Every construction document set uses some kind of symbolic annotation to mark drawings in order to navigate from one sheet to another. Common scenarios include cutting a building section or taking a detail of a small area or getting a full view of a building from outside. For doing all this, different types of standard annotation symbols are used. In MicroStation we have different types of symbols for different purposes and we call them Detailing Symbols. In this blog, I am going to give an overview of these Detailing Symbols.
In MicroStation there are 5 detailing symbols.
- Section Callout
- Detail Callout
- Elevation Callout
- Drawing Title
- Title Text
For explanation purpose I just divide these 5 symbols in 2 types: Callouts and Titles.
There are 3 types of callouts and 2 types of Title in MicroStation. These can be accessed from the Detailing Symbols toolbox.
Callouts
Callouts represent areas of interest on drawings. They work as shortcuts to navigate from one sheet to another. When sheets are printed to paper, the fields displayed in callouts can be used to navigate to the called out drawings. In digital form, callouts contain design links that can be used to quickly and automatically navigate to the called out drawing.
Callouts also have the power to control the range and clipping of the views they call out. Each callout type creates and controls views of its type. For example, section callouts create and control section views while elevation callouts create and control elevation views. When you update the callouts, the respective views are also updated and vice versa.
Let’s see all callouts one by one.
Section Callout
It is used for creating a section view of a 3D model.
A section view contains section graphics. Section graphics is a geometry drawn as the result of cutting a model with the section cut plane.
You can add steps in a callout to create corresponding steps in the section clip plane. You can create gaps in section callout leader line to avoid confusion with model geometry.
Detail Callout
Detail callout is used to see the detail of a drawing in an enlarged view. If you want to see more details of a complex drawing then you can create detail callouts on that sheet and place the resulting detail views on separate sheets. This way you can see the enlarged view, see or add annotations in that view.
Elevation Callout
Elevation callout is used to get the full view of a building from outside. For example, displaying how the model looks from different sides, like front and back. Typically elevation callouts are put on the 4 sides of a model. Elevation callouts create elevation views.
Elevations views are the most common orthographic projections for conveying the appearance of a building from the exterior.
Drawing Title
Drawing title is used for titling drawings on sheets. It displays valuable information about the drawing, including detail scale, drawing ID, drawing name and sheet name. When you attach a view on a sheet, you get the option to create a drawing title. The drawing title establishes a link with the callout of the view. From the callout you can follow that link to get to the drawing.
As in case of the above image, the fields inside the drawing title bubble tell that the drawing is on a sheet named "Detail" and that it is the first drawing on that sheet. Fields outside bubble indicate that the scale of drawing is 1:50 and the named of saved view is "Detail".
Following are some training videos available on YouTube in relation to Drawing Composition.