topic Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer in Modeling

Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Tue, 23 May 2023 14:59:58 GMT

So after importing some data from an AutoCAD file from a client, my ArchiCAD layer is all out of whack.

When I brought in the info it was all over the place as far as layers go, so I cleaned them up, deleted some, renamed some, moved things onto fewer layers to consolidate for what I needed, etc. A few of the layers were "0" which you always get, "building" and a blank layer, no name, just blank. I moved stuff off the building layer and deleted it, along with the "0" layer and the blank layer which appeared to have no info on them.

I now have an ArchiCAD layer that does not "stick" to the top of the list in the layer dialog box, annoying but livable. It still acts like the ArchiCAD layer, you can't hide or lock it. IN Atribute manager, the ArchiCAD layer is layer #1 and stays at the top of the list regardless of how you sort. In the info box, or any other object dialog box, there is no ArchiCAD layer. There is however a layer named "building" which appears to be the ArchiCAD layer and it happens to be alphabetically in the same location as where the ArchiCAD layer now sort in the layer dialog box.

This is all very annoying to me, and leaves me wondering what dangers are lurking.

It is a teamwork file, although at the moment I am the entire team, been signed in with exclusive access during all this.

Anyone run into this? Know a fix?

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:59:27 GMT

I was able to merge the weird file into a new file I created and had deleted all but the ArchiCAD layer in it. Once I merged, anything that was on the old "building" layer was on the ArchiCAD layer. There was however a "building" layer now in the file, which I was able to delete. The problem is I lose all my viewsets and I am well into CDs so I don't want to recreate everything so this isnt so much a fix as an interesting tidbit of info to go along with it.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Barry Kelly — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:30:06 GMT

kevin wrote:
I was able to merge the weird file into a new file I created and had deleted all but the ArchiCAD layer in it. Once I merged, anything that was on the old "building" layer was on the ArchiCAD layer. There was however a "building" layer now in the file, which I was able to delete. The problem is I lose all my viewsets and I am well into CDs so I don't want to recreate everything so this isnt so much a fix as an interesting tidbit of info to go along with it.

Try using the Attribute Manager to Overwrite the Archicad layer from your new file into the existing one.
Maybe that will reset it properly?
Barry.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:21:42 GMT

Already tried it, no luck.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:12:08 GMT

I've encountered some additional strange behaviors that my be associated with bringing in AutoCAD drawings.

1. Arichcad layer not floating to the top (as mentioned above)
2. Linetypes replaced by autoCAD linetypes
3. Fill types mysteriously removed.
4. Items in drawing on layer that doesn't show in the layer dialog box.

Attribute manager resolved items 2 & 3. I was able to reassign those items from the mysterious layer to one in the list - so that wasn't too big a deal. And the ArchiCAD is more of an oddity than a hindrance to my workflow.

Something freaky is definitely going on.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:21:37 GMT

So today, the mysterious blank layer has returned when I opened the file. It was deleted yesterday, I signed out last night, signed back in this morning and its back.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Djordje — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:34:46 GMT

kevin wrote:
Anyone run into this? Know a fix?

Don't merge.

Bring the DWG in as an XRef, then you clear its attributes easily.

Bring the DWG in as a placed drawing, no attributes (layers, linetypes, whatever) are imported.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:13:53 GMT

I typically bring .dwg's in as placed drawings. Problems begin when I explode them.

Is exploding a .dwg file inserted using the "Drawing Tool" the same as a merge?

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Link — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:41:00 GMT

Dom wrote:
I typically bring .dwg's in as placed drawings. Problems begin when I explode them.

Is exploding a .dwg file inserted using the "Drawing Tool" the same as a merge?

I believe so. Have you tried using the Xref Manager?

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:39:39 GMT

I have used the xref feature. I guess it wouldn't be a problem to switch over to using it exclusively. It would be nice, however, if both functioned properly.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:40:28 GMT

I have used the xref feature. I guess it wouldn't be a problem to switch over to using it exclusively. It would be nice, however, if both functioned properly.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Djordje — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:46:16 GMT

Dom wrote:
I typically bring .dwg's in as placed drawings. Problems begin when I explode them.

Is exploding a .dwg file inserted using the "Drawing Tool" the same as a merge?

Don't do this until the next patch. No, it is not the same as XReffing.

Frankly, I find the Placed drawing method the best - everything else creates too much work and hassle.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Barbara Sommer — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:20:13 GMT

Same topic as
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=24007&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=10

When placing a DWG as a drawing and exploding the drawing, attributes will get overwritten. This is a bug that GS has corrected by now. The next patch will fix this problem.
It is possible to get back your attributes via the attribute manager by simply opening a back-up file and overwriting the existing attributes with the original set.

But one thing we would like to be sure in: Did anyone have problems when merging a DWG, did that affect anybodies attributes? We tested if merge is causing any trouble regarding layer settings but everything works fine.
Please let us know if you have experienced anything abnormal when merging DWG's

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:42:35 GMT

I have to add that when I had this problem, overwriting attributes in the attribute manager did not work. It said that they could not be overwritten because blah blah all ready existed blah blah same ID something. . .

I had to open a archived file i had from before i put the dwg in and re- do all of the work to get it back to where the DWG messed it up.

Then, I opened the dwg in it's own archicad file, exploded and changed all the layers to one single layer that i made up, brand new, then opened another archicad from my template, pasted the exploded dwg with one layer into the new file, said "make new Layer" when it prompted at pasting, and changed the layers in there so they had the same IDs as my other projects, copied, pasted again into the original project that i wanted it in.

So it was a royal pain in my ass, and took a really long time.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:50:22 GMT

I now have a bunch of AutoCAD layers that have re-written the names of my ArchiCAD layers, but the original ArchiCAD layer names still exist in the file, so now you can't even tell what is what. This is a huge nightmare trying to fix and multiplying rapidly as we get closer to deadline and have more team members on the project detailing. Big, big, big problem needs to be fixed ASAP!!

And back to the xref issue, we are in some cases bringing in manufacturers details, and taking the pieces we need for our details so we need to explode the DWG in the file to get the parts we need, xref doesn't cut it.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:52:55 GMT

ANd the attribute manager fix listed above is not possible as this is a teamwork project and you can't load the attributes from a plp. I will try signing in to old plp, save as pln and then try to over write layers from that file, but I tried the same with our template file attributes and it didn't work so I don't see why this would.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:06:16 GMT

So now I have a couple dozen layers with the (2) appended to the names and I still need to sort out which are the correct ones and which are the ones that were caused by this problem. Did I already say this was BAD!

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Djordje — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:25:41 GMT

kevin wrote:
And back to the xref issue, we are in some cases bringing in manufacturers details, and taking the pieces we need for our details so we need to explode the DWG in the file to get the parts we need, xref doesn't cut it.

Open it in a separate ArchiCAD file, clean up there, bring in as a view from that file.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

kevin b — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:59:06 GMT

That's great for going forward on the next project, but the damage is already done to the file we're in now.

Finding it has done similar fun stuff to linetypes.

This is the single most time consuming bug as far as lengths to fix the damage that I can remember in the 10 years I've been working with ArchiCAD. The frustrating part is that it wasn't even immediately apparent, most of the bugs seem to be things not working or not working as well or as expected, this is just apparently permanent damage. This is easily the most disappointing thing I've run into with ArchiCAD, worse than any of the Plotmaker issues I had.

Re: Strange behavior of ArchiCAD layer

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 06:42:35 GMT

kevin wrote:
So after importing some data from an AutoCAD file from a client, my ArchiCAD layer is all out of whack.
...
I now have an ArchiCAD layer that does not "stick" to the top of the list in the layer dialog box, annoying but livable. It still acts like the ArchiCAD layer, you can't hide or lock it. IN Atribute manager, the ArchiCAD layer is layer #1 and stays at the top of the list regardless of how you sort. In the info box, or any other object dialog box, there is no ArchiCAD layer. There is however a layer named "building" which appears to be the ArchiCAD layer and it happens to be alphabetically in the same location as where the ArchiCAD layer now sort in the layer dialog box.

Has anyone experienced this behavior in AC12? After importing a dwg file in my project, ArchiCAD Layer started to behave exactly as Kevin described above. All fine in Attribute Manager, but in the Info Box it appears with a different name. Can't modify / rename it.
Does anyone have any idea about how I could solve this?

Thank you in advance,
Adrian Tudoreanu