In most cases reinforcement drawings are very crowded, with many dimensions, symbols and reinforcement bars. Arranging the dimensions and symbols in these drawings is a challenge.
In Advance Concrete 2011, new features have been implemented which help arrange symbols in a reinforcement drawing.
One of these features is to highlight the symbol snap lines intersection with a jump symbol. To activate this option go to the "Project Preferences" toolbar, choose "Preferences", and on the "Drawing annotation" tab select "Add a cross symbol where arrows intersect".
After using the "Add a cross symbol where arrows intersect" option, a jump symbol will mark the intersection of the snap lines. This way you can easily follow the path from the reinforcement bar to its symbol. The jump symbol is applied to the last symbol created.
If the "Add a cross symbol where arrows intersect" option is not used, the snap lines will overlap and the reinforcement drawings will be hard to read.
In Advance Concrete 2011 you can create polyline symbols using "Create a bar or a mesh polyline symbol" found on the "Advance reinforcement" toolbar. You can easily manage what kind of symbol to use for bent meshes and reinforcement bars.
In the following figure you can see how this option works.
The labels can be chosen from the beginning of the project. You can choose the labels to use in the project. To set the favorite symbols, go to the "Project Preferences" toolbar, choose "Preferences" and on the "Drawing annotation" tab select "Default rebar symbols". In this window you can choose a characteristic symbol for each type of reinforcement bar (straight bars, bent bars, varying bars, bar supports etc).
The symbols are chosen for an easy to read reinforcement drawing and the information provided is not repeated. For example, it is not necessary to specify the steel grade for each type of reinforcement bar because this information can be seen in the bar list.
The labels for each type of bar are chosen from the drop-down list:
When working on a reinforcement drawing, these options are not applied for the existing labels, but only for the new ones.
The following image depicts a situation where new labels were chosen for all types of bars.
Using this option we created a reinforcement drawing for a wall. This drawing was created quickly because it was not necessary to choose labels manually for two different bars.
If custom labels are created, the labels will appear in the drop-down list in the "Default rebar labels" window.
Another way to set default labels is to choose the "View the symbols library contents" option from the "Advance Views" toolbar. It is very important to know that this option can be used only in the "Drawings" mode.
Next choose the "Configure default symbols" option in the "Symbols folder" window.
The labels can be chosen in both "Model" and "Drawings" modes. These labels are applied only for manual reinforcements and not for automatic reinforcements. The labels for automatic reinforcements will be chosen from the properties of the reinforcement drawing on the "Drawing" tab.
