topic DWG Conversion Nightmare in Collaboration with other software

DWG Conversion Nightmare

Rob — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:08:16 GMT

Now, I've got enough of that stupid Plotmaker. I've tried to export (publish) drawing to dwg. PM has produced a 23MB monster. When I checked that in ACAD that silly pillock has converted all polylines to segments (I was exporting landscape contours - polylines in AC).
Ok then I thought - it's a big file, but I've tried to export that from AC directly (just for fun) and to my surprise AC created correctly converted polylines and the file size was 6MB. I used the very same translator.
What the hell is going on?

Hints:
it wasn't problem of my titleblock in PM
I've tried all possible combinations in the translator
publishing/exporting was done without fills and penweights on in both PM and AC
I've tried to change all polyline linetypes to solid - no effect to the final outcome

Re: DWG Conversion Nightmare

Haneef Tayob — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:21:24 GMT

I know what a nightmare this can be.

Are you placing .Pmk's in plotmaker? If you are, you might want to try placing the .pln file directly into plotmaker.

Although you seemed to have ruled out the fills issue, I've experienced similiar problems with large .dwg file sizes which I solved by playing around with the fills.

The problem I had was that the Plotmaker conversion seemed to be breaking up some fills into thousand of small items whilst the archicad conversion was treating fills as hatches. The culprit was some custom fills - what seemed as a simple custom fill (horizontal lines 115mm long, spaced 85mm apart). This simple item caused one simple detail to be larger in file size than entire building plans when I converted them to .DWG. I solved it by redefining the fill more sensibly

Let me know if any of this works for you.

regards

Re: DWG Conversion Nightmare

TomWaltz — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 12:28:29 GMT

another thing worth checking is whether PM was set for "real line weights" or "hair lines" when you exported. That can make a huge difference, since "real line weights" translate at actual line weights in AutoCAD.

That said, I translate from Archicad most of the time, because I found it more consistant and reliable than Plotmaker translations.

Re: DWG Conversion Nightmare

Djordje — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:41:14 GMT

TomWaltz wrote:
That said, I translate from Archicad most of the time, because I found it more consistant and reliable than Plotmaker translations.

For Model Space, sure.

Then you XRef into the PlotMaker export? Or what?

Re: DWG Conversion Nightmare

Rob — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 01:44:06 GMT

Thanks for your replies guys,

Although you seemed to have ruled out the fills issue, I've experienced similar problems with large .dwg file sizes which I solved by playing around with the fills.

Haneef, I have turned all fills off and I have not used any of customised fills at all. So I am assuming this is not a problem.

another thing worth checking is whether PM was set for "real line weights" or "hair lines" when you exported. That can make a huge difference, since "real line weights" translate at actual line weights in AutoCAD.

Tom, the actual difference having true weights on and off was 800Kb +/- respectively.

Then you XRef into the PlotMaker export? Or what?

...and exactly, then you're stuffed - without titleblocks and issue letters...