Assembly drawings SC20011

Labels in production drawings

The above chart illustrates how different ShipConstructor components that participate in controlling over labels’ visual appearance in production drawings are interconnected with each other.

  1. The process starts in a template drawing where the user customizes dimension styles. Eventually, dimension styles are used to control over a part of label attributes such as arrow sizes, text sizes, and text styles. At the same time, dimension styles don’t provide any control over the label arrowhead’s shapes, for example.
  2. Names that are given to custom dimension styles in template drawings need to be declared in the Manager. It can be done in the Dimension Styles catalog. In this catalog, the user creates a list of string constants that letter-to-letter match with names of available dimension styles that exist in various template drawings. If there is a difference in the spelling between a string constant in the catalog and the actual dimension style name, ShipConstructor won’t be able to find that dimension style in production drawings.
  3. Once dimension style names are declared in the Dimension Styles catalog, they should be selected as label styles’ attributes in the Label Styles catalog. A string constant from the Dimension Style catalog chosen as an attribute of a label style establishes a connection between the label style and the actual template drawing dimension style that controls some of the label’s properties. The rest of the label style attributes define other properties of labels such as Bubble Style, Bubble Size, Insertion Mode, etc. However, half of these additional properties appear to be ineffective or work inconsistently (Issue 13882).
  4. After label styles are defined in the Label Styles catalog in the Manager, they need to be selected in BOM table definitions and in HVAC or Pipe Spool Settings in the Manager. If a label style is selected in a BOM table, it will control over the appearance of the labels that are generated from that BOM table in any type of production drawing. To select a label style for a BOM table, the user may be required to scroll the list of tables to the right in the BOM definitions dialog in the Manager because the settings area is usually invisible. In addition to the general label style of a BOM table, label styles can be individually assigned to each BOM table Collector. In this case, the collector label style will override the general label style of a BOM table. A label style that is selected in the Spool Settings dialog in the Manager controls over the appearance of Penetration and ARS labels in Pipe or HVAC spool drawings.
  5. Another factor that contributes into labels’ appearance is Page Setup Settings of the current Layout view. All sizes used in label and dimension styles’ settings are unitless. It means that, if labels are placed in the paper space where everything is measured in millimeters, label sizes will be interpreted as sizes in millimeters. However, if labels are placed in the paper space where paper units are inches, label sizes will be interpreted as sizes in inches. The user who defines labels should keep in mind the final paper space units. To change the paper space units, the user should right-click the layout tab in AutoCAD and run the Page Setup Manager dialog where the setting can be found.
  6. Once labels are created in a production drawing, it is possible to modify most of each label’s settings on individual basis. However, some settings that existed in catalogs in the Manager cannot be found in the label’s “Edit Properties” dialog. For example, “Bubble Size” is missing from the dialog; instead, there is a “Bubble Margin” setting. Presumably, ShipConstructor calculates “Bubble Margin” value as “Bubble Margin”  = “Bubble Size” – “Text Size” when it places labels in production drawings.