topic Re: Perfecting DWG Export in Collaboration with other software

Perfecting DWG Export

Andy Thomson — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 02:52:52 GMT

I am just having to get at this again. I had everything working pretty nicely in 9 (especially from Plotmaker), and now my settings/translators have to be rethought.

I would like to ask what problemmatic issues people are having with their DWG exported ArchiCad files in an effort to learn workarounds and tricks towards better export.

Some examples of many that I intend to cite here is this:

Units, when exported from AC10, in feet (1 foot = 1 drawing unit)
On opening in AutoCad, gives engineering units in decimal feet. AutoCad shows exported DWGs in decimal feet (when measuring/working). On changing units to 'Architectural' (fractional inches) - the whole of modelspace requires to be scaled by a factor of 12 - why? How can I export with architectural units so that rescaling is not required? (is it as simple as exporting 1 unit = 1"?)

Rescaling presents a host of other issues (WB3.5 parts eject redundant lines all over the place that need to be cleaned up)

Also, when ArchiCad flattens drawings, there are a bunch of redundant fills and lines - over and above those that can be thrown on to specific fill layers, and exploded complex elements seem always to create an elaborate mess of blocks - not exploded primitives.

What I am after is a light, simple, clean DWG, with 'purged duplicates' as it were, and more or less WYSIWIG export/import. Why can't I 'purge' BEFORE export! (wish?)

Images - why do some have frames, and others do not?

Pens - why do all pens, while preserving pen colours, never show anything but white pens in the layer list? Bylayer export doesn't change this. The convertpstyle tricks also haven't remedied this....has something to do with everything being blocks, not actual linework.

As I am not an AutoCad user, forgive me if I sound like I am talking out of my a**, I am. But I am just repeating common complaints about my 'inferior' ArchiCad DWG export, and I'd like to get to the bottom of all of these issues. Your thoughts, elucidations are valued. Thanks in advance!

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Thomas Holm — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 10:29:18 GMT

andyro wrote:
I am just having to get at this again. I had everything working pretty nicely in 9 (especially from Plotmaker), and now my settings/translators have to be rethought.

Sorry for being late to this. But I guess we'll have to live with these issues for years to come. When is the first Revit translator coming? Or do we really believe that the dwg format will suffice? Or that Autodesk will bow to a true IFC implementation in Revit?

...Units, when exported from AC10, in feet (1 foot = 1 drawing unit)
On opening in AutoCad, gives engineering units in decimal feet. AutoCad shows exported DWGs in decimal feet (when measuring/working). On changing units to 'Architectural' (fractional inches) - the whole of modelspace requires to be scaled by a factor of 12 - why? How can I export with architectural units so that rescaling is not required? (is it as simple as exporting 1 unit = 1"?)

Well, yes. When you export you should always set the Drawing Unit in the translator to what you want it to be in the resulting DWG, to get a correct model space 1:1 drawing.
But in later Autocads, there is an INSUNITS setting as well. (I'm not sure, but I guess it's intended to handle situations where you XREF a dwg with a different DWGUNITS setting than the master file). In Archicad9, there was a translator bug that didn't set this correctly. It' supposed to be right in AC10. I haven't got any problem reports from my consultants, yet.

...What I am after is a light, simple, clean DWG, with 'purged duplicates' as it were, and more or less WYSIWIG export/import. Why can't I 'purge' BEFORE export! (wish?)

I hope GS is working on this. I also hope we get a 'total explode' setting back - I think there was one some years ago.

Images - why do some have frames, and others do not?

No idea.

Pens - why do all pens, while preserving pen colours, never show anything but white pens in the layer list? Bylayer export doesn't change this. The convertpstyle tricks also haven't remedied this....has something to do with everything being blocks, not actual linework.

I guess you mean the pen list in Autocad? If so I don't know. But I've run across a similar issue when I'm importing into Archicad. I've solved that by have two identical pen tables with different names. If I switch between them, the colors come back.
It may be that Archicad has problems producing a true BYLAYER export, since in Archicad, every entity has it's own attributes. In Autocad, the old default is that the attributes belong to the layers. Of course this multiplies the number of layers. I simply refuse to export BYLAYER, since it makes round-trip translation impossible, unless I completely change my work process. (I had the same problem in the Microstation days - that program is/was also a lot smarter than Autocad).

But I have stretched as far as using the old default Autocad pen table as standard. While a bit illogical, it makes fairly simple translations possible if I use the KEEP PEN INDEX NUMBER translator both ways.

As I am not an AutoCad user, forgive me if I sound like I am talking out of my a**, I am. But I am just repeating common complaints about my 'inferior' ArchiCad DWG export, and I'd like to get to the bottom of all of these issues. Your thoughts, elucidations are valued. Thanks in advance!

Thanks for this initiative, Andyro!

Edited:
I should add that being a compulsive Plotmaker hater, my experience mostly comes from exporting from Archicad to model space for consultants.

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Andy Thomson — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:19:43 GMT

Thanks for the ray of Stockholm sunshine 😉

I will see if export units as 1" = 1 drawing units solves this, but I suspect not. It is when units are changed from decimal feet to fractional inches (in AutoCad), so that rescaling is required, don't ask me why. 1'-6" is the same as 1.5' if you ask me. It enters autocad at 1:1. I am asking how to export with fractional inches, rather than decimal feet, so it is a different issue than a question of units or scaling.

The issues with messy flattening for autocad (lots of unexploded junk, redundant linework and fills, and blocks) - is more of a wish. There is no workaround for this afaik. Ideal would be on the ArchiCad side:

1> exploding ALL blocks except furniture and possibly windows/doors.
2> flattening, then running a 'check and purge duplicates' filter/apx, then..
2> 'unifying' grouped linework of same pen+layer as polylines (to make working on this stuff further in AutoCad relatively painless)

As for pens, I wish I could get the kind of bylayer export our partners expect.

What I am after is the kind of export that our parnters in architecture can continue to work on, as we often see models 'exploded' in late DD to be turned into CD's by other firms using autocad, and they are hating me/ArchiCad and working with us because of crummy DWGs.

I'd like to differentiate my ignorance from ArchiCad issues here.

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:11:45 GMT

We noticed that many times the scale in the dwg file is right, but AutoCAD units are set to decimal inches instead of "Architectural" (feet and inches.) Simply opening the dwg file in AutoCAD and changing the units to "Architectural" often solves the problem.

Changing the units in Architectural Desktop is tricky because when you type UNITS to check the settings, they usually already say "Architectural" when in fact they really aren't. Clicking Apply will reapply the "Architectural" units so that the drawing reads right.

As far as we know, there is no way to make the translator choose "Architectural" units instead of decimal inches. If someone knows how to do this, please post it here!

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

TomWaltz — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 21:54:11 GMT

andyro wrote:
Thanks for the ray of Stockholm sunshine 😉

Or Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps...

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:19:35 GMT

Hi,

Our firm is multidisciplinary with Architects working in Archicad, and Structural/MEP engineers working in Autocad based products.

Our setup is that the Archicad translator is set to explode complex elements, and exports all colours/linetypes ByLayer.

We also direct some special Archicad pens to specific Autocad layers to avoid having too many layers in Archicad.

The translator also refers to a template DWG file which has all the standard Archicad layers included, with the corresponding colour/linetype/linethickness set correctly. It also has the units variables set to millimeters to stop drawings opening in Autocad as inches.

This setup seems to work fine for us, only new "non standard" layers that the Archicad user adds to the project come through with colour/linetype/width set to white/continuous/default.

Perhaps you could ask your partners to send you an example file set up how they want it, and use that as a template.

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:19:35 GMT

I think the Translator works quite well. We have to remember that this is an application exporting to a file format which is not its own! And that dwg is the most conservative file format because it belongs to the most conservative CAD application! This is an application that still has problems to use Windows fonts!
We have to be thankful there is a Translator at all! And I am frustrated that every AutoCAd user expects me to send him the drawings in dwg! Because he uses AutoCAD and I have to adapt to his way of work! When will I be able to ask for drawings in pln?!?

P.S. I have never had such problems with Engineers who use Allplan. Perhaps it is a matter of education? And humbleness?

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Andy Thomson — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:11:46 GMT

kliment wrote:
When will I be able to ask for drawings in pln?!?

Perhaps when US currency is no longer the international standard?

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Djordje — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:20:42 GMT

andyro wrote:
kliment wrote:
When will I be able to ask for drawings in pln?!?
Perhaps when US currency is no longer the international standard?

Ever heard of Euro? 😉

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Andy Thomson — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 13:04:34 GMT

There is hope!

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:42:25 GMT

Much of my success in creating good .dwg files stems from the .dwg file that my translator uses.

I'm in the middle of trying to make .dwg templates for all occasions. One tailored to our CAD standards, and another for AIA/NCS standards. I think each project should have it's own .dwg template in order to be the most successful.

Ideally you should get a .dwg file from each client and consultant that contains all their layers and drawing resident settings.

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Mats_Knutsson — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:29:59 GMT

I have had customers with this problem and after consulting the ADT guru, I've learned that the problem lies within ADT, probably since the change from the 2004 format. They get inches instead of millimetres also from older ACAD files and the problem is within the unit set up in ADT.

Gothenburg sunshine!

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:41:05 GMT

Hi,

Not just ADT but all recent versions of Autocad contain a setting which determines wether a file is inches, feet, millimeters or light years.

If when you open a file this variable is not set Autocad assumes the file is in inches, which is a real pain for everybody working outside the USA.

To avoid this problem, get a dwg file that is set up for millimeters (or whatever) and have your translator use this as a template. Perhaps Graphisoft could include a setting for this in future versions of the translator.

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 15:29:17 GMT

AC should also have an option to remove the Wipeout Objects that it creates when exporting to dwg. Most AutoCAD users haven't even heard ot it! This has been the reason for most of consultants' complaints recently!

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Nando Mogollon — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:51:40 GMT

i had the "wipeout" problem a few months ago...
AutoCAD has a big problem handling more than 5 wipeouts, and the drawing order gets crazy....
Same thing for the Fonts.... doesn't works as we expected.

And the problem is not the translator....is the people who expects a Perfect *.DWG, as if it were drawn by themselves.

AC does a really good work in translation for the floor drawings,
The Elevations doesn't works this way (too many redundant lines)

... is not the US dollar, or the Euro..................the future is the YUAN, the chinese currency....jejejejeje

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Laura Yanoviak — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:57:32 GMT

kliment wrote:
AC should also have an option to remove the Wipeout Objects that it creates when exporting to dwg. Most AutoCAD users haven't even heard ot it! This has been the reason for most of consultants' complaints recently!

I believe this is why the recommended practice is to use "Empty Fills" with a white background fill pen for wipeouts (and then have "Fill Background" set to "Transparent" in your Export to ACAD Model View Settings).

Re: Perfecting DWG Export

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:55:56 GMT

"Laura Yanoviak" wrote:
"kliment" wrote:
AC should also have an option to remove the Wipeout Objects that it creates when exporting to dwg. Most AutoCAD users haven't even heard ot it! This has been the reason for most of consultants' complaints recently!

I believe this is why the recommended practice is to use "Empty Fills" with a white background fill pen for wipeouts (and then have "Fill Background" set to "Transparent" in your Export to ACAD Model View Settings).

But in autocad, if i erase this fill i will continued viewing the lines or objects behind the fill, not?

im sayng that because is hard to work on files with all this lines.... is that a way that i dont export things behind a mask layer without the wipeouts?