topic ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp in Collaboration with other software

ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:21:03 GMT

I received AutoCAD LT dwg files, but they won’t open. No conversion dialogs, no questions, error messages, nothing, only blanc empty window resulting. LT files are in 2000 format, we tried also R14, the same.
I tried AC 7.0, 8.1 and PM, open... and merge..., no success.
This has happened several times before and I remember seeing similar questions on this list, but I can’t find them. I have very poor knowledge of AutoCAD and Windows, so what’s going on?

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 13:45:04 GMT

Just a suggestion, but make sure to check wether the drawing are done in a model space or paper space and set the Archicad settings to match when opening. Not sure if this is the problem but it is a common thing to check.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 07:41:21 GMT

tprokop wrote:
make sure to check wether the drawing are done in a model space or paper space and set the Archicad settings to match when opening.

Check where and when? –there are any dwg conversion dialogs, the process comes straight through to a blanc screen. I tried to first "preset" these with an openable dwg, no luck.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 13:08:31 GMT

Sorry, thinking of 6.5 (Just beginning our upgrade to 8.1) when I thought of the check point.

See if this process works - Select to open the DWG and let it open to the blank screen. Select open file and open the drawing again (this time Archicad should ask for a translator. Create a new translator and you will get the options to change the settings under the "Settings in Selected Translator" window. Not sure why you would have to open the second time and deal with the blank screen the first, but it seemed to work for us.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 14:46:28 GMT

tprokop wrote:
Select to open the DWG and let it open to the blank screen. Select open file and open the drawing again (this time Archicad should ask for a translator.

Sorry to say but this trick didn’t help. It didn't ask anything. I tried with AC 7, 8.1 both open and merge and PM. There must be something rotten in the sending ACAD LT. Strange that other autocadists in the project have not complained.
Thanks anyway!

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 21:12:53 GMT

We have AutoCAD LT 2004 and 14 and have no problem with the translator. Yo can go to the Tools tab and choose DXF-DWG Translator and set everything there. It is important you use the model/paper space option as your needs.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:50:49 GMT

Thanks for the given advice.

So far the urgent situation has eased up. I managed to convert from the PLT file a workable PLN and got through the given task.

One question to AutoCAD experts. When I opened this PLT, Plotmaker gave an error message “unimplemented command was given” (or something like that) “EC”, “IR”, “UL”, “MC”, “AC”. I suppose this means that there is somethig wrong also in the original DWG. Do these awake any ideas, so I could “advise”, hehe, these AutoCAD LT users?

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Djordje — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:44:47 GMT

kari wrote:
One question to AutoCAD experts. When I opened this PLT, Plotmaker gave an error message “unimplemented command was given” (or something like that) “EC”, “IR”, “UL”, “MC”, “AC”.

PLT for which plotter? There might be control codes; see the discussion at http://www.graphisoft.com/community/archicad-talk/viewtopic.php?t=1519

HTH,

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:05:09 GMT

Djordje wrote:
kari wrote:
One question to AutoCAD experts. When I opened this PLT, Plotmaker gave an error message “unimplemented command was given” (or something like that) “EC”, “IR”, “UL”, “MC”, “AC”.
PLT for which plotter? There might be control codes; see the discussion at http://www.graphisoft.com/community/archicad-talk/viewtopic.php?t=1519

HTH,

PLT was saved with HP DJ 500 24 –don’t know what the last figure means, but anyway I have no plotter and not to mention error codes for any of them.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 15:27:39 GMT

Problem solved! -Well actually not at all, but there is a workaround. DXF works!
I just heard that in Budapest it is a well known problem that “some AutoCAD versions” produce DWG which AC cannot open.
GS remained dumb – again. Would it have been so difficult to throw a reply e.g “try DXF”? I know they are reading – their own forum.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Djordje — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 17:22:31 GMT

kari wrote:
I just heard that in Budapest it is a well known problem that “some AutoCAD versions” produce DWG which AC cannot open.

Well, just happened the other day, to a colleague. Now the job is in question, as the probation is in progress and it is a single ArchiCAD in an AutoCAD office. Not nice.

Saving down to R12 or 14 usually helps, too. IMHE the problem is mostly with AutoCAD 2000 or 2002 files with multiple PaperSpace layouts.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:45:30 GMT

Happened now and then too, stripped down AutoCAD drawing, no multiple layouts...
could it be a shape scaled unequal xy?z

We do a lot acad drawing imports...
Now WAITING for a fixed dwg import module from Hungary

Petri
www.evata.com

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Mar 2004 14:20:53 GMT

I have the same problem.

My solution is to open them in AC7 - no problem there -
Because 7 opens much faster this is and advantage. Presently I am running the (2) AC8 Copies as it comes and (4) AC7s. Usually I need to open (3) different DWGs to coordinate things.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

fuzzytnth3 — Tue, 11 May 2004 11:13:40 GMT

One thing I've found is that Adobe Illustrator can open dwgs that ArchiCAD 7.0v3 can't.

You can then save it from Illustrator as a dwg and then ArchiCAD is happy with the Illustrator version.

Other weird thing is that the engineer's that have the version of AutoCAD that is giving us grief, have also tried saving in an earlier version of AutoCAD ie ver 14 but they still don't work. We found the only thing that ArchiCAD can manage to open are DXFs. Sadly that means arcs and the like don't always come in as arcs but facetted lines yuck!

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 11 May 2004 17:10:34 GMT

Get the engineers to run the audit and recover command in their dwgs with AutoCAD.

Sometimes when using the boundary command or inserting a wblock in a dwg you get invalid polygons/hatches that wreak havok on AC imports and sometimes on AutoCAD too.

If you want to verify this just ask that your consultants press F2 after opening the file and see if there is a message about invalid entries.

The reason is that if the dxf works that means that there is some specific data within the dwg that is corrupted and since the dxf and plt are more compatible they eliminate that info and you can import the file.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

fuzzytnth3 — Tue, 11 May 2004 21:47:11 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
Get the engineers to run the audit and recover command in their dwgs with AutoCAD.

Sometimes when using the boundary command or inserting a wblock in a dwg you get invalid polygons/hatches that wreak havok on AC imports and sometimes on AutoCAD too.

Thanks for that, I will have a word with them and let you know if that worked. I did notice when I opened the DXF that I got an error saying that an entity was ignored as it wasn't recognised. I wonder if that could be due to some problem like you are saying.

Thanks

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

fuzzytnth3 — Thu, 13 May 2004 16:06:17 GMT

Just a wee note to say that the Engineer tried the Audit Recover command and found 16 errors. Gave the repairwed file another go and the only version that worked was the DXF same as before.

When importing the DXF it still kicks up an error as before

Start time : Thu, 13 May, 2004 4:15:35 pm
I/O file : "34317-Roof_Plans_r2000.dxf"

Invalid polygon, self intersection or hole intersects boundary.
Invalid polygon, self intersection or hole intersects boundary.
Invalid polygon, self intersection or hole intersects boundary.
Invalid polygon, self intersection or hole intersects boundary.
Undocumented entities found.

Undocumented entities were found. They are not processed:
REGION : 8

End time : Thu, 13 May, 2004 4:16:11 pm
Elapsed time : 36 seconds

Looks like we are sticking with DXFs then

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 21 May 2004 19:56:37 GMT

Looks like invalid hatches or blocks in the file. Just to try ask them to erase all hatches, explode everything in the file except plines and dims, then do an audit on the file.
it could also be blocks with attributes in AutoCAD created with a previous version or ADT, explode them also.
If this works then you can start to narrow the problem to find the culprit.

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 16:25:15 GMT

Sorry to revive an old thread.

I have also been experienceing the same problem with dwg files. Although the files that are causing the issues for us, aren't from AutoCAD LT.. Our different consultants use AutoCAD 14, 2000 or 2004.

This is a headache for us because most of our workstations are mac.. therefore they have to bug someone with a windows machine to convert the dwg to a dxf.

Has anyone found out how to fix this problem?

Re: ACAD LT dwgs won't open, heeeelp

Karl Ottenstein — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 16:55:35 GMT

belly917 wrote:
I have also been experienceing the same problem with dwg files. Although the files that are causing the issues for us, aren't from AutoCAD LT.. Our different consultants use AutoCAD 14, 2000 or 2004.

Your signature says "8.1" ... I can't recall if 8.1 could read 2004 format. But if you are actually using 9.0, then 2004 is of course OK, but to read 2000, you want to install the plug-in in the Goodies\DXF-DWG 2K In-Out folder.

No idea if the specific problems are any better ... just thought I'd share the above in case that helps any.

Karl