[Vince]

I’ve been look at creating grids for something else then came up with this….

Create your 2’x2′ template grid in a new document covering the biggest area that you’ll need – cover an A1 piece of paper if needed. Use individual Polylines – this should only take a few minutes.

If you use group to make to copy & paste when drawing your template then make sure everything is ungrouped when you finish.

Then to use: –

1. Copy the whole template page into the document you are working on.

2. Go to the area you are wanting to measure and use “Spaces” and draw around the area that you are looking at.

3. Copy the space and paste it onto your grid instead of trying to put the grid onto your shape.

4. Move the space around to get the best fit on your grid.

5. Go to your mark-ups list and sort by spaces and then select the space that you are working on.

That should be it – 2′ long lengths that are fully captured in the space will be totalled in the mark-up list. This should be the only item within that space so the mark-up list will give you the total length of all the 2’s.

No need for cutting, stretching or deleting of the grid. You can of course make adjustments to the shape of the Space to include any additional 2′ lengths to your measures or you can move the whole shape slightly to see what difference that makes.

Still not 100% accurate but should hopefully get you near enough.

Alternatively, you can go for a slightly more ‘destructive’ route. You will need to know the total length of all the 2′ segments in your grid to start with for this one.

1. Copy the whole template page into the document you are working on.

2. Either use an area mark-up or spaces to copy the shape of the area that you want to measure.

3. Paste the shape onto your grid.

4. Use the lasso tool to trace around your shape – this will select any of the grid line that even partly fall with your area.

5. Delete the selected lines.

6. Deducted the resulting total length of gridlines from your original total to obtain the total length deleted.

This method obviously doesn’t allow for any manipulation or fine tuning though.

😃

[Vince]

Actually, on the 2nd version, don’t delete the lines!

Just rename the subject and change the attributes – maybe make the lines thicker and a different colour so they are easily identifiable.

This way you can then make adjustments if you want to.

To get the total of the lines just sort the mark-up table for whatever you have called the selected lines.

[Vince]

I have different profiles set-up for groundworks / civil engineering to keep things manageable – sewers, foundations, services and external works. Then there are 6 to 10 tool chests in each profile.

Only a few of the tools are in more than one profile e.g. oversites will be in foundations and external works.

I also have more profiles set-up for other trades as I do use slightly different screen layouts for some of them i.e. different tool bars showing.

It seems to work.

[Vince]

😂

[Vince]

@troy-degroot can the batch link be used to edit multiple links in one go? I read something about being able to edit destinations but couldn’t quite follow it tbh! 😂

[Vince]

Unfortunately, it depends on the configuration e.g. if you use a simple example of just four blocks in square and rectangular configurations formulas don’t appear to work. Once you get into much larger and irregular shapes then the discrepancies between formula results and the actual lengths grows.

[Vince]

That’s a great workaround @David – thank you! 👏

I will contact Bluebeam about why the layers are lost when combining drawings once I’ve remembered the procedure for doing this! 😆

[Vince]

Hi @David

The layers are definitely there to start with but are always lost once the combining has been done.

[Vince]

Hi @Troy

I’ve tried saving the default configurations and then I’ve also tried saving the configurations with new names – unfortunately as soon as I combine the drawings all of the layers are lost.

Maybe another suggestion for a new feature then…

[Vince]

Hi @David Cutler

I’m not using sets or adding drawings to an existing open one.

Basically, all I’m doing is combining several drawings from the same folder e.g. Engineering Layouts Sheets 1 of 4 to 4 of 4. It would appear that they all would have come from the same master file created as a DWG file.

The layers all appear to match as they should do if they came from one original.

I like your thought about options to keep the layers but I haven’t found this yet.

[Vince]

Once you do get on to Power Query though, you should be able to have a set-up similar to my drainage one e.g. you could have a mark-up for a standard water main, then another one with a different symbol at the end to represent a gate valve.

The Subject or a custom column would be used to record these details.

Power query would then generate the necessary output details for your pricing software.

[Vince]

@David Cutler I meant to have one mark-up in your tool chest for say a cast iron water main. Then in a custom column have your options in a drop-down menu i.e. different sizes along with your product code – this is the column that your pricing software would refer to instead of your current subject or label. Then use your label to identify the size on your pipe on your drawing.

No Power Query – yet!😆

[Vince]

As @Doug McLean has suggested, can you narrow down your list of tools by having one main item then further options in a drop-down list in a custom column? E.g. One water main but then with the different size options?

[Vince]

Maybe I need to try and have a few more accidents and then I might come up with something useful!

[Vince]

Only found this one a few weeks ago myself @David Cutler as I was actually trying to do something else! 😂