AutoCAD read ArchiCAD

[Anonymous]

I will be working with consultants that still only use AutoCAD will they be able to read ArchiCAD files and manipulate them.

[Eduardo Rolon]

You will have to "publish" the file to dwg. So, Yes...

[Steve Jepson]

ejrolon wrote:
You will have to "publish" the file to dwg. So, Yes...

Is "publishing" the file something new or a better way to do it? I have just been saving it as a .dwg with version 8 and it seems to work fine with ADT 3.3.

[Anonymous]

Steve wrote:
Is "publishing" the file something new or a better way to do it? I have just been saving it as a .dwg with version 8 and it seems to work fine with ADT 3.3.

Steve,

Do you work with viewsets? Layer combinations? Scales?

If the answer to the above is 'no' then publishing is probably not necessary for you. If, however, you use the AC plan modelspace to contain a variety of different information, only some of which may be relevant at any particular time, then publishing gives you a -consistent- method of producing consistent information.

If you haven't 'played' with publishing I would recommend you investigate. I believe the ROE would be quite considerable.

- Stuart

[Steve Jepson]

Thanks for the publishing tip. I would love it if I could find a way to preserve my Layer combiations.
Publishing will no doubt be even more helpfull with the new PDF features of ArchiCAD 9.

Are you able to read the ArchiCAD layer combinations as Layer Keys in AutoCAD? How does it work with layer combinations?

[Anonymous]

Steve;

I don't know enough about (later) releases of AC to be able to answer your 'Layer Keys' question properly. However I would guess that if you tell the consultants your layer combinations (or export to excel?) they could (quickly 'merging') use the same ones.

Although most consultants (imhe) don't use layer combinations??

You could quite easily set up several layouts in plotmaker entitled (for example) - reflected ceiling plan / wet zone plans / layout plan / structural plan - and publish your ONE 'drawing' to update all of them. The initial setting up will take a while (certainly the first time) but after that change management is just pressing one button.

I seriously recommend you play!

- Stuart

[Djordje]

Steve wrote:
Are you able to read the ArchiCAD layer combinations as Layer Keys in AutoCAD? How does it work with layer combinations?

Not in my experience. This would be useful - practically, you save the WHOLE content into a DWG, and then the Layer combinations get translated into Layer status in AutoCAD.

The thing that ArchiCAD does better here is that the views also know about scale, display options, and zooms - as Stuart said, not conversant enough with newer versions of AutoCAD, I cannot say whether it supports some kind of Display options now. I do know however that you can set the PaperSpace scaling of text and dimensioning which roughly translates into text size scale sensitivity of ArchiCAD.

The way it works now is that eash of the ArchiCAD views traslates to one DWG that has the layers necessary, with the display options as defined in the view settings.

HTH,

[Eduardo Rolon]

Djordje wrote:
The way it works now is that eash of the ArchiCAD views traslates to one DWG that has the layers necessary, with the display options as defined in the view settings. ,

Actually each PM layout becomes a DWG and the views within the layout become pspace viewports. That means that each view is a different drawing within the layout dwg (switch to model space in Autocad to see the different drawings) that has only the lines that match AC's layer sets. In paper space all the viewports match AC's view settings regarding scale and lineweights.

Remember that Autocad is flatland so each view has to become a different drawing and they are not linked together.