Student version of autocad or revit into archicad

[gotphish001]

I tried searching for this answer but can't find anything close to an answer. I'll probably just do a test, but that will require me to download a student version of either autocad or revit to try it. I asked on the student forum because I figured people here would know more about the edu stamps.

At my last firm we had to be careful what blocks we downloaded for autocad because a block made in a student version would flag our project as educational. My new firm uses archicad. I've been messing with the tool that lets you put revit families into archicad as objects. My question is what would happen if the revit object I put into archicad was from the edu version of revit? There's really know way for me to know unless I had a commercial version of revit to check (that I know of). Would or could it change my archicad file to edu? I also ask about dwg files being edu versions as occasionally I might find a detail dwg that I might want to put into my archicad projects?

Basically I don't want to get weeks into a project in archicad only to grab a dwg block, or revit family and BOOM my file is now an edu version file by accident. Sure I can go back to a back up version but I'm trying to avoid that PITA.

[Barry Kelly]

The best way really is for you to try it out yourself.
Make sure you have a copy of the Archicad file before you start and then if it messes up just go back to that copy - nothing hard about that.

I would doubt if a Revit EDU object or DWG brought into Archicad would trigger the Archicad to become and EDU file - but I could be wrong as I have never tried it.

Give it a go and let us know what happens.

I assume you have the RFA & RVT Geometry Exchange add-on for converting Revit object to Archicad.


https://bim6x.com/solutions


Barry.

[Erwin Edel · Accepted solution]

Having dealt with Chinese DWG files in the past (where they don't mind doing commercial work on EDU license it seems): if you place them as a drawing (not xref) in your archicad file nothing happens. Not sure about XREF as I don't use that to avoid getting lines/fills etc from the DWG in my project.

[gotphish001]

Thanks for the replies. I'm always leery about asking things like this because people assume a lot of the times that you are trying to get away with something shady. I try to be very careful with not getting edu licenses mixed in. Being an autodesk expert elite I have access to all of autodesk software. Which is really nice as I'm using it to learn all kinds of software that I wouldn't normally have access too. I don't want to lose that privilege by using those for commercial stuff or even having those version on my work computer. I try to do the same with edu stamps. I'd like to keep my free software to play with. 😃 I'll have to do some tests myself.

I can see that happening from Chinese drawings . Also some smaller countries don't seem to care either. I've had consultants send me their HVAC or structural drawings and they were edu version of auotcad. When I brought it up they just said, "we know". They don't like it when you say you can't accept them like that. I guess my biggest concern was when I was using autocad architecture and someone sent me something from an autocad edu as soon as I tried to open it I would get the "this was made on an edu version" warning. Now that I'm using archicad, I was unsure if it would warn me( I guessed it would not) and how it would affect my drawing down the rode if later it turned out it was an edu stamped file. Just trying to avoid going down that rabbit hole and only realizing it a year or 2 later and then it's a huge hassle to fix it.

[Erwin Edel]

I've been able to bypass taking single pages out of 'locked' PDF files with certificates (needed for building permit), by placing them page by page in ArchiCAD layout pages and saving that as PDF. I think ArchiCAD isn't particularly bothered by the status of other file formats.

[gotphish001]

Considering how much of a PITA it is to get a edu version of archicad ( I did a few years ago) and how locked down the new software keys are compared to how easy it is to get a edu version of autodesk products, I'm not surprised it isn't something archicad worries about.

I really hope they change the software keys though. It's a pain to transfer my key constantly from my workstation to my laptop. It doesn't even let you stay signed in. Gotta type the password every time. ugh! Why can't it just register each instance on their servers? You have one key, you try and log in with it at the same time on another computer, you get a messages saying you are already logged in. Simple. Pretty much everything else works like that even netflix will tell you that you can't log in if you exceed the number you are paying for.

I'll be glad if it's something I don't need to worry about going forward. Just one more reason I'm glad I'm switched over to archicad.

[Lingwisyer]

I seem to recall that you could save out a .dwg created with an EDU licence as a .dxf, then open and save out that .dxf as a .dwg to remove the EDU stamps. This was a few years ago, so I may be remembering wrongly...



Ling.

[gotphish001]

There are ways to get rid of the stamp, yes. The issue is that at my new job they only have archicad (no autocad), so if we get a edu version of a dwg file from someone there's really no way for me to check to see if it's an edu version. My last job when I opened it up in autocad it would give a warning. No such warning in archicad for dwg files that I saw. I just didn't want to find out later down the road that I have edu dwg files in archicad projects and it's making either the file an edu archicad version or if I send it to another consultant that actually uses autocad then it gives the edu warning there. Just trying to protect myself from the headache later if it would be an issue. Easier to figure it out now than have to clean 2 years worth of projects of edu stamps.

[Eduardo Rolon]

You can try using Draftsight which is free to open and resave the DWG, it should remove the warning.

https://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/free-download/