topic Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12 in Collaboration with other software

Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:21:47 GMT

New user here. I've been an AutoCad user for years. New job in an office using ArchiCad. Just curious, anyone know the advantages / disadvantages of using the "Xref" or "Place External Drawing" features for AutoCad backgrounds as external content? My understanding from the reference guide is "Place" is better. But does that allow you to control external content layers / display? Is there a previous post on the topic? Thanks!

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Djordje — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:32:54 GMT

Place external drawing does not populate your layer list with all the XRef layers, and it is still snappable. IMHO the best way to use DWGs and DXFs for reference.

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Thomas Holm — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:24:52 GMT

But
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=128575#128575

and

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=111690#111690

and

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=115066#115066

The forum Search (to the right of the FAQ link above) is your friend!

Edited: At this time (Feb.10-09), Vistasp's ArchiSearch page is the best:
http://archicadstuff.blogspot.com/

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:00:11 GMT

"The forum Search (to the right of the FAQ link above) is your friend!"

THANK YOU!! I knew there was a way to search the forum, but couldn't find it in the rush of the end of the day yestreday.

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Djordje — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:02:46 GMT

The Forum Search is not to be confused with the Graphisoft Web Site Search, the field in the upper right corner.

So, to repeat: the Search that you are looking for is the one between the FAQ and the Memberlist buttons!

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:25:25 GMT

How do I place a metric DWG from a consultant into an imperial Archicad PLN at the correct scale?

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Laszlo Nagy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:12:54 GMT

When you place the DWG as External Drawing using the Drawing Tool, a Drawing Unit Dialog comes up where you can set how much 1 Drawing Unti of AutoCAD should be equal to how much distance in ArchiCAD.
There is a Custom [inch] and a Custom [meter] option. Use one of them, probably Custom [inch] will suit you needs.

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:22:57 GMT

LINZ wrote:
How do I place a metric DWG from a consultant into an imperial Archicad PLN at the correct scale?

I believe that all you need to do is specify the correct drawing units when you import the file. These will be the units set in the DWG file itself so if metric they will probably be mm or m. If you use inches and it was set to mm the model will be 25.4 times too big so it's easy to figure out if the first try doesn't work.

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:20:23 GMT

I want to do very simple thing. Place dwg drawing in a worksheet. When I set the scale of the worksheet to 1:50 - imported dwg displays as it should. When I change the scale to 1:500, all text size in dwg changes ! I DON'T WANT THIS TO HAPPEN ! How do I do this, that I change the scale of the worksheet but dwg text size does not change. Any help much appreciated.

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:37:12 GMT

The problem is on how Archicad deals with fonts and there are 2 options on how to fix it. Option 1 is what I usually do and 2 might be worth the try if you need to import a lot of stuff.

01.A Explode the DWG
01.B Select the Text Tool and do a select all to grab all the text
01.C Change the selected Text Settings from "Paper" to "Model"
01.D Change the Scale of the Worksheet
01.E Change the Text Settings back to "Paper"

Option 02 is to change the scale of the Text during import, see image

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:00:34 GMT

Thank you for your reply.
Indeed this is a problem. I tried every option one by one (imported the same file six times with different settings). Exactly as per your image, but sadly with no effect.

Exploding dwg is like changing it to pdf effectively - for me this is not great, this solution as I cannot change the dwg in any way, after i explode it (or I have to explode it for Archicad, every time I change it). Apparently - I have no other choice. One is completely vulnerable when your software knows better than you what you are up for

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:17:15 GMT

If I understand correctly this might be an option.

What I would do is place the DWG on another AC file, explode it there and link that to my worksheet on the other file. Then instead of editing the original DWG in Autocad to Draftsight I would edit it in the linked AC file.

----
The ideal solution would be for AC to have a setting for Model Text that could apply to "Placed Files".

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:32:30 GMT

Maybe you should create two Worksheets, set the scale of one to M 1:100 and the other to M 1:500, then place the DWG as a Drawing on each. Also, repeat this procedure for any other needed scale. It probably won't bloat up your file size considerably.

Also, since the same DWG file is the source of both, any change of the DWG file will update in both instances.

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:39:50 GMT

Indeed, this might be an option, but what I have discovered is surprisingly simple and effective GREAT !

What I did was:
1. Importing dwg to the story in 'Project Map' - NOT TO THE WORKSHEET !!! Set the scale of the story to 1:500 (or whatever scale you want) - the dwg is perfectly readable. Dipslays exactly as I see it in autocad and exactly how I wanted it to be displayed (btw. I use draftsight, instead of autocad - free alternative of autocad).
2. Copy and paste to the worksheet set to the same scale - 1:500. If you have a dwg from land surveyor (like myself) you are ready to go with master site plan. if you change the scale - the text on the dwg changes as well, but your desired scale (and the way the text is displayed) is at the 1:500 scale - as you wanted.

Now you have all the benefits of archicad and the way it changes the scale automatically. You can change freely the way, the dwg is displayed. The dwg is not exploded. If you modify it in any way, it gets immediately updated in beloved Archicad

Oh, I am so glad ejrolon, that I was able to show you something, you did not know All the best of luck in your professional life - thanks.

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:47:25 GMT

If this is what you want then I don't understand why you need to copy from Floor Plan to Worksheet?
Just set the Worksheet to M 1:500 before placing the DWG and then Text size in the DWG will be based on that scale.
Or am I missing something?

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:58:58 GMT

I did this at the begining and it did not work. scale 1:500 - text scaled up as per image. If I wanted it to look properly, I had to set the scale to 1:50 - 1:100.
then I did the same with the floor (set to 1:500) and it worked as I wanted. maybe I did something wrong ?

Re: Xref vs. Place External Drawing in ArchiCad 12

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 16:40:34 GMT

Hmm, interesting. I just don't understand why it works when you place the DWG as Drawing on the Floor Plan at M 1:500 scale, and why it doesn't work when you place the DWG as Drawing on the Worksheet at M 1:500 scale.
I am supposing that the DWG Translator settings are the same for both cases. Could this be a bug?