This is a multi-part message in MIME format. -- Yeah, it is much like a software development situation with builds and all, the only thing is that production normally uses the HEAD revision or rather the latest release tagged revision of a file, whereas service need access to all earlier revisions as well to use when doing service on older products.
We are a small company and thus we cannot afford what is available in this arena by companies like Pro-Engineer with their Intralink system for revision control. I have seen this in another company where PDF files were checked in to product versions along with other documentation and could be retrieved later via a special interface. We use PC based 2D-CAD (Visual CADD to be precise) and other CAD systems for PC board design. The output from these can be printed to an Acrobat Distiller printer thus making the PDF file rather simple to produce. The directory structure you propose is what has been in use but manually managed, but it becomes unwieldy with more and more drawing files added and with more and more revisions too. I like the idea to have them all hidden within CVS until needed. Thus the drawings will be available on a need-to-use basis only and will not clutter up the server file system. My main point here is how to get a simple enough application for handling the extractions by the production people... /Bo -----Original Message----- From: Czarnowski, Aric [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: den 27 juni 2002 23:37 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; CVS-NT List Subject: RE: [Cvsnt] Managing production drawings through CVS This process does not seem all the different from software releases once you add the concept of release builds. The PDF sets seem to represent the compiled versions of the CAD sources intended for general consumption. How do service and production users naturally navigate to the drawings they need? I would guess it is by Product->Version->PDF Drawing. If that's true, I wonder if they really need revision access by drawing that the CVS interface would give. Assuming the navigation above is reasonably accurate, you could implement a build system of sorts that pulls the CAD drawings from CVS and creates the set of PDF drawings for a release, probably also tagging the CAD sources in CVS. Then the problem becomes one of delivering the PDF sets (like software) instead of giving access to the CVS repository to non-qualified users. I would think a read-only directory structure ordered by product, release and then the PDFs would solve the access issue and support the navigation guessed at above. Adding an FTP or HTTP server over that directory structure would make access even easier depending on the environment. And if the served directory structure is logically laid out the build system could easily populate that as well. Of course the full blown build system assumes the PDF creation can be automated but a lot could also be gained by "building" off the PDF CVS module. I bet a lot of Engineers would be happy if they did not need to make PDFs by hand though... What CAD system are you using? I used to work in that industry (SDRC/CAMAX) a few years back. --Aric -----Original Message----- From: Bo Berglund [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Subject: [Cvsnt] Managing production drawings through CVS Has anyone used CVS to manage production drawings like this: 1) Engineering makes drawings using a CAD system. The drawing files are versioned in CVS. Engineers use WinCvs to accomplish CVS control. 2) When there is a release engineering makes a PDF file of the drawing and adds it to a different CVS module, which is accessible by production and service (they don't see the actual drawing 'source' directory). 3) Production and service accesses the versioned PDF files through some easy-to-use interface only for reading. There is never any commits from their side. I would like to know if such a system already exists or if I have to develop it myself. There is a need for a down-to-earth dead simple application where users can select from existing drawing files (PDF) and get the revision they need to their own workstations. The selection program should show them which revisions are available when they select a particular file. WinCvs is too complex and capable for this purpose and CVSWeb is also no good. Is there an alternative? Bo Berglund -- [ winmail.dat of type application/ms-tnef deleted ] -- _______________________________________________ Cvsnt mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cvsnt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cvsnt
