, multi-colored view of a bunch of structural components coming together, but not really showing anything, I’m not sure that I’ll ever really believe you know what you are doing. This just isn’t real engineering any more, it’s some CAD monkey or Drafter pretending to be an engineer because he has some software, but no idea what he is doing.

 

[phamENG]

kipfoot - yes it does. If I get around to cleaning my desk I'll take a picture and show you...

I set it up to use the Pen function in Bluebeam, but I very much prefer the OneNote interface. I can snip from Bluebeam and paste into OneNote and organize with the rest of my calcs. Gives me a nice, linear progression to help me keep track of my train of thought (which can be erratic at the best of times).

I keep Microsoft Whiteboard handy for quick notes from phone calls, reminders, etc.

 

[dik]

I generally use SMath and have a 'Summary' sheet(s) at the end and I print out the summary sheet using Doropdf printer driver and set the number of pages printed equal to the summary sheet(s). I can then change variables in the SMath program and the pdf printer driver appends them to the original output. I can have the design of 20 (of the same type of thing) in a 20 page pdf design file. I set up excel programs using the same approach with the printer driver looking after creating the *.pdf file.

I create a project number file for my calculator and save all my calculator 'notes' to it and then download it to my computer. There is no description of what I did, but I can easily determine what the calculations were for simple stuff.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[Celt83]

I’ll toss in another plug for Onenote. With office365 we create a group for each project then each project gets its own email group and Onenote notebook.

I used to use either a letter or 11x17 template for each new page but have since moved to using the default free form setup with the small grid background. Clipping in bits and pieces of code snips, product tables, Robot analysis diagrams, etc.

The really nice feature with Onenote is the compatibility across platforms we have folks that use the ipad with apple pencil working in the same notebook as those with a surface device. I use a drawing tablet without a screen as it was the most cost effective for me a decent huion tablet can be had for $36ish.

I'm making a thing:

http://www.thestructuraltoolbox.com

(It's no Kootware and it will probably break but it's alive!)

 

[JAF_clemsonfan]

We’ve started using TEDDS for Word. Fairly similar to using mathcad but has great functionality of organization of Word document. Also can include built-in design modules that are within TEDDS

 

[Enable]

Agent666: My background is as much in statistics as it is in engineering, and in academic stats R is widely used. That's why I've defaulted to it over the years. However, these days with the ease of RMarkdown / Bookdown I really do feel it's a great tool that can be used more widely in this industry.

I personally like it because of the ability for data manipulation, referencing across projects or within projects, and for its graphical capabilities. I'm currently in the midst of making bookdown sheets for all my projects. You can see the power of it here. You can have a description section, analysis section, hand notes section, whatever and have everything hyperlink to one another. Plus it's very easy to modify if you want to add something later. On the two jobs I've done it thus far it has been a dream.

I'm not at my workstation at the moment so I only have access to older sheets / defunct things that don't quite work. But here's a snippet from what I have that should give you an idea (i've also attached a HTML knit file that you can see as well)

R code input. If you want to be fancy you can have popup prompts in the sheet for you to input values instead of into the R interpreter

Basic layout of some of my first sheets

 

[EcoGen]

It's interesting how many people are using digital methods of note taking. Our office literally does everything on paper. At least I make sure the design engineers working on my projects scan everything at the end so we have a digital copy, which some Project Managers in our office don't even do. But they are dumb unsearchable copies and don't contain some of my rough back of the envelope or preliminary calcs.

I think if I was a solo engineer or if I had the power to force everyone in our office to use a OneNote + Pen Display system, there would be a lot of benefits in the long run. But instead I work with engineers who would rather quit than work on anything other than paper. I bought first edition of the Surface Pro and to be honest I really didn't use it the way I thought I would and reverted back to paper. I'm sure Pen Displays have come a long way since 2012 thought!

In any case, using paper and pencil throughout the project and then scanning calcs at the end of the project is probably what we're going to have to stick to. But I do always loose 10% to 30% of my rough initial calcs that didn't make it into the final calculation package and then am never able to search for or find them again afterwards.

 

[Brad805]

Using onenote like Agent describes takes a lot of patience. I am trying, but find I revert back to the old habits when in a hurry.

For using the pen it will be nice when the Microsoft studio pro 2 comes down in price. Studio Pro2

Enable, priceless. Even in your notes...

 

[CURVEB]

We tend to use Bluebeam. Print out a framing plan (or foundation) from Revit with all annotations temporarily hidden and you get a nice background with which you can add whatever notes you need. If you are organized about it, you can get labels added to all of your beams, reactions at each end, loads from above, etc. Nothing different than how most of us learned to do it by hand many years ago, but at least it's digital can be easily modified. If the plan changes, you just print out a new one and replace the existing background, then update your notes as required.

What I would love is to find a version of a PDF program (or something with simple, graphical markup capabilities) that can also handle equations within text boxes, variable definitions, etc. Something like what would happen if Mathcad and Bluebeam had a baby.