Markup DWG Drawings With Pictures and Stamps

Stamps can be used, for example, to indicate if your drawing (or a portion of it) is confidential, draft, approved, rejected, validated… etc. You can also create your own stamps with custom texts including, for instance, the date of the validation and by whom. Frequently an image would tell more about a situation than a large paragraph of text.

This is even more true when you are on-site and you are commenting from your smartphone or tablet with ARES Touch. With Markups, you can insert the images inside the discussion thread of the Commenting palette instead of inside of the drawing. Your Picture Markup can also be linked to a selection of entities and you can include multiple images in the same markup.

ARES Commander introduces “Markups”, a new type of annotations

ARES Commander is introducing a new type of annotations named “Markups”. Unlike annotations, Markups are created above the drawing, not inside the drawing. They are separate elements from the entities in the drawing. Here we have an annotation. As you can see we can select it, since it is shown as one more entity of the drawing, it even belongs to a specific layer. Whereas, if we try to select a Markup, we cannot. Because it is not a drawing entity, and therefore does not have an associated layer either. In turn, we could select and delete an entry directly.

For their part, Markups can only be removed from the Comments palette. Where we could select this icon, and select DELETE. It should be remembered that the Comments palette can be opened by right-clicking on the Ribbon area and choosing the option from the pop-up menu. You can also right-click on the edge of one of the open palettes if there are any. In another video, we have explained that to generate comments or answer them, it is necessary to share the file through the cloud and access that document through the different devices.

Using ARES Commander, ARES Touch or ARES Kudo, interchangeably. The same goes for Markups. Let’s see how to work with them. By opening a drawing in ARES Commander from our desktop, we can save it to the cloud. For this, from the “Cloud Storage” palette, we can log in to some of our accounts in BOX, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. To then upload our file to the cloud, and keep the file synchronized with our cloud storage. Also, ARES Commander offers us the possibility of saving it directly in the cloud. That will definitely open the “Cloud Storage” palette. Here we have the name and we are going to save it. Now we can add Markups. For that, we go to the “Comments” palette and select this icon.

Adding ‘Stamps’, a different kind of Markup

We can add different types of “stamps”, which is one type of “Markups”. For example, we can add this one that says “Approved”. This way we can approve the design of the tunnel. We can add another, to indicate that this area must be reviewed. In short, the Stamp Markups are going to allow us to supervise a drawing and leave reviews on it.

Adding graphic elements that will help correction or decision making, having a list of those elements that are approved, not approved, or to be revised, which will guarantee better control and supervision of the project. We can even create our own “titles” to write anything inside a stamp. Now, at any time we can access the different Markups.

For that, we use the “magnifying glass” icon that appears next to each Markup. A very easy way to access them. If anyareresolved, we can indicate it with this “green light” icon. As it is resolved, it disappears from the discussion thread.

Now if we click on this icon, we can activate “SHOW RESOLVED MARKUPS” to view even those that were resolved. Note that it is now shown with a different icon. With this other icon, we are going to be able to create comments. By the way, this icon allows you to group or display the list of Markups. Now we are going to add a “Picture Recording”.

It is also a type of Markup, but in this case, it allows the addition of a group of images. And to each of them, add a description. A very important tool to add photographs from our mobile in the drawing using ARES Touch, for example. Or, as we have done in this case, directly with ARES Commander. Once we add the photos and the descriptions we can press Post, to complete the Markup.

Add photos from ARES Touch and ARES Kudo

Later we will see that we can also add photos from ARES Touch and ARES Kudo, too. In any case, if we have shared this file with other users, they will have access to these Markups and thus work as a team. Whether for review, compliance with any change, such as approving the different solutions we bring to the project. Now, let’s open the same drawing in ARES Touch. We select the comments, through the menu, to view the Markups.

Now, as if it were a new user with access to the same project or the same user who was working in ARES Commander, You could review the different Markups, answer the comments or add new ones in the drawing.

Thus, a new user, or we ourselves can continue working on the drawing, later with ARES Commander, ARES Kudo, or ARES Touch. To complete this perfect workflow, we have the possibility of accessing our project from a Web browser, using ARES Kudo. It makes it easy to access from any device, without the need to install ARES Commander.

With ARES Kudo, from the palette of comments, we will not only be able to view them, but we will also be able to close, some of the open topics, and even add new ones. Also keep in mind that, from ARES Commander we can share our drawings a ‘View-only link”.Creating a direct access link for it, and all thanks to the fact that it is a drawing that we are opening from the cloud.

The way of sharing is the same as how we would do it from ARES Kudo. We can copy this free-to-use link and send it to our client, supervisor, or colleagues on the project. Even being able to control how long this link will work. So just by having the link, we paste it in our browser and we will access the drawing.

Of course, it is fully secured and your contact cannot modify your work, but it will allow him to see the latest state of your drawing, including the presentations configured to print. Moreover, your contact will also be able to add comments or markups to share feedback. For this, he will only need to create a free Graebert Account to authenticate himself. Learn more about the new features in ARES Commander.