DWG merge vs. XREF question

[Erika Epstein]

Hi,
I just discovered that when I merge or open a dwg in 8.1R1 I get a topo with all the contours. This is as I am used to. When I instead xref the dwg file, I instead get just the major contours (every 10') and when I tried showing all layers I got what looked like a mesh in plan and still no intermediate contours.

Why does the latter happen? Why do I not get intermediate (every 2') contours like when I merged or opened a dwg in AC? And what was it that I saw if it wasn't a mesh?

And,yes, I have never used autocad.
Are there some settings in the translator (I used the default R2000) that I could be making use of?

Thank you
Erika

[Djordje]

Erika wrote:
I just discovered that when I merge or open a dwg in 8.1R1 I get a topo with all the contours. This is as I am used to. When I instead xref the dwg file, I instead get just the major contours (every 10') and when I tried showing all layers I got what looked like a mesh in plan and still no intermediate contours.

Can you post a screen shot?

Never used AutoCAD ... lucky you!

[Erika Epstein]

Djordje,
Attached are 4 jpegs from the same dwg.
Xref 1 : I attached the dwg as an xref, R2000 translator
Xref allLayers: I just tunred on all the layers
Merged 1: what I got when I merged the dwg
Merged all Layers: when I turned on all the layers in the merged file.

This is the first time I am attaching something so I hope this works...
thanks,

Oh yes, Someone I know sent me the file because they got the same thing.

Erika

[Erika Epstein]

xref merge 2 of 4

[Erika Epstein]

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[Erika Epstein]

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[tsturm]

Hey Djordje,

You never seemed to have answered Erika's question.

I have something else to ask about this issue. Do I both to Merge or XREF a consultant's work?

Either way I get the layers from their file. is there a good way to do this?

[Eduardo Rolon]

I think that when you import a dwg all the lines and thier layers will be processed by AC wether they are on/off lock/unlocked, frozen/unfrozen. If you Xref then the AutoCAD file retains control of what it is shown and if the layer is off then in AC the layer will be ignored.

[Erika Epstein]

tsturm wrote:
Hey Djordje,

You never seemed to have answered Erika's question.

Hi,
Djordje addressed this elsewhere.

I had forgotten that one can always open dwgs as a library part. Thus I was able to see(see attached) that there is a 3D mesh in there as well as 2D info.

I've attached shots of it in the plan window as well as overall and zoomed-in axonometric shots.
Now that I understood what I was being sent I could choose which opening/attaching method would best serve my purposes.
Hope this helps

[Erika Epstein]

oops, forgot the attachments

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