Introduction

Purpose of Manual
This manual was developed to provide Computer Aided Design (CAD) standards and
guidelines for the implementation of standards for Surveying and Engineering Design firms.
Provided in this document are two sets of standards. A standard that can be adopted and
modified for a generic user-defined standard or a standard that can be adopted which uses
the National Cad Standards. This is meant to be a foundation for your company standards
and does not address every possible situation your firm may encounter.
This document can be used and modified for use as a company cad standards manual.

Scope
This manual covers drawing templates, project prototypes, pen tables and associated files
required to set up your company Cad Standards when implementing Autodesk Land
Development Desktop.

The Standards prefixed with a CO (Company) follow a generic convention typically used in
the Surveying and Engineering Industries. These standards can be modified and adopted
into your company’s practices and procedures.

The standards prefixed with NCS (National Cad Standards) generally follow those outlined in
National Cad Standards, dated January, 1996, and are modified where required to meet
surveying and engineering requirements when using Autodesk Land Desktop, Autodesk Civil
Design, and Autodesk Survey.

www.autodesk.com/Land Desktop 2006 2

Drawing Setup and Structure
In order for project team members to easily share work on a project, it is important that the
method of drafting and the structure of the drawing set be standardized.

Use of Model Space and Paper Space

All drafting shall be done at 1:1 (1 AutoCAD unit = 1 foot or 1 Meter), in decimal units, in
the AutoCAD model space environment. Plotting shall be done using the plot layout tools of
AutoCAD’s paper space (layout tabs) environment; drawing sheets shall be set up at a scale
of 1:1, and views in the drawing shall be scaled using viewport scaling. In addition to the
drawing border, other entities to be placed in paper space include general notes and sheet-
specific legends.
An exception to this rule exists when Land Development Desktop’s Sheet Manager tools for
profile and cross-section sheets are implemented.

Plan Sheet and Drawing Border Size

The standard plan sheet shall be determined by the project.

Drawing Scales
The drawing scales are determined by the project manager or the client.
The scale should be determined prior the start of the project.
LTSCALE is governed by the Drawing Setup Profile selected when creating a drawing using
Land Desktop by selecting the drawing scale. If the Drawing is a 50 scale drawing then 50 is
the linetype scale. The properties of individual lines will have an LTSCALE of 1.
When working in Model space the LTSCALE should equal the drawing scale (this is set
automatically by Land Desktop). The PSLTSCALE will be set to 0. This assumes the Viewport
to be plotted will also be 20 scale. If the view ports are different scales then after
completion of design in Model space, most likely in the CD (construction document) drawing
when you are ready to plot you may change the LTSCALE to 1 and the PSLTSCALEe to 1 and
forcing the linetype scale to be scaled according to the viewport scale.

XREFs
For small projects with five or less plan sheets, it is acceptable to xref the design drawings
into a single Construction Document drawing and utilize the layout tabs to create each
plotted sheet.
For larger projects, where drawing size impacts computer performance, the design drawing
should be xref’d into separate Construction Document drawing created for each discipline.
For example, the Site Layout Plan, Utility Plan, Grading and Drainage Plan, Landscape Plan,
etc. would all be separate construction document drawings with the design drawings xref’d
into each of them.
This is the recommended procedure even for the smaller drawings. Once a Construction
Document drawing is set up, the only reason to use it is to plot the sheets. Additional
benefits include: smaller file size, additional users can designing while the drafter is setting
up the sheets, etc…
Xrefs should also be used wherever a part of the basemap or other information will be used
in more than one drawing, so that any changes are automatically updated in all of the
associated drawings.

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