Ascent Technologies Drafting Procedure

  • Customer Profile
  • Our working style
  • Drawing Standards
  • Layering Standards
  • CAD Symbols, Blocks, Attributes
  • Undimensioned Drawings
  • Unclear Entities on Original Documents
  • Data Conflicts

Customer Profile

Ascent Technologies creates a "customer profile" to ensure consistency across multiple projects. When a new project is received by Ascent Technologies, the standards, blocks, fonts, title blocks, etc included in the customer profile are applied to each project. Before beginning a large conversion project, Ascent Technologies recommends that the customer send 10 – 20 documents, along with specific layering standards, blocks, etc. for an initial conversion. This way, Ascent Technologies can work with the client to assure that conversions meet specific standards before the actual conversion project begins.

Our working style

  1. We follow the steps listed below to convert drawings into CAD file formats. The document conversion is accurately performed using AutoCAD.
  2. We will be interact with your quality & design staff to know your standards as we will be adapting client’s requirements. Such as layering guidelines or standards; titleblocks; blocks, fonts; hatching; file naming conventions. A CAD operator is then selected based on the project type and complexity. The CAD operator manually scales the actual dimensions, bearings, distances and coordinates from the original document and then draws each entity into CAD. During the conversion, each entity is placed on the appropriate custom layer, and any blocks supplied by the client are incorporated into drawing. The result is a dimensionally accurate, layered DWG file.
  3. The CAD operator performs Level 1 to assure that the converted file matches the original document.
  4. The file enters Level 2 where the team leader plots the DWG file and compares it to the original blueprint document for accuracy. Errors and omissions are noted and the team leader works with the CAD operator to assure that all errors and omissions are corrected as necessary.
  5. The file enters Level 3 where the team leader reviews the corrected document for 100% accuracy.
  6. Our project Leader reviews the conversion work done before delivering the files to you to ensure that all your demands are met. If they’re not, you don’t pay until they are! That’s a 100% MONEY BACK GUARANTEE that conversion software cannot offer.
  7. The electronic file plotted and hard copy is sending for client’s approval.
  8. After the client approval, the completed electronic files are written onto a CD-ROM and submitted to client along final copy on tracing paper if client requires and all client’s concerned documents.

Drawing Standards

Several primary conversion standards should be adhered to during the translation of paper documents into CAD. These standards include the following:

Title block

Each converted sheet should use the appropriate title block, logos, and sheet borders. A title block should be created for each sheet size: A, B, C, D and E.

Model space

All document entities, dimensions, symbols, notes, etc. should be placed in Model Space. Ascent Technologies recommends that all entities be drawn in Model Space.

Layout space

we can show some of the 3d drawings in layouts for printing purpose.

Layering Standards

CAD layering standards are essential to seamlessly share graphic information data throughout the CAD industry. Implementation of layers in a CAD file enables better management of visual information.

CAD Symbols, Blocks, Attributes

Symbol libraries, blocks and attributes are additional tools designed to better organize the CAD entities in your converted CAD files. Advantages of incorporating symbols, blocks and attributes into your CAD files are that they enable you to automatically export CAD data into other report forms. For example, you can automatically count the total number of door symbols, window symbols, etc. that appears on a floor plan. Alternatively, you can export floor plan attributes such as room name, room number, area, perimeter, etc. for use with space management software applications.

At Ascent, we encourage our clients to submit any predefined symbols, blocks and attributes with each order. During our conversion process, we then automatically incorporate this reference data into each CAD file. Symbol libraries, blocks and attributes are not necessary; however, they will provide added control and flexibility for your final converted documents.

Undimensioned Dawings

In cases of converting undimensioned drawings, or drawings with fewer than 20% dimensions shown on the original documents, Ascent Technologies operators perform the following heads-up digitizing procedure:

  1. The document is scanned to create electronic raster TIFF image.
  2. The raster image is imported into AutoCAD and appears as a background image. During the drafting process, the CAD operator uses the background as a reference to create the CAD file. The CAD operator manually draws all entities such as text, notes, title blocks, drawing titles, detail references, schedules, etc. During the conversion, the CAD operator also incorporates layering, blocks, etc. provided by the client.
  3. The CAD operator performs Level 1 to assure that the converted file matches the original document.
  4. The file enters Level 2 where the team leader plots the DWG file and compares it to the original blueprint document for accuracy. Errors and omissions are noted and the team leader works with the CAD operator to assure that all errors and omissions are corrected as necessary.
  5. The file enters Level 3 where the team leader reviews the corrected document for 100% accuracy.
  6. The electronic file plotted and hard copy is sending for client’s approval.

Unclear Entities on Original Documents

When data on the original documents is unclear or difficult to interpret, the CAD operator creates a "README" layer in the CAD file. For each unclear entity that appears in the converted CAD file, the CAD operator inserts a "red box". The red box is an identifier that displays the unclear data. Our clients can then quickly zoom into the unclear area and make any necessary modifications. The "README" layer also goes through three levels of QA and will remain after Level 4 QA only in cases where the data was too unclear on the original sheets to convert.

Data Conflicts

Since, Our operators manually redraw each entity shown on the original document, occasionally a dimension shown on the original document will conflict with the measurement scaled by our operator. In such cases, the actual dimension shown on the document is used as the default, thus ensuring all of our conversions are dimensionally correct.