By Miles Nicholson
When you want to innovate, there are 7 questions you can ask to generate some ideas:
- What could we look at in a new way?
- What could we use in a new way, or for the first time?
- What could we move, changing its position in space or time?
- What could we interconnect, for the first time or in a new way?
- What could we alter, in terms of design and performance?
- What can we make that is truly new?
- What can we imagine that would create a great experience for someone?
Here's an Autodesk Labs technology preview based on the very first question. What if we looked at item number resequencing in AutoCAD Electrical in a new way?
The current Item Resequence capability of AutoCAD Electrical assigns item numbers by Drawing\Manufacturer rather than across the project. So a project can have:
- Company A gets a 1 on the first drawing
- Company B gets a 2 on the first drawing
- Company A gets a 3 on the second drawing.
- Company B gets a 4 on the second drawing.
With many companies and lots of drawings, it can get rather confusing. The technology preview of Item Number Resequencing for AutoCAD Electrical is different from the released functionality in that it:
- Always processes the entire active project.
- Does not activate each drawing to process it, providing a performance improvement.
- Sorts catalog information based on Manufacturer and Catalog across the project, not on a per drawing basis.
- Assigns item numbers to schematic and panel devices.
- Ignores the project setting to reset for each drawing. Item numbers are always accumulated project-wide.
So please give this a try and let us know if we need to keep looking or not. Installing the technology preview overrides the existing resequencing functionality. So after it is installed, you run it using the same command (AERESEQUENCE) or ribbon icon, Panel tab > Edit Footprints panel > Resequence Item Numbers. You can tell for sure you have the technology preview version by the dialog. Labs is in the title, and there are only 2 options on it: the starting value and whether to process all or just the ones that are blank. To go back to the old way, uninstall the technology preview version using the regular Windows uninstaller. You can send your feedback tolabs.acadelec.resequence@autodesk.com or post to the dedicated discussion group on the Autodesk Labs project.
Looking at doing an existing thing in a new way is alive in the lab.
Source: Scott Shephard at Autodesk Labs
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