Paperless Remote Working

[Trenno]

I'm sure we've all spent a considerable amount of the last 12 months working remotely without access to the office printer and therefore being forced to work paperlessly.

Interested to hear other's experiences about how you've either struggled or adapted with new ways of working with various software.

An example that springs to mind is creating clickable hyperlinks within Bluebeam so you can flick between GA section markers and the actual section. Mimicking physically flicking back and forth through a large set of paper drawings.

 

[structuralCADspecialist]

I used to work full time as a CAD/BIM contractor. I briefly did a little bit of contract work thereafter but I found the opportunity cost just wasn't there. The software licensing fees become more significant the less hours one works. And as it turned out, it was hard for me to work from home without heaps of desk space. I'm now leaning more towards quantity surveying as my key source of side income. Working with structural was way more fun, but I'd probably make more money creating a materials list for a chicken coup than I would drafting a drawing set for a concrete tower. I still enjoy learning more and more about structural engineering hence why I linger around here. And some of the topics discussed here are often really helpful in my day job as well.

 

[drawoh]

Trenno,

I worked a fifteen month contract at a company that got fairly close to paperless. Everybody was issued a laptop computer. Everybody's desk had docking station, typically with one or two monitors plugged into it. When we held meetings, we brought our laptops and we plugged them into the display monitors in the conference rooms. On occasion, I brought my laptop home and worked from there, successfully. I was very impressed at their PDM, and their system administration in general.

If I were setting up an office and CAD software, I would set up drawing templates for letter (A or A4) size portrait, and tabloid (B or A3) size landscape, and that would be it. There are not all that many full sized plotters out there any more. 0.08" and 2mm fonts are readable on letter sized prints and on any computer screen. For the tabloid size, 0.10" and 2.5mm is easily read on letter sized prints, and on cheap laptop screens (1366[×]768[ ]pixels).

Paperless offices are manageable, but you need to do some logistics.

--
JHG

 

[dik]

I've been working out of my home for the last 3 or 4 years and am nearly paperless, and have been. I have a quadrule pad at my desk for notes... and that's it. I throw out 3/4 of the note pages. I have a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner for 8-1/2" widths which is invaluable... been thinking of upgrading to the next size which does 11" widths for 11x17. The scanner also has OCR software that works very well. It scans both sides (if there is an image on both sides), resolution is great, and it can handle several sheets (I think 50, but have never used it for more than about 20). It takes up very little space and folds open to use and turn on. Next to my computers it is one of my most used chunks of hardware.

I should have added that I use the Win10 snapshot tool a lot and also the snapshot in Adobe from their menu... Also mark up a lot of formats. There are a couple of utilities for working with *.pdf files. PDFannotator and PDFelement... I also have a shredder that once it is scanned, it gets shredded.

I do a daily backup onto USB sticks and a weekly backup onto a 10TB HDD, and a 2TB M.2 portable, and about once a month transfer the backup to another computer. I use FreeFileSync for backing up.

I use LibreOffice, Bricscad, a 3D Frame analysis program of dubious ownership, and SMath mostly. Others as needed.

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

-Dik

 

[dik]

a snapshot of the user manual...

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

-Dik

 

[KootK]

I second the Fujitsu Scansnap as I've got one on the table across from me right now. I can a full binder of whatever in a couple of minutes without much fuss. It was a bit expensive and took me six months of waffling to pull the trigger but it's been worth every penny.

 

[dik]

next to my computers, it's probably the most useful hardware I have...

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

-Dik

 

[Ingenuity]

dik and KootK:

Not wishing to hijack the thread, but which ScanSnap do you both have?

 

[KootK]

1) This is exactly my unit but I believe that I paid $350. It might just be pricy because, I think, there's a new model out and supply on the old one may be running low.

2) I was initially concerned that it would suck for scanning receipts and stuff. And it kinda does. You have to put those in a two page plastic sheet to iron them out and then scan the sheet. It works fine but just feels icky to me compared to flatbed. In the end, that's been irrelevant though. Phone scanner apps are great now and that's how I've been doing all my receipts etc.

3) The unit is quality, the app is quality, and it never has any trouble connecting to my computer over wifi. It's one of those purchases where I smile a bit every time that I use it because I'm that happy with it. And that's rare for me on the consumer electronics front. Most stuff feels like junk to me.

4) Just being able to get rid of all of my old binders post-scan has been worth the price of admission.

5) It's got a drum thing that is, ostensibly, a consumable. You can scan a zillion sheets before it's an issue though. Based on the year we've had, I expect my drum to outlive humanity.

 

[dik]

I think mine's an S1500 that I've had for nearly a decade... works just as good as the day I got it.

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

-Dik

 

[Ingenuity]

Thanks KootK and dik. I appreciate it.

 

[dik]

Closed...

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

-Dik

 

[KootK]

This is also going to be bit off topic but I've been dying to share something with the gang and I think that this is the best chance that I'm going to get.

1) Everybody absolutely must get themselves a pair of bone conduction headphones like the ones that I have shown below (Aftershokz Aeroplex). I cannot say enough good stuff about them.

2) The technology is that the sound is produced by vibrating your skull rather than sending soundwaves into your ear.

3) I bought these for the gym because I can't stand not hearing what's going on around me while I do stuff. The best way to describe it is like high quality elevator music going on all around you while not interfering with ambient noise at all. They work great for that purpose as well as running, dog walking, cycling, working on my bike, snowboarding, and grocery shopping. I even listen to podcasts in the hot tub.

4) Because ambient sound doesn't mess with the bone conduction, you don't have to turn the headphones up loud in order to hear them over other stuff. Ergo no ear drum damage trying to drown out traffic etc.

5) The bone conduction makes many sporting activities much safer relative to in ear and over the ear headphones. You can here cars coming and people warning you of impending doom.

6) The battery lasts forever and the unity is waterproof-ish.

7) It's so comfortable and lightweight that I can wear it all day and literally forget that I have it on.

8) I was an early adopter on this and have had older versions where the big disappointment was sound quality relative to my $350 Bose noise cancelling. There still is no comparison but, as of the model shown below, music sound quality is surprisingly good. There's some bass in there somehow.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...

9) The headphone makes the ideal home office phone / Zoom headest. There's even a version available with mic boom although I've been doing just fine without that. And they don't make me look like a 15 yr old gamer.

 

[dik]

and open...

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

-Dik

 

[Trenno]

Obviously checking RC Detailing drawings on a screen is much more difficult compared with a printed A0 sheet. Zooming and panning between bars and their tag like a madman.

I’m wondering if software like CADS RC is smart enough to allow technicians to export the drawings with layers that can be recognised by Bluebeam. I know I've received architectural drawings that have all their layers embedded within the file that can be toggled - however those files are usually heavier than the sun and bluebeam will take it's sweet time rendering them.

For example, having bluebeam layers that correspond to each bar layer present. The bar, extent lines and tags would all be put on the corresponding layer.

The engineer could then toggle on/off each layer inside Bluebeam and would make my life much easier when reviewing these complicated drawings with many numerous bar layers.

What I really want is full 3D rebar, but I think that's a few years off just yet...

 

[structuralCADspecialist]

Trenno: My 'pet project' up until a couple years ago was trying to streamline reinforced concrete drawings, especially slabs. Everyone in the field seems to think they are automatically generated, and that the various irregularities are due to issues with the automation software (thinking along the lines of computer generated trusses). I was blown away when upon entering the office, I saw that their methods were very manual and quite disorganized. Not to mention agonizingly slow. It's really easy to improve on both speed and utility (for instance, making the drawings easier to check). The hard part is getting everyone to agree on a system or convincing them that their system is even broken in the first place.

Many commercially available automated detailing programs work very well. But they are very expensive and very "rigid". They don't adapt to unique situations and kind of force one to adhere to the programs own CAD standards. The drawings output look good but if someone wants their drawings to look like "their" drawings it can feel limiting. At this moment I don't know of one that would work very well for two-way flat plate slabs - those seem like the real time killer.

I functions 1000x better with a physical set of prints. I never got the hang of working paperless. I hope that doesn't mean I'm becoming obsolete :-O . It does feel like a waste having all that paper just to scribble all over. But I'm way more thorough when I'm working with a paper copy compared to Bluebeam; seems I always find something when I'm double checking, and that then means I have to triple check... and so on...

 

[kingnero]

Regarding home office installation, I have been working from my home office a whole lot more since march 2020, and even gave up my rental space because I only/mainly used it for it's large conference room. But since everything now is Zoom/Teams/Skype/... I let it go (I can always rent the conference room alone, per hour if needed), and moved everything home.

I went from a large (shared) multi function printer to a 2 drawer color laser printer (and lost the ability of A3 (11 x 17") printing), and bought a Brother ADS 2800W scanner.
I already have got an elaborate network at home (I did the install myself, and have LAN ports everywhere), so for me the largest advantage is I can scan/print/access my server from everywhere and anytime, I can print from the other side of the world and scan without having to turn on a computer, and see it directly on eg. my cellphone. The Brother scanner has proven very valuable and fast, can't recommend it enough.

But I am not going paperless... I've got an entire wall of my office filled with books, printed documentation, catalogs, and so on. I've got way too many handwritten notes in these things, and I keep updating them. WHile I travel a lot, this is a serious downside, but going all digital just isn't working for me. I do my best, and ask for pdf catalogs and so on (and I threw out a lot when moving my office back home), but I'm just not there yet for a complete "clean desk" policy.

 

[robyengIT]

on field, when cameras were non sophisticated like now, I used this portable scan (format A4 but suitable for multiple scan on larger drawings)