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DWG line type scale in placed External Drawing

Laura Yanoviak
Advocate
Could someone please refresh my memory -- what is the secret to maintaining the correct line type scale after placing a DWG as a Drawing within AC?
MacBook Pro Apple M2 Max, 96 GB of RAM
AC26 US (5002) on Mac OS Ventura 13.5
12 REPLIES 12
Barry Kelly
Moderator
Sculptdesign wrote:
I don't have the SHX file, will ask in future but they're never sent with a DWG.

When you bring in the DWG, if it asks for an SHX file (or sometimes a few SHX files), you ideally want these, as they convert things like line types and fonts used into something that looks correct (as it did in the original DWG).

Sculptdesign wrote:
When you say merged, do you mean by exploding the file into the drawing? As mentioned this isn't an option it has to remain as a placed drawing file.

I usually merge a DWG into my files but you can place with the Drawing tool to keep them intact.
Without the SHX file, that is where the Translator comes in.
You can set it up so DWG 'Line_Type_A' becomes Archicad 'My_Line_Type_A'.
But you need to know the exact names to set up the transfer list.


Sculptdesign wrote:
Changing the line scale through the line settings doesn't do anything.

Can you post a screen shot of the settings for one of the bad line types?


Barry.
One of the forum moderators.
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Sculptdesign
Booster
Thanks Barry, here it is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T43iiBHF5-9FVhW5C_P86f1bHQKehuXY/view?usp=sharing

I've tried both increasing and decreasing the spacing, as well as switching between model/paper size - nothing changes in the drawing. This is definitely the linetype in the DWG, I have exploded it to check and changing the scale works when exploded, but not when placed ad an external drawing.

I don't fully understand how to use the translators yet so I need to look into that, it sounds like it will sort the problem in the end though.
ArchiCAD 26 Solo - Mac
Barry Kelly
Moderator
That line definition you shared works perfectly fine for me - I certainly don't have to zoom in to see the dashes..

I was expecting to see something like this.


Where you have to move the decimal points and change to scale independent.


Barry.
One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11