Can AutoMEP draw to my office's CAD standard?
Yes. Upload your office's CAD standard once, and the new work AutoMEP draws follows it: your layer names, your text styles and your symbols. That holds even when the drawing came from an architect or a client who draws differently.
Adding one. Open Settings, find Your CAD standards, give it a name and upload a .dwg or .dwt file. AutoMEP checks it right away, which doesn't count against your usage, reads its layers and text styles and lists the blocks that look like symbols. You can add notes too, such as "receptacles on E-POWR". If AutoMEP can't read the file, it says so and asks you to save it again in your CAD program and upload it once more. If the file is too large, it suggests removing unused blocks, layouts and images first. On a trial, a larger file asks you to upgrade first.
Confirming symbols. Next to each symbol, AutoMEP shows what it thinks it is, such as a duplex receptacle. Choose "Yes, that's right" to confirm it, or "Not a symbol" if it isn't one. To change the kind, select the right one and choose "Use this kind". If two blocks look like the same thing and you haven't confirmed either, AutoMEP asks you to pick one with "Use this one" and uses neither until you do. The search box finds any block it didn't list.
One for the account, or one per project. Your first standard becomes the account default. On a project page, the CAD standard setting lets you keep the default, pick another one, or use none, and add notes that replace the standard's notes for that project.
What it changes. New layers, text and symbols follow your standard. Your standard never changes what's already in your drawing unless you ask, for example to swap its symbols, and when the drawing already has a layer, style or block with the same name as one in your standard, the drawing's version is kept. When a job uses your standard, its card says which one.
When part of it can't be used. If your standard is drawn in different units from the drawing, its symbols are left out and the job card says so, while its layers, text styles and notes still apply. If it has no symbol for something you asked for, AutoMEP uses the drawing's own or draws a standard one, and when it draws one itself, the job notes say so. Your request, the project's codes and readable text on the printed sheet come first, and the notes explain when they did.
Which symbols do what. Your receptacle, switch, junction box, smoke detector and motor symbols also work when you ask AutoMEP to fill rooms with devices or swap the symbols already on the sheet. Other kinds, such as light fixtures and diffusers, are used when AutoMEP adds new ones.
What it doesn't do yet. It doesn't convert layers, text or blocks already in your drawing to your standard, it doesn't bring dimension styles, and it applies to the drawing you uploaded, not the drawings it links to. It works on DWG drawings. RVT models aren't covered yet.
Adding one. Open Settings, find Your CAD standards, give it a name and upload a .dwg or .dwt file. AutoMEP checks it right away, which doesn't count against your usage, reads its layers and text styles and lists the blocks that look like symbols. You can add notes too, such as "receptacles on E-POWR". If AutoMEP can't read the file, it says so and asks you to save it again in your CAD program and upload it once more. If the file is too large, it suggests removing unused blocks, layouts and images first. On a trial, a larger file asks you to upgrade first.
Confirming symbols. Next to each symbol, AutoMEP shows what it thinks it is, such as a duplex receptacle. Choose "Yes, that's right" to confirm it, or "Not a symbol" if it isn't one. To change the kind, select the right one and choose "Use this kind". If two blocks look like the same thing and you haven't confirmed either, AutoMEP asks you to pick one with "Use this one" and uses neither until you do. The search box finds any block it didn't list.
One for the account, or one per project. Your first standard becomes the account default. On a project page, the CAD standard setting lets you keep the default, pick another one, or use none, and add notes that replace the standard's notes for that project.
What it changes. New layers, text and symbols follow your standard. Your standard never changes what's already in your drawing unless you ask, for example to swap its symbols, and when the drawing already has a layer, style or block with the same name as one in your standard, the drawing's version is kept. When a job uses your standard, its card says which one.
When part of it can't be used. If your standard is drawn in different units from the drawing, its symbols are left out and the job card says so, while its layers, text styles and notes still apply. If it has no symbol for something you asked for, AutoMEP uses the drawing's own or draws a standard one, and when it draws one itself, the job notes say so. Your request, the project's codes and readable text on the printed sheet come first, and the notes explain when they did.
Which symbols do what. Your receptacle, switch, junction box, smoke detector and motor symbols also work when you ask AutoMEP to fill rooms with devices or swap the symbols already on the sheet. Other kinds, such as light fixtures and diffusers, are used when AutoMEP adds new ones.
What it doesn't do yet. It doesn't convert layers, text or blocks already in your drawing to your standard, it doesn't bring dimension styles, and it applies to the drawing you uploaded, not the drawings it links to. It works on DWG drawings. RVT models aren't covered yet.
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