[David Cutler]

That’s a good question @Vince that I’m not sure on how to answer. I’d have to work out how to match the options that I select to the already established item numbers in our estimating software. I expect that this could be done with some sort of lookup table or power query, but frankly I’m not sure where to start with this…

[David Cutler]

Thank you for your suggestions @Doug McLean & @Vince

Being organized with your custom tools is important. I dream of a rolling, multi drawer tool cabinet to keep all my mechanics type tools in. What I have is a 40 year old metal box with everything in it (I know that 3/8″ socket is in there somewhere). My Revu toolbox is somewhere in between. I use custom tool chest (26 at this point) and the majority of my tools have a 4 digit “item” code included in their “subject” column. As long as I take the time to sort new tools into their numerical order when I make them this works pretty well.

A couple of additional features would be helpful in the Tool Chest:

1. Ability to sort by “subject” or “label”

2. Ability to manage the columns in the Tool Chest – I don’t need to see the “Comment” column at this point. I can make it smaller, but I can’t remove it

3. Ability to search for a specific tool

One of these days I will build out the toolset completely to match our items listing for our estimating system (I don’t have item 6090 Water Main – 12″ D.I.P CL52 for example). I’ll switch all of the “perimeter” measurements to “poly-lines” (so that I can use the rise/drop feature) and I’ll get everything organized (think of the foam cutouts that have a spot for every wrench). Until then I’ll do my best to remember where I set that tool down.🙂

[David Cutler]

Interesting question @matt-hackman

Not knowing the shape of what you are looking at I made a quick calc. Starting with a simple 10 ft x 10 ft square (100 SF) cutting 1 boundary edge (say north side and west side) and every 2 feet in both directions you would end up with 100 lf of saw cutting (50 lf north-south, 50 lf east-west). So, in this case, if you measured the square footage it would be a 1 to 1 relationship between square footage and saw cutting. You would need to add an additional boundary cut on one side north south and east west.

[David Cutler]

I may have been too quick to panic. Poked around looking to see if I had any security settings that need to be adjusted, didn’t find any, but I tried the export again and now it seems to be working… Sigh…🤣

[David Cutler]

I haven’t tried using multiple profiles yet @Vince – Now you have me worried that I’d loose the information from my custom columns.

That actually brings to mind a somewhat related question – if you have a tool that uses a custom column, but that column isn’t displayed in your markup list, does the program continue to capture that data? Kinda one of those “if a tree falls in the woods and there isn’t anyone there to see it does it make a sound” questions.🙂

[David Cutler]

I was running out to a meeting when I discovered this issue and made a quick post to start getting the community engaged. Here is a better explanation.

I have a number of custom tools built with 5 custom columns that I need to export as a .CSV for my workflow shown in the first screenshot below. These tools work great and are the foundation of my workflow.

When I started my takeoff in the customer supplied file I noticed that they also have custom columns setup (kudos to the customer to be using custom columns). The challenge is that while the data from my custom tool is being captured, it is being displayed in other columns as shown in the second screenshot below (Item number “80” shows as Phase, Description of “18” Silt Fence” shows as Floor, Unit of Measure of “LF” shows as Area).

What makes it even more interesting is that my “standard” markups that I apply when I insert my cover sheet populate correctly, but the “Phase” item is not in the standard order as shown in the 3rd screenshot below.

I’m thinking that I can go back to the original file, delete their custom columns and then import mine. Just seems to be an additional step to have to “scrub” someone else’s custom columns to use mine.

[David Cutler]

Nothing wrong with learning something new by “accident”. Seems as if I’ve heard that that is how vulcanization of rubber was discovered. That’s turned out to be pretty useful over the years….🙂

[David Cutler]

That’s AWSOME @Vince !

Thank you for posting this. I never imagined that you would be able to grab a boundary in that way and copy the boundary. Since the cutout doesn’t have it’s own “properties” I didn’t expect that Revu would see it as a “duplicatable” markup.

Experimenting with this a bit here’s another trick to know. If you fill your cutout with another area markup and then right click on that fill in and change the order so that it is “in the back” your cutout is selectable as you noted above for coping.

[David Cutler]

This might be a good example of where a “trim” feature would be handy to have. Imagine being able to drop your pre-arranged 2×2 grid over an irregular shape and then being able to draw a “trimming line” around the limits of the area to be cut. Could be a huge timesaver!

https://suggestions.bluebeam.com/ideas/new

[David Cutler]

Hope that Monday is treating you better than Friday @troy-degroot !

Do you have a backup system in place for when things like this come up? If not, will you be developing one?

[David Cutler]

Lots of good best practices tucked in that response @troy-degroot

[David Cutler]

Great video @Vince

[David Cutler]

That’s a great suggestion @Vince

Thank you,

Dave

[David Cutler]

Thank you for the suggestion @Vince – in this case they only have a few “Cloud+” markups that I need to maintain. Then again if I flatten them I would have the information, but not have to work around them…

[David Cutler]

Thank you @troy-degroot that did the trick, and wasn’t too painful.

I guess that I will have to add “check for other custom columns/import custom columns if needed” into my workflow.