Open Source Drafting Standard 1

[swoop360]

New to posting, so if this deviates from applicable standards I apologize.

Has anyone considered making an open-source drafting standard? Obviously it would build off of what is already done from ASME and the others, but it would be contained in an online wiki. That way it could be community supported, flexible and quick to react--similar to the flexibility that wikipedia benefits from.

Additionally, because it would be free (hopefully) adherance to the standard would be more accepted and you would not come across a shop complaining they do not have the standard specified.

I would like to gauge the interest from the big players on these boards (KENAT, ewh, etc...)

 

[CheckerHater]

Great idea.
Everybody on this forum agrees with the others wholeheartedly, so we could start the Wiki right now!

 

[ewh]

While I support such idealism, I'm not sure how much open source would help more than hinder the adherence to any one standard. It could be the new Esperanto.

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
-Dalai Lama XIV

 

[swoop360]

What I hope would be the crucial difference with Esperanto, is that it would use alot of what people are already doing and agree upon (at least as much people on the board can agree).

The major hurdle that I see, is that since it would be largely based off of the existing standards, what are the copyrights and limitations...

 

[KENAT]

I'd be hesitant to propose a separate standard - it's bad enough having Iso (with it's national flavours) & ASME.

Repeating the information there in on a large scale might start to slip into copyright issues as you say.

As CH points out, trying to get agreement would be tricky - heck ewh & I occasionally disagree and we mesh better than most on our views of drafting etc.

If you're really keen you could get involved with one of the existing standards agencies.

Or...

Are you thinking more like an online Genium or Global DRM which are both closely based on the relevant ASME standards?

It's still a lot of work though, and honestly although I possess copies of both of those DRM's, I find myself going back to the ASME stds more often.

Now what might have use is expending the FAQ section of this forum to address some of the questions that come up a lot.

(I'm flattered by the shout out but there are many here more qualified/experienced than I for the tricky stuff.)

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[ctopher]

I agree with KENAT.
Also, I rarely look at wiki's, they can't be trusted.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[swoop360]

From what I see in the drafting zone section of the Genium website(thanks for pointing it out KENAT)...that's what I had in mind...but free. As a (recently) former starving-student I remember how tough it was to get good examples of proper drafting techniques and GD&T and I thought that the wiki could have given the opportunity to have actual dimensioned parts for reference--even if there are a few different permutations to the same example to appease different viewpoints.

Also, when I was doing my final-year project, the engineer in residence kept trying to hide behind a very flawed and incomplete school company-standard, so I could see the benefit to educational institutions.

 

[drawoh]

swoop360,

What do you mean "Open Source"?

Open source software means that the source code is published, and we can all look at it, and look for bugs and security problems. The software still may be subject to a commercial copyright.

Perhaps you are thinking of some variation of the GNU public license. There are versions of this for managing documents, as opposed to software. Still, there would have to be a consortium of some kind to decide what the standard actually was. With the GNU "copyleft", we would all have the freedom to copy it out and fork it, creating our own standard, each of us.

This, actually, is exactly where we do not want to go.

JHG

 

[swoop360]

Thanks drawoh, I caught my error after the original post, but never bothered to correct it because I was being understood.

As for license, one of the creative commons license-variants could work (Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND?)...although then it could prevent editing and improving. All that would be required is a license to prevent branching...which I see could be an absolute nightmare.

 

[CheckerHater]

The best case scenario could be to create cross-breed between ISO and ASME, but they are so closely related, it feels like inbreeding.
What if we look at the problem backwards? What we do the best around here is: we disagree.
Why don’t we try to record big and small discrepancies that don’t let us sleep at night?
The map of the minefield that is engineering drafting.
Comprehensive catalog of things we don’t like.
Place where members of ISO and ASME committees will visit before their next meeting.
Any ideas?

 

[swoop360]

CH,

Could be very interesting if it was also a platform to provide the re-written version...could be a great way of making the current standards more responsive to the industry.

 

[KENAT]

Sadly 'standards' and 'more responsive' are uncomfortable bedfellows. Almost by definition you don't want 'standards' to be constantly changing.

However, based on your 29 Mar 12 11:28 post it seems what you were really thinking is primarily a bunch of extra examples - am I correct?

There are already some free resources, this site, tec-ease etc. Certainly I could see fleshing out the FAQ section on this forum being beneficial.

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[ewh]

Have you ever noticed how similar the examples are in different commercial DRMs? Could they be referring to the same (free) source material?

My initial response had included a statement regarding "changing" "standards", but I edited it for brevity. It's difficult enough keeping up with current interpretations of standards!

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
-Dalai Lama XIV

 

[KENAT]

Or ewh, Mr Whitmire may just have been involved with the recent editions of both!

I know Genium is based on GE's earlier internal manual if memory serves.

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[swoop360]

KENAT,

Examples, yes. But also best practice both for drawings as well as the 3D model. Originally what I had in mind was a company standard similar to the nasa one here:

http://student.fnu.ac.fj:82/Buildin...g. Drwg Std Manual NASA GSFC-X-673-64-1F.pdf.

I was also thinking that instead of just referencing Y14.x, it would give an example (ideally one not already somewhere on the web (in reference to ewh's comment earlier))

I started with asking about a PUBLIC standard for drawings that a company could adopt (if they don't have one already), but hoped that it would later expand to include anything model/drawing related.

I think the FAQ could be an excellent starting point for this, but something that reads a bit easier I think would be more effective.

 

[KENAT]

That NASA spec is effectively a summarized & customized version of the ASME Y14 drawing standards except 14.5 (and directly related standards) by the looks of it.

Is that what you'are thinking of or you'd also want the stuff that's in 14.5 etc.?

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[CheckerHater]

sweep,
There are a lot of fairly expensive books out there that can be used to create “company standard”; but if you can afford to start the company, you can afford to buy the book.
Do you really think guys like THIS or THIS will happily bend over and let your freely-distributable book to drive them out of business?
This is why I think if the idea will ever succeed; it can only be based on completely different principle, and in no way will look like NASA standard.

 

[swoop360]

Alright, so for a board that is frequently in disagreement, it seems like in this case its unanimous: public drafting standard = bad idea.

Thanks to everyone for the discussion!

Cheers,

-S

 

[MadMango]

Swoop360, you give up too easily! I think a crowd-sourced site that gave proper examples of drafting standards would be a great idea. No reason to reinvent the wheel, or do what has already been done (verbatim "translation" of existing standards). As more of a lurker here than contributor, we all know there is more than one way to apply GD&T. I don't see why real world images couldn't be provided for every point in a standard (ASME or ISO), along with an explanation as to why it should be that way. It would be a huge undertaking for sure.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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[KENAT]

Yeah while the idea of a new 'public drafting standard' is probably a no go that doesn't mean there isn't room for something of use.

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