So even though in the BIM world we produce models, guaranteed every project that you’re currently working on you’re also contractually obliged to produce drawings.

Drawings require things like notes and symbols, legends and linestyles.. and sheet or view references.

When you have a large architectural background or piece of linear infrastructure, you need to split your plans up over multiple sheets. When this happens, it’s best practice to include a sheet reference so whoever is reading the drawing knows where to go to keep on reading.

Usually this is common sense, it’s the next sheet in the drawing set. Even when this is the case though, you still need to provide a sheet reference.

With all the data you have at your fingertips in the model, for some reason people still insist on using text notes. That’s dumb text for those playing at home.

So let’s paint a picture. You’re working on a piece of linear infrastructure, and there is now a requirement for an additional 3 or 4 drawings at the front end of the set. You have text notes to update, across 58 drawings!

Why are you torturing yourself (and me)?

Use view references. They’re a handy dandy little family type that you can reference the view itself, which then provides the sheet number that the view resides on. If the drawing numbers change, then everything is updated automatically. No need to edit dumb text notes.

It might seem like a chore when you first set it all up and link the references to the correct views, but then for the rest of the project it’s smooth sailing. Why make life harder for yourself in the long run?

Don’t get mad. Get view referencing.

After fixing up an entire series of drawings and sending a few astounded and frustrated messages to some mates over WhatsApp (sorry guys!), I got to the end of my list of views and realised there was an out of sequence view.

Ignoring that there is clearly an extra step in the scope box naming vs. the view naming, the very last view in the list “Sheet 37” had scope box 23 applied to it.

Well.. no need to get mad, after renaming the incorrect views in Excel and slipping the new view 24 into the sequence, I only had to fix up the view references on views 23 and 25 to reference the new 24 and create the new references on view 24.

Could you just imagine if you had to fix that up if it was a dumb text note? Especially after you had just run through the entire sequence of views.

I’d be channelling my inner Moss.