Visio by DPTPB: Rack Stencil (V2)

April 24, 2017 Visio by DPTPB release update notes

Shape placement and spacing with the original V1 DPTPB rack shapes has been a manual process. Fairly easy to do, but still required some effort. I’ve addressed placement / spacing issues with new dynamic rack shapes with automatic placing for both front and rear view rack shapes.

New Front View Rack Shapes

Shape Data

Updated “Front View Rack” shapes to follow V2 design, where all data associated with the shape is within the top-level shape.

Picture: Front View Rack “Shape Data”

Auto Position feature

“Auto Position” feature was added to “Front View Rack” shapes. By default all front view rack shapes are automatically positioned when dropped to page.

Rack Y-axis position is fixed to 58,5 in, which places the rack shape inside the margin shape with 0,5 in (or one row at 400%) between the shapes.

Picture: Automatically positioned Front View Rack shape

Rack X-axis position is by default 88 in, which places the shape in the middle of the page

Manual Positioning of Front View Racks

In some situations users might want to move the rack. To move the front view rack on x-axis, you can change “Auto Position” to “No”. Choosing this option will add additional pull-down menu in “Shape Data”, “X coordinate”.

Picture: Front View Rack “Shape Data” with “Auto Position” set to “No”

Default value for “X coordinate” is 0, which places the rack shape in the middle of the page. Negative values will move the rack to left and positive values will more the rack to right.

Depending on number of racks in the shape, available value range changes:

1xRacks:

• -135 all the way to the left
• 0 in the middle
• +135 all the way to the right

2xRacks:

• -111 all the way to the left
• 0 in the middle
• +111 all the way to the right

Front View Rack shape variants

• Rack 1x / 2x Front xxU AutoMid
  • 42U
  • 44U
  • 48U
• Rack 1x / 2x Front 42U Wide AutoMid
• Rack 1x/2x Front 42U shapes automatically positioned at separate sites
  • SiteA (x-coordinate: -42)
  • SiteB (x-coordinate: +42)
  • Can place Rack Metro Site Divider shape in the middle
    • Automatically positioned
    • “1” variant same height as Rack shapes
    • “2” variant same height as Margin shape

New Rear View Rack Shapes

Rear view rack with connection points

• 0,5 inch (or one grid row at 400%) pitch between connection points
  • Connection points are designed to be used with fixed scale (1:16) drawings, might not work so well is drawing at some other scale
• Can pull DPTPB rear view shape to drawing at 100% zoom level
  • Align it roughly inside a rear view rack shape
  • once it is close to rack connection points, the connection point turns into green square
  • move up or down for correct vertical alignment and release mouse button to drop the shape in place
• Easier to place V2 style DPTPB shapes
  • No need to zoom in and zoom out while placing new style rear view shapes
• You can still adjust the height of the rack
  • 20% – 100% height
  • Select rack shape and adjust “Rack Height” property in “Shape Data” window
  • Connection points for full height are kept
    • Not really a problem since connection points are not visible in finished drawings

Automatic Placing & Spacing of Rear View Rack shape inside the Margin Shape

• Copied some code from margin shape that automatically sizes and places the shape
• Original margin shape made by http://www.vsdfx.com/
• Just drop the new dynamic rear view rack shape into page and it will be automatically placed inside the margin shape

 Rack 2xRear and Rack 2xRear Metro variants

• “Rack 2xRear” variant used with non-metro templates
• “Rack 2xRear” Metro variant used with metro templates

DPTPB Rack Shapes in Visio “Shapes” Window

Removed Shapes

Reduced clutter and removed rarely used rack shapes

• 3x,4x,5x,6x Front View Rack Shapes
• Rack 1xRear Shape
• 47U Front View Rack Shape
• All wide variants other than 42U

Downloads

DPTPB Rack stencil is part of NetApp and Nutanix stencil packages. Please visit NetApp or Nutanix download page for updated stencil package.