Perfecting DWG Export

[Andy Thomson]

I am just having to get at this again. I had everything working pretty nicely in 9 (especially from Plotmaker), and now my settings/translators have to be rethought.

I would like to ask what problemmatic issues people are having with their DWG exported ArchiCad files in an effort to learn workarounds and tricks towards better export.

Some examples of many that I intend to cite here is this:

Units, when exported from AC10, in feet (1 foot = 1 drawing unit)
On opening in AutoCad, gives engineering units in decimal feet. AutoCad shows exported DWGs in decimal feet (when measuring/working). On changing units to 'Architectural' (fractional inches) - the whole of modelspace requires to be scaled by a factor of 12 - why? How can I export with architectural units so that rescaling is not required? (is it as simple as exporting 1 unit = 1"?)

Rescaling presents a host of other issues (WB3.5 parts eject redundant lines all over the place that need to be cleaned up)

Also, when ArchiCad flattens drawings, there are a bunch of redundant fills and lines - over and above those that can be thrown on to specific fill layers, and exploded complex elements seem always to create an elaborate mess of blocks - not exploded primitives.

What I am after is a light, simple, clean DWG, with 'purged duplicates' as it were, and more or less WYSIWIG export/import. Why can't I 'purge' BEFORE export! (wish?)

Images - why do some have frames, and others do not?

Pens - why do all pens, while preserving pen colours, never show anything but white pens in the layer list? Bylayer export doesn't change this. The convertpstyle tricks also haven't remedied this....has something to do with everything being blocks, not actual linework.

As I am not an AutoCad user, forgive me if I sound like I am talking out of my a**, I am. But I am just repeating common complaints about my 'inferior' ArchiCad DWG export, and I'd like to get to the bottom of all of these issues. Your thoughts, elucidations are valued. Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

Much of my success in creating good .dwg files stems from the .dwg file that my translator uses.

I'm in the middle of trying to make .dwg templates for all occasions. One tailored to our CAD standards, and another for AIA/NCS standards. I think each project should have it's own .dwg template in order to be the most successful.

Ideally you should get a .dwg file from each client and consultant that contains all their layers and drawing resident settings.

[Mats_Knutsson]

I have had customers with this problem and after consulting the ADT guru, I've learned that the problem lies within ADT, probably since the change from the 2004 format. They get inches instead of millimetres also from older ACAD files and the problem is within the unit set up in ADT.

Gothenburg sunshine!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Not just ADT but all recent versions of Autocad contain a setting which determines wether a file is inches, feet, millimeters or light years.

If when you open a file this variable is not set Autocad assumes the file is in inches, which is a real pain for everybody working outside the USA.

To avoid this problem, get a dwg file that is set up for millimeters (or whatever) and have your translator use this as a template. Perhaps Graphisoft could include a setting for this in future versions of the translator.

[Anonymous]

AC should also have an option to remove the Wipeout Objects that it creates when exporting to dwg. Most AutoCAD users haven't even heard ot it! This has been the reason for most of consultants' complaints recently!

[NandoMogollon]

i had the "wipeout" problem a few months ago...
AutoCAD has a big problem handling more than 5 wipeouts, and the drawing order gets crazy....
Same thing for the Fonts.... doesn't works as we expected.

And the problem is not the translator....is the people who expects a Perfect *.DWG, as if it were drawn by themselves.

AC does a really good work in translation for the floor drawings,
The Elevations doesn't works this way (too many redundant lines)

... is not the US dollar, or the Euro..................the future is the YUAN, the chinese currency....jejejejeje

[Laura Yanoviak]

kliment wrote:
AC should also have an option to remove the Wipeout Objects that it creates when exporting to dwg. Most AutoCAD users haven't even heard ot it! This has been the reason for most of consultants' complaints recently!

I believe this is why the recommended practice is to use "Empty Fills" with a white background fill pen for wipeouts (and then have "Fill Background" set to "Transparent" in your Export to ACAD Model View Settings).

[Anonymous]

"Laura Yanoviak" wrote:

"kliment" wrote:
AC should also have an option to remove the Wipeout Objects that it creates when exporting to dwg. Most AutoCAD users haven't even heard ot it! This has been the reason for most of consultants' complaints recently!

I believe this is why the recommended practice is to use "Empty Fills" with a white background fill pen for wipeouts (and then have "Fill Background" set to "Transparent" in your Export to ACAD Model View Settings).

But in autocad, if i erase this fill i will continued viewing the lines or objects behind the fill, not?

im sayng that because is hard to work on files with all this lines.... is that a way that i dont export things behind a mask layer without the wipeouts?