I began my journey in the computer aided drafting and design (CADD) industry using AutoCAD 1.2 and a Victor 9000. At the time we were trying to automate the drafting process to improve engineering efficiency. The push to move from pen and pager to digital drafting began.
Twenty five years later I have gone full circle with the Adapx CapturX for Autodesk Design Review. I am back to writing on paper but with a twist – a digital pen that tracks paper based writing and markups and automatically associates these with the source document.
So – what led me here and what was my initial experience with this revolutionary technology?
Field Markups Remain a Problem!
Getting information from the field back into the office remains a problem.
I recall a story of a roll of paper drawings, found behind the back seat of a foreman’s pickup truck after he retired, being dumped on a draftsman’s desk. It contained thousands of markups of the power network that had never been updated in the CADD system.
Everything has been tried from notebooks to PDA’s to mobile devices both in a standalone and web enabled environments. They just don’t work in the field! The sun is too bright, the form factor is too small, the fingers are too fat or field staff are too resistant – yet this problem has to be solved to maximize overall efficiency.
Digital Pen Technology – A Solution?
Kevin Faus – a long time Autodesk associate has recently joined Adapx as their south east sales representative. Kevin gave me an overview of Capturx and I was intrigued enough to order Capturx for Autodesk Design Review (ADR).
ADR is a free yet very powerful product from Autodesk that allows DWF files generated by AutoCAD to be marked up and then returned to designers for incorporation into the source drawing. Below is a summary of my experience with this revolutionary technology.
Concepts
Without getting too technical, the Adapx pen contains an infrared sensor that tracks each individual movement on a piece of paper. But – the paper must first be printed with a digital “snowflake”. This snowflake is a unique series of light gray dots which uniquely identifies each piece of paper.
If you check out digital pens at Costco for example, you will notice that each pen is sold with a set of notepads. This is critical because each page in these notepads has been pre-printed with a snowflake. The pens will not work with standard paper.
When you purchase a solution from Adapx you receive a license for approximately 6,000 8”x11” pages or 2000 E size plots. When you run out of “snowflake” you must refill your supply via an on line purchase. At about 7 cents a page or 20 cents for an E size plot – this is very reasonable.
Getting Started – You Need a 4 Color Laser Printer/Plotter
I have been suffering with an ink jet printer for as long as I can remember. The net impact of which is I don’t use a lot of paper. After careful research, I was able to purchase an Okidata C6150 laser printer on-line for under $500. Pen or no pen – I can at least justify printing documents now and am getting great photographs printed in seconds.
Printers supported by Adapx can be found on the supported printers page on the Adapx web site.
Installation Process
The package from Adapx was delivered by courier within 3 days. It came with the pen and two boxes – one for Microsoft One Note and one for ADR. All went on the shelf for a week waiting for the printer and a few free hours.
All and all, installation was a snap – provided that you do READ the four page Quick Start guide with one small exception – Step 5 – “Activate your Digital Pen requires you to print a DWF file through CapturX, mark it with the pen and then dock the pen to the PC.”
This assumes that a user knows how to print a DWF file – sounds easy. I personally had not worked with DWF files although I understood the concept.
So here are the unwritten words:
1. With AutoCAD Map your can either plot to a DWF or Publish as DWF from the File Menu
a. If you want to simply plot a DWF, select the DWF6ePlot.pc3 driver as the plotter. This allows you to save the DWF file to a folder on your computer.
b. If you select publish to DWF from the more plotting options– do not accept the default of 3D DWF as I did. CapturX does not work with 3D DWF files.
2. From the Start – Programs – Adapx item – select the Capturx Control Center to bring up the application shown here.
3. From this program you can load and then plot the DWF file using the Files and Print tabs. This process adds the snowflake to the paper.
4. Mark up the plot with the digital pen.
5. Dock the pen and the markups are returned to the DWF file seamlessly
Undocumented Tip
Selecting the Print Palette Control prints a markup template that can be used with DWF files along with very good instructions.
The Pen Manager Console
Once installed the Adapx Pen Manager icon appears on the Windows Quick Launch toolbar.
Double clicking the icon exposes the Pen Manager as shown to the right.
The Pen Manager is intuitive and easy to use. Its role does not become apparent, however, until you attach the pen.
Downloading Information from the Pen
Plugging the pen into its docking station causes the Pen Manager Console to be activated and you are provided options for downloading the information
On completion, the Capturx Control Center is automatically activated where you can select the downloaded information and immediately view it in ADR. Overall – a very easy and intuitive interface but documentation would be helpful.
Viewing Markups into AutoCAD
Adapx’s job is over once the markups from the pen have been associated with the original DWF file and it does this very nicely. But I wanted to review the markups in AutoCAD Map. A quick search through the Help file gave me the commands to do this:
1. DWFATTACH – allows you to attach a DWF file in the same way you would any XREF or similar file. But the markups are not visible which caused me some consternation.
2. MARKUP – displays all markups associated with the DWF file.
My Use Case
In my case, I was attempting to associate work orders to field assets. I wanted an easy way for field staff to identify which manholes and hydrants were inspected as part of a specific work order.
I simply wrote the work order numbers on the page in different colors and then circled the assets in that color. Different techniques could be employed of course. I also tested callouts to identify field observations.
The markups appeared in AutoCAD Map as expected. It was a simple process to select the entities in AutoCAD and then update the attached database with the work order number.
The Bottom Line on Adapx CapturX for Autodesk Design Review
Overall, this was the smoothest interface for field data collection that I have seen.
· Markups are stored with the source document and can be processed by office staff at any time.
· Paper backups are available when that is important.
Some suggestions for Adapx:
1. Improve the documentation particularly on the initial DWF plot generation.
2. It would be nice if the ADR palette could be added to paper space and be on the same page. I tried this as an experiment but the commands appear to be tied to the palette snowflake.
3. Consider partnering with a national printing firm for those customers who are hesitant to invest in a large format laser plotter for D and E size plots.