Best Practices for Inserting New Items to Standards Database

Once Standard Items have been defined to your Standards Database, many properties of those Items cannot be modified. For instance, if you have defined an Annotation entity having a Left justification to your database and later realize it should have Center justification, it cannot be changed. To correct it, you must first delete the Standard Item from the database, create a Text entity with the correct justification and then re-Insert the Item to the database.

Therefore, it is recommended that you create a "Source Drawing" to help you plan, set up and define the Standard Items to be added to your Standards Database.

Source Drawing

The Source Drawing should contain small clusters of entities organized according to the Standard Items to be defined. For each Standard Item to be defined, all of the Symbol, Linework and Annotation entities comprising that Item should be drawn or inserted into the Source Drawing.

The Symbols, Linework and Annotation entities used to define Standard Items should be drawn at 1:1 and should have Color and Linetype set to "ByLayer". These entities should reside on their standard layers and be drawn with the appropriate text styles, text heights, text justification, linetypes and dimension styles. Only one type of Standard entity can be defined for a Standard Item. For instance, only one Symbol can be defined per Standard Item.

Before drawing or inserting the components of the Standard Items into the Source Drawing, set the "Horizontal Scale" in Carlson Drawing Setup to 1:1. This ensures that new "Horizontal Scale" settings will be applied correctly when these Standard Items are drawn into new drawings.

A representative sample of a Source Drawing is shown below. A few notes:

A new Item named "Exis Sanitary Sewer" will be created and will have a Symbol, Linework and Annotation component. The Symbol resides on layer V-SSWR-STRC. The Linework resides on layer V-SSWR-PIPE. The Text and Leader reside on layer V-SSWR-TEXT. Text/MText entities and their associated Leaders are considered ONE Annotation entity when defining to the standards database.
Notice that the Symbol does not have to be positioned at the endpoint of the Linework when defining as Standard Items. The Symbol will automatically be placed at each vertex of the Linework when it's drawn into the drawing.
All Text except for that on layer V-SSWR-LABL is drawn with a height of 0.08 and is Left justified. The Text on layer V-SSWR-LABL has a height of 0.12 and is Center justified.
There are 3 different Symbols to be defined as Items to the database. One may be named, "Exis Manhole", another "Exis Cleanout" and the other "Exis SS Manhole". All 3 Symbols reside on layer V-SSWR-STRC. Note that the same block, the "MH" Symbol, will be defined to the database twice as a component of two different Standard Items - "Exis Sanitary Sewer" and "Exis Manhole".

Tips for Inserting Standard Symbol Items

When being defined, Symbol entities should be drawn at 1:1 (plotted text height).

The Layer of the Symbol entities will be defined to the Standards database; however, because the Color and Linetype of the Symbol were defined as "ByLayer", when placed into a new drawing on the defined layer, the new Symbol Item will follow the Color and Linetype settings of that layer in the new drawing.

Symbols can be defined with or without a Leader.

Symbols and their associated Leaders are considered ONE Annotation entity when defining to the standards database.

Make sure to use the QLEADER command to ensure Symbol and Leader associativity.

The Dim Style of the QLEADER entity will be defined to the Standards database.

Standard Symbol components can be defined having a "Fixed" size or the size can be scaled according to the "Horizontal Scale" of the drawing.

If Symbol components are drawn and scaled according to the "Horizontal Scale", the "Horizontal Scale" setting is saved with the entity. In other words, changes to the "Horizontal Scale" of the drawing will not affect existing entities. This is true of Symbols and Leader components.

When defining Symbols/Blocks, it is helpful to include a WIPEOUT entity behind the Symbol so that underlying Linework is hidden without changing its geometry.

Symbol/Block definitions can contain Text and/or Attributes.

When creating a Standard Symbol Item containing Attributes, you can select the options for "Allow Move" and "Allow Rotate" to easily move and rotate each Attribute independently of the other block entities.

Using Attributes inside of Symbol/Block definitions allows for additional data storage in each block. For instance, when Attributes are used, data that is valuable to a GIS can be stored with each Block/Symbol.

When defining Attributes inside Symbol/Block definitions, set the "Constant" flag to keep the Default Value for the Attribute. If the "Constant" flag is not set, you will be prompted for a new Attribute Value each time the Symbol is inserted.

When defining Attributes inside Symbol/Block definitions, use the pipe symbol "|" to provide a drop-down box with optional Attribute Values. For instance, a Sanitary Sewer Structure may have a label defined by an Attribute having Default Value, "MH|CO|SS". Note that this does not work if the "Constant" flag is set for the attribute.

Upon insertion, you are given a dialog prompting you to Define Attribute Values by selecting from the available options:

Tips for Inserting Standard Linework Items

The Layer of the Linework entities will be defined to the Standards database; however, because the Color and Linetype of the Linework entities were defined as "ByLayer", when placed into a new drawing on the defined layer, the new Linework Item will follow the Color and Linetype settings of that layer in the new drawing.

To manage Linetype Scale using the LTSCALE command, the Scale value of "1" must be set to "Fixed" during the Insert Item or Modify Item commands.

Using the Offset option, you have the ability to draw multiple Linework Items parallel to one another.

Tips for Inserting Standard Annotation Items

Annotation elements may be defined using DTEXT or MTEXT commands but will always be placed as MTEXT entities in the drawing.

When being defined, Text or MText entities should be drawn at 1:1 (plotted text height).

The Text Style, Height and Justification of the Text or MText entities will be defined to the Standards database.

The Layer of the Text or MText entities will be defined to the Standards database; however, because the Color and Linetype of the Annotation were defined as "ByLayer", when placed into a new drawing on the defined layer, the new Annotation Item will follow the Color and Linetype settings of that layer in the new drawing.

Annotation elements may be defined with Leaders or without.

Text/MText entities and their associated Leaders are considered ONE Annotation entity when defining to the standards database.

Make sure to use the QLEADER command to ensure Annotation and Leader associativity.

The Dim Style of the QLEADER entity will be defined to the Standards database.

Standard Annotation components can be defined having a "Fixed" Height or the Height can be scaled according to the "Horizontal Scale" of the drawing.

If Annotation components are drawn and scaled according to the "Horizontal Scale", the "Horizontal Scale" setting is saved with the entity. In other words, changes to the "Horizontal Scale" of the drawing will not affect existing entities. This is true of Text and Leader components