Discover how to effectively annotate and tag various features in your design projects with this in-depth guide. From setting up views to annotating and tagging items, this article provides a detailed walkthrough to help you ensure your designs are clearly and accurately communicated.
Key Insights
- The article provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up views and annotate different elements within a design project. It emphasizes the importance of turning off sections that are not needed in a particular view and controlling them through the view template.
- In addition to annotating, the guide also covers the process of tagging different elements in the design. It suggests the practice of tagging items within enlarged views for better visibility and space balance.
- The article further guides on how to assign abbreviations in the piping system for easy identification. It also emphasizes the need to edit the tag if the abbreviation doesn't show up, by selecting and editing the tag family.
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In the previous video, we went ahead and set up some of these views, and now we're ready to go ahead and maybe start annotating some of these guys here. So I'm going to actually turn off my sections.
I don't need them on in this particular view—really not going to have any sections here. We'll have the sections on the overall, so we can control that via the View Template. So I'm going to go back to my View Template here.
And like I said, we're going to be kind of editing these View Templates as we go, but I'm going to go ahead—Plumbing Enlarged Plan. Let's go ahead. I'm going to change the annotation.
So VG overrides annotations. Let's go to sections, apply, hit OK.
Apply it. OK. And there we go.
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That's starting to look a little bit cleaner. Now what we're kind of looking at is I also do want to see the underground piping here. I'm not really seeing below the level, so we can see our vent system, but I can't see what's happening beneath.
So what I want to go ahead and do is edit my view range here also. So I'm going to select this, go back to my View Template. We're going to select our view range, and I'm going to have the view depth go minus four feet below that level and see how that looks, the associated level.
And you can start to see that we are seeing the underground components. We have the overhead components and we have the components that are below ground here, but then also these ones are below Level Two. Right? So here on Level Two, you can see, I'm seeing that pipe right there.
Perfect. So let's just kind of start annotating. The first thing I want to go ahead and do is put in some space tags.
So I'm going to go over to Annotate. I'm going to go Space Tag, and I can just put these where I need to put them. There we go.
You could put one out here for the corridor if you so chose. So there you go—just to kind of give some context of where the space is.
I'm going to deactivate this view, activate this view, Space Tag. And again, there's really no right or wrong way to do this. You could go through and do it how you want to, but there we go.
I have the corridor out here, corridor out here. And then here I'm going to deactivate that view, double-click here, activate, and go Space Tag. And you could populate them while they're on the sheet.
You could also go into these individual views and populate them there. So the next thing I want to go ahead and start documenting—we've kind of got these set up.
Let's hop back over to our Plumbing Sheet view here. So our number one Plumbing Sheet view, and we're going to start with this guy here. We want to start tagging things.
So you can see these items here—they've already filled in. We want to go ahead and start tagging some items. Now, traditionally how I tend to do it is I don't really tag anything that is within my enlarged views.
So I won't tag the toilets here. I'll do that in the enlarged view because I have more space to balance everything. And if people want to see that information, they can go to this.
Now that we've also kind of—again, I'm just going to clean some things up as we have developed this model—we need to adjust our items here. So I'm going to go ahead and move some of these tags around.
And that's just kind of the normal way things go. Let's go ahead and move the Janitor out of here. I'm going to do this, move that up there.
And you can just grab these—the leader auto-applies. And there we go.
And that shoulder should always be straight coming out of there. When we go and talk about tagging and everything, we're not going to tag the items that are in here. If I go ahead, I'm going to go to Annotate and I'm going to hit Tag by Category.
What I can go ahead and do is if I hover on a pipe, I'm going to get this pipe tag. You should have it loaded into your project already. So you can see the pipe tag has this little hook and then it gives the diameter here.
I also need to tag both the hot and cold water. Now the problem is it's kind of hard to discern exactly what's happening.
Traditionally we want to have an abbreviation on there. So what we're going to end up doing is assigning that abbreviation in the piping system. So what I want to go ahead and do is make sure we see that the tag doesn’t have the abbreviation.
So I'm going to go down to my Piping Systems, and they're under Families in your Project Browser—Piping Systems. I'm going to go to my Domestic Cold Water. I'm going to right-click on it and go to Type Properties.
And I'm going to go ahead—there's an abbreviation here. I'm going to type in CW—make sure it's in caps.
CW—Apply and hit OK. Domestic Hot Water—right-click, Type Properties.
I'm going to go to my abbreviation, type in Hot Water or HW—Apply, OK. I'm going to go to my Sanitary.
Well, actually, let's go to Natural Gas—right-click, Type Properties—because we do have a gas there. So I'm going to type just G for gas.
Pretty typical. My Sanitary—right-click, Type Properties. I'm going to go into my abbreviation and I'm going to type W for waste—Apply.
OK. And then my last one here, my Vent—right-click, Type Properties. My abbreviation will be V for vent—Apply and hit OK.
Now what I want to go ahead and do—you may have noticed though that the abbreviation did not show up in my tag. I have my cold water here and this is part of the cold water system, but that abbreviation did not get added here.
And that's because that parameter is not built into this tag. We need to edit the tag a little bit—not a big deal.
What I'm going to go ahead and do is select this. I'm going to Edit Family—that's going to open up the tag family for me.
I'm going to select that. And I'm going to go ahead and hit Label. I want to go ahead and go into here, and I have the category parameters.
Well, let's see here—Multi-leader tag, pipes, and placeholders. Let's find abbreviation.
And where are you? So my description—System Abbreviation. So it's kind of weird—it's not under actual abbreviation.
It's under System Abbreviation because technically the abbreviation is assigned to the pipe system. I'm going to go ahead and hit there. I'm just going to go ahead and make this value just a question mark.
And there we go. I'm also going to put a space at the end here. If I don't put a space in the suffix, the size and the diameter symbol will be right next to it.
So I'm going to put a space in there and apply it. OK. So that then it'll actually put a space after my size.
So there's a little gap for that. I'm going to load into my project, overwrite the existing version. And there we go.
So you can see—here's my three-inch hot water, here's my three-inch cold water. Perfect.
