import dwg as external drawing or xref

[Anonymous]

I have exported a dwg , worked on it on autocad and later imported as an xref into Archicad. This workflow allows the imported drawing to be automatically set to the correct insertion point and rotation.
However, working with xref drawings has a big drawback: xrefs can’t have their own pen set.

When working with "placing external drawings" is there a way to make sure that the imported drawing automatically places and orients itself ?

thank you in advance.

[Christophe Fortineau]

Hello afaria,

With an import by Xref you are able to hide or lock all dwg layers.
Since Archicad 20 you can create a Graphic Override to give one color per layer (like Autodesk do).
It is a way to keep your Xref workflow into Archicad and being able to custom your 2D graphics.

You can keep the original dwg pen set into Archicad too

[Anonymous]

Christophe wrote:
Hello afaria,

With an import by Xref you are able to hide or lock all dwg layers.
Since Archicad 20 you can create a Graphic Override to give one color per layer (like Autodesk do).
It is a way to keep your Xref workflow into Archicad and being able to custom your 2D graphics.

You can keep the original dwg pen set into Archicad too

Thank you. i had never noticed that one can create a Graphic Override for layers. it's a nice feature but if one graphic override for the xref and wants to apply other graphic overrides for the projet itself it can be tricky... if both are on the same story or worksheet for instance.

Regardless of pen set management being easy or not, you would agree that with Placing External Drawings Archicad cannot place and orient automatically the dwg's ?

Thanks again.

[Christophe Fortineau]

Hello afaria,

afaria wrote:
... but if one graphic override for the xref and wants to apply other graphic overrides for the projet itself it can be tricky...

If you don't have the shx file with your dwg you have to solve graphic representations with other solutions but it does not deals with a Archicad mistake - Archicad give you solution like graphic overrides.
You can also choose to create a view with graphic override to keep you dwg like into Autodesk and put it on your layout
Then you can add other Archicad views on it by superpositions (check transparency option).

afaria wrote:
Archicad cannot place and orient automatically the dwg's ?

All Autodesk softwares are unable to place and orient automatically pln, ndw*, or others.
Archicad use GPS coordinations to georeferencing since a long time but Autodesk don't use it.
To solve it in an openBIM collaborations you have to put a ifc North object which include coordinates.
It's seems to be impossible to solve it automatically but you can check that Graphisoft Archicad can open dwg, ifc, rfa and rvt files as well that it's possible but we can do the same constat with Autodesk softwares towards *Allplan, Archicad or others.

[Anonymous]

Thank very much you for your feedback.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Hi afaria,

I would like you ask you if there is any specific reason you place DWG files in ARCHICAD as XREFs and not simply use the Drawing Tool to place those DWG files.
I think unless you want to scale the placed DWG file in X and Y directions, there is no reason to use the XREF method.
When you place it as a Drawing, you can still place it to the intended position, then rotate it, it can have its Pen Set modified, the whole DWG files stays together, it retains its Layer and you can make any of them Visible/Hidden, it does not flood the Project File with attributes coming from the DWG file, and you can update it as and when you wish (use Automatic or Manual update method).
So I think the Drawing Tool is much better for this.
I believe the XREF commands are really still in ARCHICAD for legacy reasons only, but the Drawing Tool handles this much better.

[Anonymous]

Apart from the discussion about Xref VS Placed Drawing, I was wondering if you cannot achieve what you need with modules.

If it's just rotation and position that you're changing in Autocad, then you can do something very similar or the same with a placed hotlink (or a .mod file for example).

That way you can skip translation to DWG, extra step with Autocad and then another DWG-Archicad translation at the import.

[Anonymous]

considering all pros and cons, we are sticking to place external drawing: placing manually at the right point and then just updating them. This way we only need to place it manually the first time only.
xrefs do the trick but since they dont have their pen set imported it is not practical.

thank you all.