Johnathan Ward
Many people might be unaware that they are missing a great opportunity to review and compare drawings and models in the cloud, without requiring anything other than a web browser. There are many other great features in Autodesk Docs, which is included with your AEC Collections, and I will highlight those here as well.
The first feature to highlight is the drawing compare tool. This will compare 2 versions of any of your drawings and works on PDF and DWG files. Simply select the 2 versions you want to compare and let Docs do the rest. This is invaluable in understanding changes to drawings before approving and releasing for, say construction.
Each change is highlighted in the viewer, and you switch between overlay and side-by-side modes.
Next up is Model compare, and here Autodesk Docs excels, highlighting changes in both geometry and information (properties). Before you faint at the thought of displaying hundreds and hundreds of changes, each type of change and object category can be isolated to help you visualise specific areas of interest. There is also an export tool that will create a .csv file listing all the changes in the model.
The naming standard feature in Autodesk Docs will verify the name of any file you upload; you can even specify specifically which folders to monitor, leaving you free to create quick sketches and draft documents easily, then name them correctly as you transfer them to a monitored folder.
In addition, you can include other metadata in your standard, such as status code, classification, revision.
Autodesk Docs will then present these attributes as filters, which can then be saved for future use.
Want a simple and effective way of reviewing drawings prior to issue? Autodesk Docs features configurable approval workflows, allowing drawings (or any file, in fact) to be passed through an approval procedure to ensure completeness and correctness before being issued externally – the review status is displayed as standard, to help avoid drawings being issued without approval.
Finally, but by no means least, Bridge will allow the sharing of files between different projects and even different accounts. What’s more, these transfers can be automated so that any new files stored in specific folders are immediately shared to their destination project.
These are some of the highlights (for me) of Autodesk Docs, but there are many more great features included with your AEC Collections. I have noted a few more below, just for the record.
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