Cable Schedules .com

Cable Schedules

  • from your CAD drawings 

  • in your format 

  • automatically in 1 click


tvCAD is cable schedule software used by Foxtel, Fox Sports, ABC TV Australia, Telstra, Techtel, NEP and others to parse the data from their wiring CAD drawings to create cable schedules - automatically with one click. The automated Cable Schedules are 100% accurate. tvCAD never gets bored, sick, or takes holidays. It will back-chat you if there's something wrong. Hey, you can't win 'em all!
But it does automate a very tedious task in seconds, freeing you and your mind to do more productive thinking.

Here is a two-minute video of tvCAD in action. There's no audio in this video so you won't wake anyone sitting near you. Zoom it full-screen and set it to 1080p for a clearer view. You can download the drawings and Cable Schedule in this demo right here.  Adding the drawings into tvCAD is a once-only. You can even drag whole folders full of drawings in. Of course you can add, delete and rename drawings in any number of projects. Daily use: just click the big green button. Yup, that's it.

What Else have you got ?

Glad you asked. How does automating the off-sheet references to other drawings sound? Once I set it up for you, getting information for connections on other drawings is one click away. More on that at https://www.tvcad.tv/help/auto-offsheets/. Here's a picture using the example drawings you can download ...

screengrab to tvCAD auto offsheets

You can even see what will change in the text. That trick is from my AutoCAD / BricsCAD plugin at https://www.CADreplace.com 

more ?

Ok...

Looking up information for labels on things like jackfields must be the most boring, error-prone job ever. Until now. One click ...

It can can also tell you only about things that have only changed since a certain date / time so you don't have to hunt for the update-info you need.

Sure it would be nice if it filled in the labels too - yeah I tried that but that is so nuanced that it really needs an intelligent human to make the label useful to other intelligent humans. Artificial intelligence doesn't cut it here. Looking it up automatically - yup.

more ?

Ok...

Everybody* has been asking me for a Block Builder CAD plugin to automate building your CAD blocks. Yes, I have one that works for me and I can make one for you too - I need to know what your blocks have in them first. Chalk that one up as "works on my machine" + "coming soon to a PC near you".


As an aside, I have heaps of other CAD plugins I have written over the years to do the boring bits for me, big ones like https://www.CADreplace.com and lots of little ones to automate repetitive tasks. 

[* ok, not everybody - Mum doesn't want one]

What can Cable Schedules .com do for You ? Here's a few of the many things...

Cable Schedules

Ok, that was a bit obvious.

Yes, 100% accurate cable schedules in one click in seconds .. alright, a minute or 2 if you have 100k cables. 

Check out the example drawings and Cable Schedule you can download to see what it reports for you.

Auditing

Duplicate and one-ended cables. If the cable is one-ended and it has some off-sheet information, your cable schedule will get that information for you.

What did it find that doesn't make sense? It will tell you.

Inconsistencies and even issues with CAD Blocks and Attributes are also reported.

 Change Tracking

The cable schedule has details about what has changed with a connection over time.

You can filter on "Created" & "Last Changed" dates.

You can create a history of what happened over time, even from backup archives.

Track Deleted cables

Keep a history of deleted cables in case you find a stray and need to figure out what it is, or what it was. You can choose to put them in Cable Schedules, or not.

Equipment List

An Equipment List is just one of the reports you can get from your data. It can export the drawing list too, any report you want.

Connection Status

It can also read the status of connections from cues in the drawing - the connection's layer, color etc can signify this.

Check out the example you can download from here to see what I mean

all this data is just One Click away

Around about here on a lot of websites is where the headlines turn out to be wishful thinking, so here are a few facts... 

  • Does tvCAD make cable schedules from all YOUR drawings in one click today? Not yet
  • Does tvCAD make cable schedules from specific drawings in one click today? Yes 
  • Can the parsing engine be made to work with your drawings? Yes 
  • Can the reporting engine be made configurable to generate your reports? Yes
  • Does the automated off-sheets thing already work? Yes 
  • Does the automated label listings already work? Yes 
  • Does the prototype block builder already work? Yes
  • Do you want one-click cable schedules, equipment lists, label lists, audit reports, automated off-sheet references?

Currently (but not for much longer), tvCAD works with one style of CAD block and Attributes, this one ...

CAD blocks that tvCAD uses

You can download an example set of tvCAD drawings and a cable schedule to have a closer look at the current CAD format and the automatically generated cable schedule.

Your CAD drawings probably don't look like this so tvCAD won't make any sense of them. YET. It will soon. The next generation Cable Schedule software will be able to read all your data in all your drawings, then create reports in any format you want. No need to change your drawings, it will read them as they are. In one click.

It also puts all of your CAD data into a database of your choosing, which you have complete open access to (you're not locked out of some proprietary format). If you have a knack for databases, this can be very handy.

Just one click? Just install it and click once? YeahNah, there's a little more to it than that. No need to worry, CAD bloke sets all that up for you and maintains it. You don't have to know that stuff. You can tweak it if you like, or leave it alone. Your choice.

Where do we go from here ?

How does it work ?

  • You click the big green button.
  • Really? That's all there is to it?
  • Most of the time, yes. CAD bloke sets up and maintains the parsing and reporting for your drawings. All you usually need to do is click the big green button.
  • Of course you can add / delete, rename drawings and all that sort of thing, all the tricky technical setup is done for you. You don't have to know that part.

Can You have it Now?

No! Wait, how about Soon! tvCAD does most of this and more but its parsing engine needs a bit of a rewrite to read your drawings. 2021 is looking busy. Let's get started now so I can get things in shape over the Xmas - New Year "quiet" time. If you want to know more, let me know asap. If nobody says they want one-click cable schedules, I won't build it.


Does CAD bloke do CAD ?

Yes. I do lots of CAD. I did the example drawings you can download but keep in mind they are deliberately incomplete and have deliberate errors in them.


What Else does CAD bloke do?

Are you happy with your drawing standards? I can review your drawings and let you know what is working for you and what is working against you.

Do you have boring CAD tasks you want to automate? I have ways of automating most things - just ask.


What will it cost ?

  • Think of this in Engineer Days. There a few moving parts...
  • the Software: it's a Windows desktop app. The perpetual license is about an Engineer month or so. Trust me, it takes a lot longer than a month or two to engineer this. It will save you much more than that over a few years in mental bandwidth, accuracy and sanity.
  • Set up: It depends (yeah, that answer). CAD bloke will make it work with your drawings: about as many Engineer days as it takes. Probably an Engineer week or few, depending on how tricky the parsing is. We will agree on this upfront, so no surprises.
  • Keeping it all up-to-date and running smoothly is part of an on-going support agreement: individual user support, software updates etc. about an Engineer week or 2. Configurations for major new developments would be ad-hoc.
    We'll work something out.
  • CAD plugins for Auto Off-Sheets, Labels info etc. an Engineer day or few, give or take. Trust me, they save you more than a day or few in mental bandwidth, accuracy and sanity.
  • If you have AutoCAD LT or similar there are stand-alone versions of the CAD plugins: add an extra Engineer day or 2.
  • your mental bandwidth, accuracy & sanity: priceless


What Next ?

Please drop me an email - "Ewen" @ this web site.