Automatic Barcodes on Drawings
Comments(16) I’m a design drafter. I create contract plans for construction. After the final plan sets are made, I hand the prints off to our archival team to put the drawings in their final home. Part of this process is printing a unique barcode sticker for each sheet. I didn’t realize that they went through such a tedious process to get this done until an associate at work came to me with an idea: why not print barcodes directly on the plan sheets?
How? I learned that it was simple: there are barcode fonts. So I asked around and found out that they use a “3 of 9″ barcode. After a quick search I found a free one here: http://www.dafont.com/3of9-barcode.font
Of course the next question was what information went into the barcode. I found out that each barcode that goes on our drawing sheets is made up of a combination of something we call a “Vault Plan Number” and the sheet number surrounded by asterisks. Since we already have this infomation on our sheets, I thought, this should be easy!
Here’s how I set it up:
STEP 1
Download and install the 3 of 9 barcode font (this is what we use but your system may use a different kind of barcode).
STEP 2
Create a barcode text style in AutoCAD.
STEP 3
Start the MTEXT command and type an asterisk (*) because this is one of the barcode requirements. Then insert an “object” field, select the “Vault Plan Number” text object, choose the “contents” property and hit OK.
After that field I added a hyphen, then inserted another field for the sheet number. Finally I added another asterisk at the end.
Make sure you set the barcode text style.
STEP 4
Place the barcode in an appropriate place in the sheet template.
This just saved us a couple of tedious steps in printing and placing barcode labels on each sheet!
Ok, that cool, but how does one read the bar code after plotting.
Thanks
Tommy
We have an existing barcode reading system in place. This simply compliments that.
You could also use QR Codes which can be generated with LISP.
http://www.swisscad.com/products.php?lang=en&product=qrcode
Awesome idea! Barcodes fit better in our case because they are slimmer and we already had a barcode system in place.
wE HAVE TALKED ABOUT BARCODES FOR A WHILE. I HAVE LOADED BOTH THE FREE AND DONATE VERSION. BY FAR THE DONATE IS BETTER TO UNDERSTAND.. BUT BOTH GET THE JOB DONE. HOW DO YOU DEPLOY THE FONTS TO ALL USERS?
I made the recommendation to our CAD committee and the IT department and it is up to them to make a deployment plan.
ARE FOLKS REALLY QR CODE ON THEIR DRAWINGS AND NOT BAR CODES? PROS….CONS
This is a great idea! Did something similar for spool drawings for piping. Where as the spool was being made going they qc and shipped to the site for construction. You could track status and location etc. much like FedEx only for pipe spools.
I use an Android phone and it can read these 3of9 codes as well. You need a little programming to have something useful come out of them, like a status page ask user to.scan, then query database to retrieve data and so on.
How do you use the bar codes in your situation with plotted drawings?
Thanks for sharing!
WHAT KIND OF BARCODE READER DO YOU USE TO READ THE CODE CREADTED WITH THIS FONT?
John M: I’m not the expert on the data-entry/archival process but I know that we scan the barcodes instead of entering the data by typing when indexing the plan sheets in our online archival system (a geo-referenced searchable database connected to our GIS system).
Tom H: they are Intermec barcode scanners.
I found a barcode reader for iPhone that works really well with the “3 of 9″ (or Code 39) barcode font: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bar-code/id422314523?mt=8&ls=1
It saves a list of scanned codes and let’s you send the list via email. Could be useful for researching.
k – thanks for sharing
I am a Sr Electrical designer. Sometimes our drawing sets become very large. At some point we send drawings to the clients for their approval. This requires us to add a revision to the title block. Is there a way to make a change to an attribute with only one entry on the first sheet that will change all sheets in the drawing set. I worked at a pipeline conpsny in Omaha that had a way lmake a change and then sinc all sheets.
You can do the revision changes dynamically by using sheet sets.
I love the 3 of 9 barcode idea! I’ve used qr codes on drawings before to help supplement by linking it to a pdf set of the drawings on the internet, as well as to a specifications sheet. But I think I’ll try out this app to see if it helps. Thanks!
Brandon