A Word from Symbol Logic's Founder
ECAV is not a starter app or wizard, but a Microsoft Visio template designed to assist already skilled professionals with an awareness of industry methods and requirements to rapidly deliver concise AV documents for their organizations. Like the skill set required with other professional architectural and design applications, ECAV expects users to know their way around the basic Visio environment. And with Symbol Logic’s training videos, even a novice engineer with system installation experience can get swiftly up to speed. Unlike other apps, ECAV doesn’t try to be all things to all people. It focuses on drawings first and takes a very specific approach to engineering documentation based on decades of user testing, review, experience, and refinement. One example is ECAV’s industry excusive block diagram. This riser style diagram fills a previously huge design gap between the AV floor plan and detailed schematic diagrams. It provides a host of integrated features and the ability to quickly visualize a project’s size and scope and wiring infrastructure either before or after choosing products. If you observe an approach that seems inconsistent from your experience, digging deeper into ECAV’s methods will likely reveal unexpected merit.
What We Did
As many of you know, MS Visio out-of-the-box is a relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use drawing program allowing you to make good looking simple drawings like flow-charts and other drawings using their built-in templates. But using Visio out-of-the-box to create detailed AV installation drawings is frustrating, time consuming and sometimes like trying to put square pegs into round holes! In the early years we've struggled getting drawings done that way. AV technology installation drawings require much more visual detail and a powerful data interface that is intuitive and easy-to-use well beyond what any built-in template can offer.
To reach this goal we would have to overcome two extremely difficult hurdles: Hurdle 1. What IS and ISN'T important to show on the drawings and how should it be presented to all project stakeholders for detailed, yet easy-to-read, real-world informational AV documents?
Hurdle 2. How can Visio be controlled and programmed to get all the necessary user functionality and power needed to get the drawings done easily and fast?
First, to know what was needed in our drawings, we had to have worked extensively in the AV industry to fully understand the AV integration and installation business. And for decades we would question installation practices and their related drawings: Was this the most appropriate approach? Only from decades of refining and re-testing these installation practices and drawing solutions could we develop a set of best practices that our installations and drawings would reflect. And we did!
Second, how do we control and program Visio to make this AV drawing application a successful reality? Well, we would need to work with the best developers available that know the inner workings of Visio in and out, top to bottom. And we did! Here's what Visio expert Chris Roth has to say about ECAV versus D-tools.
Only by combining this unique blend of time-tested real-world AV design and installation experience with the very best developers who know how to achieve the requested functionality could ECAV be what is has become today. So, with all those years of work, you can rest assured ECAV is fast, easy, complete, and even fun to use. Even a novice engineer with system installation experience can get swiftly up to speed with our training videos. So, let's get started! Sincerely, Dave Tkachuk
To reach this goal we would have to overcome two extremely difficult hurdles: Hurdle 1. What IS and ISN'T important to show on the drawings and how should it be presented to all project stakeholders for detailed, yet easy-to-read, real-world informational AV documents?
Hurdle 2. How can Visio be controlled and programmed to get all the necessary user functionality and power needed to get the drawings done easily and fast?
First, to know what was needed in our drawings, we had to have worked extensively in the AV industry to fully understand the AV integration and installation business. And for decades we would question installation practices and their related drawings: Was this the most appropriate approach? Only from decades of refining and re-testing these installation practices and drawing solutions could we develop a set of best practices that our installations and drawings would reflect. And we did!
Second, how do we control and program Visio to make this AV drawing application a successful reality? Well, we would need to work with the best developers available that know the inner workings of Visio in and out, top to bottom. And we did! Here's what Visio expert Chris Roth has to say about ECAV versus D-tools.
Only by combining this unique blend of time-tested real-world AV design and installation experience with the very best developers who know how to achieve the requested functionality could ECAV be what is has become today. So, with all those years of work, you can rest assured ECAV is fast, easy, complete, and even fun to use. Even a novice engineer with system installation experience can get swiftly up to speed with our training videos. So, let's get started! Sincerely, Dave Tkachuk