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Warning: my old boss pushed overlay drafting for years and it cost us a full week
I started at a new shop 6 months ago and the difference in our turnaround times is wild. At my old place we did everything overlay style, stacking layers on top of each other in CAD. One small change meant we had to redo half the drawing set manually. My new boss made us switch to xrefs and external references right away. We just finished a 40 unit apartment complex in 3 days instead of the usual 10. Has anyone else seen this big of a time save after ditching overlays?
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hugos461mo ago
@the_piper I get where you're coming from but overlays are just clunky. Your 50 units in 8 days vs my 40 units in 3? That math tells the story. Even with perfect layer standards one file move or layer freeze in an overlay and you're digging through stacked garbage. Xrefs let you swap a single file without touching 40 sheets. Sure paths break sometimes but that's like a 5 minute fix not a week long disaster.
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the_piper1mo ago
Are you sure the overlays were the problem and not how your old shop managed them? I've been using overlays for 7 years and my turnaround times are fine. We did a 50 unit complex last month in 8 days with overlays without any issues. The trick is to keep your layer standards clean and lock down reference files so nobody can mess with them. If someone changed a wall location we just updated one overlay file instead of chasing down xref paths across 40 sheets. Xrefs can be a nightmare when the file path breaks or someone moves a folder.
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