I've found that design notes are extremely important to have when working on drawings. Often times I'll do a grading plan and complete the full design and not come back to it for almost 6 months - and it's usually do to someone not understanding why the surface may have been developed the way it was. This happened to me once again today where others were getting frustrated as to why something wasn't how they thought it should be - so I said, let me check my drawing notes. I open the design and read through my notes and pointed out a key feature that the engineer had told me to do in the design that they had forgotten about - they thanked me for my detailed notes.
Basically in any complex drawing, in model space off in what I like to call lala land, away from the site or where drawing views would be pointed I place some MTEXT that describes exactly how my design was done. I typically try to be as thourough as possible explaining Civil 3D procedures or AutoCAD procedures as to how something was achieved. It is a real life saver when you come back to that drawing 6 months to a year from when it was done.
If you don't keep design notes in your drawings, I highly recommend doing so.
BLOG POST NOTES (To Save My Blogging Abilities in the Future :) ):
- This post was written to explain how critcal design notes placed in drawings have saved my career once again.
- I used Google's blogging page to create my blog post and tried to emphasize my point as well as I could.
- I began by opening with how the practice has saved my career, but did not reveal it until the second paragraph - hopefully enticing readers to read on.
- From there I explained the practice and the situation that occured on that day.
- Next I explained exactly how I achieve that practice.
- Finally I ended with a recommendation
