CAD/LAN System Guidebook: Infrastructure Documentation Process

The flow of information in and out of the system revolves around the Current drawing hub. The University primarily uses these Current floor plans in architectural and engineering production either for Feasibility Studies and/or Design among internal staff or outside consultants. The finished project produces an As-Built which in turn, provides an update to the Current floor plan.

The Small Scale drawings consist of a simple title block, polylines around individual spaces, room numbers and square footage numbers.

A link is created between a Current floor plan and a small scale drawing and this yields three important elements:

• Eliminates duplication of data.
• Provides a clean and efficient update path.
• Provides a means of checks and balances for the University.

The Office of Design & Construction Management (DCM) maintains current floor plans and each project "as-built" for all buildings. The Office of Institutional Research & Planning (OIRP) utilizes these drawings to maintain the small-scale plans for the University of Kansas as required by the Board of Regents in the Long-Range Physical Development Planning Manual (1972). The purpose of floor plans with inventory information is to document and communicate specific information about each campus building for use in space management.

The Small Scale sheet links floor plans of buildings maintained by DCM. Included on each sheet are all inside and outside walls and doorways and windows. OIRP maintains the room numbers that are indicated within an oval in each room, and the net square feet that are noted for each space. Square footage information is calculated from this polyline for every room, then accordingly noted on each drawing for use in the database of room inventories. That inventory, in turn, identifies the department currently assigned to the space, room use code, and use percentage by classification code for that room.

The Small Scale title block includes the building name, the building number, the gross, net, and net assign-able square footage for each floor, and the scale. A north arrow is shown on that same layer on each sheet.

When electronic floor plans are necessary for an older building or a building that was not designed using CAD, extra steps must be taken to convert any existing paper blueprints into CAD drawings. The University employs two different methods to complete this process. One method entails overlaying the scanned blueprint image for tracing in AutoCAD. The other method requires redrawing the plan in AutoCAD using the dimensions and call-outs on the original scanned blueprint.

• Re-drawing

  • Sometimes overlay software is not the best method to use to convert an old blueprint to CAD. When this is the case you must redraw the floor plan.
    • Method: Redraw the plan in AutoCAD using the dimensions and call-outs on the original blueprint. Using a snap increment and ORTHO mode will help. Be patient.

• Field Verification

  • After a drawing has been completed, the next step is completing field verification of the building. This is necessary to note any changes that may have been made since the last documentation.
    • Method: When performing a field verification of a building floor plan it is important to verify all door widths, windows and building modifications. Make sure that your drawing of different floors "stack" upon one another.
    • Tips
      • Make sure your snaps are set to 0.5 inches
      • If you are working on a building that has many floors, save the original drawing under another name. This will save you from doing repetitive work if the floors are similar.
      • Sometimes a building will not be digitized correctly. Decide if it is better to start from scratch or work the old plans.

Much like the Small Scale/Current Set drawings represent the current floor plans and room usage for various buildings at the University, the Kansas University Sheet Zone (KUSH) drawings, Utility maps, and NTS Cable plan drawings represent the current site, utility layout and telecommunication lines that exist on campus.

The KUSH sheets form the background of building footprints and topological information. The Utility and NTS telecommunication map may then be x-referenced on top of the KUSH sheets to form a complete picture of the current University's site.

The original topology information found in the KUSH drawings was created from aerial photos that were taken of the whole campus in approximately 1990. This data was then orthogonally corrected and delivered to the University as AutoCAD drawings. An effort was made to segment the data into logical individual sheets. And or ease of use and storage, purposes it was decided that the data should be broken into 23 sheets each at 1" = 50' on a 36"x36" sheet. The KUSH drawing serves as the basic background onto which the FO and NTS site utility plans are x-referenced. An index to the KUSH sheets is provided below.

FO maintains the KUSH site plan drawings. As the campus grows and buildings, parking lots, sidewalks, etc are added or modified the KUSH site plans are updated by the Facilities and Operations department. FO maintains a staff of land surveyors and technicians that maintain these locations and update any changes.

FO also maintains maps of the majority of the utilities that interweave the campus. The land surveyors note the location of these utilities in the plan view as well as keep comprehensive data as to the depth to the top of all these utilities. These utilities include the University's steam tunnels, electrical lines, gas lines, etc. The utility drawings also contain a single line representation of NTS's telecommunication lines. These single lines representations on the Utility plans provide information as to the location of these utilities and their depths but do not give details as to the contents of the data/communication lines.

NTS maintains the NTS Telecommunication plans. The data represented on these maps gives exact information about type, number, and splice locations of each line. This type of information may not be valuable for someone needing information as to the location of a line for digging and location purposes but is invaluable to certain contractors and University staff that maintain and modify the data/telecommunications lines. These parties need the up to date information about the data/communication lines content that these maps provide. In effect, FO provides the physical location and NTS provides the content.

• Tips

  • In many cases, to display the proper information, a user needs to x-reference Utility plans and NTS plans on top of the KUSH Sheet. (See diagram above.) Chose whether you want to display the single line representation of the communication/data lines provided by the Utility plans or the more complex data provided by the NTS plans. Use the LAYER command to freeze the layers representing one set of data or the other. Otherwise you will display communication/data lines that lie directly on top of one another. The layers you freeze will depend on the audience and purpose of the drawing.
  • Contour data is provided on all KUSH sheets. These layers are frozen by default and must be thawed for viewing.
  • Before using or releasing any KUSH, Utility or NTS data check with the proper department. Each department will want to confirm that the data is correct and current.