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[twand]

Hi all, new to the forum and relatively new to Bluebeam as well. I'm on the CAD version of Revu 2018.

Including a brief background as it should help explain my objective. I am not a draftsperson but when our CD dept is slammed, will occasionally produce some CAD drawings for my team, and for outside subs to base shop drawings off. Which is to say, I have a basic foundation in CAD (currently running 2018), but am minimally skilled when it comes to setting up my .DWG files for practical use in Bluebeam...things like creating blocks to reference off in BB, if that is even possible(?)

Once our client provides the PDF'd CAD files, what happens typically is my team will ID and break down the parts we're outsourcing for fabrication. I'll snap measurements, do some call-outs and maybe add a few notes. Often my boss wants to draw a quick detail in the Bluebeam PDF. Not being a CAD user, he uses the basic drawing tools in the program. To save him from having to draw say a new lag bolt every time the build calls for one, I want to create a small quick-access library of symbols for commonly used fasteners & other hardware. That he or anyone else in my group can easily pull up and plug into the drawing.

Is there a way to do this? I literally pulled up CAD blocks containing various fasteners and began tracing them, thinking I'd put all the symbols/representations I want to include into a single CAD file; PDF; and send out to my team. The idea being they could copy & paste them into Bluebeam drawings...or better yet - if possible - somehow import this file into BB. Then logic set in. And I'm wondering now if they'd even be able to pull individual items from said master file. Seems like there should be a way to lasso a screw or bolt, then copy/paste. But that's not exactly quick or practical.

I'm at a bit of a loss here. Maybe I'm approaching it all wrong, or trying to come up with a solution to something Bluebeam wasn't really created for... Essentially, what I hope to do is draw some hardware symbols in CAD, then convert into PDF in such a way they could be applied to a drawing in Bluebeam using a simple plug & play type operation?

Any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated! Thanks so much.

[Steve]

Revu will do what you want.

You can take any markup you draw on a drawing and create a "tool" with it that can be reused.  For example, draw your bolt (or draw it in CAD and print to a PDF and select the symbol and copy and paste it).  Then right click on the bolt "symbol" and choose "Add to tool chest" and select which tool chest you want.  Now you can reuse that symbol just by clicking on the tool in the tool chest and clicking in your PDF.  You can also create multiple custom tool chests.  So you could have one tool set for different categories of work you do.

Tool sets can also be exported and given (emailed, etc) to others to use to import into Revu.  Or you can do what we do - we put our standard tool set on our server and you can point Revu to use that toolset on the server.  That way, any changes you make to that master set can be accessed by all users.

Here are some good videos & tutorials to get familiar with it:

https://support.bluebeam.com/articles/how-can-i-create-my-own-markups-and-save-them-in-the-tool-chest-2018/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv2vC-4Gufs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31xEQW8uc2c

and here is a link to a bunch of custom toolsets Bluebeam offers for free:

https://support.bluebeam.com/revu-windows-2018/revu-extensions/

I'd suggest start looking here and then come back if you have any questions!

Welcome, and good luck!

[StrevsLondon]

Twand,
The other way that I have done it is to import pictures of the actual items in question (in my case various types of valves and fittings for HVAC) into a tool set.
You can scale the picture when placed on the drawing so that it is the right size and then within the properties settings you can give it a size or a designated number. Then save it to the tool box (which will show the picture always and the description when you hover the mouse over it)
Then when you do your CSV export it will list them all so with a quick data sort and count, you'll get the quantities.
Hope this helps.
Paul