Help with *.dwg Line thickness in Archicad

[Anonymous]

I imported a *.dwg file of a OS map. The lines are too thick to even read the drawing. (see pic)
What am I doing wrong?

[Anonymous]

Have you looked at your pen settings? It looks like the ACAD pens are mapping to some hugely fat pens that you must have in your setup, but never actually use.

You can see things OK (temporarily) by switching to hairlines, but the real solution will be to review your pen table and DWG import settings.

It can't be a scale problem as you are viewing the drawing at 1:100 which is presumably much larger than the intended scale for a site plan.

[Anonymous]

First of all I am new to Archicad so excuse me if I seem a bit slow.
My solution was too open the *.dwg in Microstation and Scale it by 1000.
Now it looks fine, but i think the scaling is wrong. I am amazed that there is no Scale tool in Archicad . Let s say you have a 40 lines in a drawing and you want to scale them all by 45% - what do you do? In Mircostation or AutoCad you just scale them....

How would you deal with importing a DWG file? How do you know the Scale is correct and if it needs correcting how do you do that?

Thanks again

[Anonymous]

On importing DWG files, the scale is set in the window of the Translator set-up, under the "Settings in selected translator". The "Drawing Units" settings give you the option of opening with the setting of 1 DXF/DWG unit to the unit you specify.

The other issue to mention is to make sure of your drawing settings before opening the file. Open a blank drawing in Archicad and set your scale to the output scale of the file you are bringing in. Then proceed to open the DWG and the text and displays will match the desired output to size. This step is made necessary due to the non-scaling text in other formats. Text in Autocad is set to a size and drawn (no consideration of scaling is taken) so to use drawings at different scales, the text must be inserted twice at the 2 different sizes. When the text is brought in to Archicad it is figured to a font size to match the size relations with other elements in the drawing. When changing the drawing scale of the drawing in Archicad, the text will then hold this font size and will change.

Hope this helps,

[Anonymous]

If you do not know the scale at which the DWG was drawn then pick an approximate scale.
Before opening the DWG, set the scale within already opened archiCAD session. You can do this in the previously opened DWG. Just change the Scale, and then re-open the DWG without saving the current. This shown look better. Also the "true" Dimensions may be off. In this case you need to alter the Drawing Units Settings in the Translator. "Value of 1 DXF/DWG Drawing Unit in ArchiCAD".

[Anonymous]

Silly me, it hadn't occurred to me that it was a scaling problem.

As the other guys said you have to set the drawing units in the translator. In you case I would guess that the original unit in the file are meters and the translator interpreted them as millimeters (here in the states the surveyors use 1 foot as the drawing unit and architects us 1 inch so you know what happened when something is twelve times bigger or smaller than it should be).

You can fix it after the fact with the Resize command in the edit menu. They don't call it Rescale because AC works strictly in world dimensions and scale has to do with paper sizes.

[Djordje]

It is also a good idea to check the units of the DWG by talking to the person who created it. That can aslo sort out all the pen weights, fonts etc problems.

I noticed that if the units are specified in the DWG (not often ...) the errors are almost non-existent.

[Anonymous]

As a final (?!) comment, you might find that the drawing is more readable in Archicad if you set the scale to '1:1' (rather than 1:100).

Many Acad drawings aren't set up (w.r.t. pen weights) for different printing scales.

HTH - Stuart

[Anonymous]

Thanks y'all for all the help!

[Djordje]

StuartJames wrote:
As a final (?!) comment, you might find that the drawing is more readable in Archicad if you set the scale to '1:1' (rather than 1:100).

Especially, and ALWAYS if you are opening Paper Space with viewport contents.

StuartJames wrote:
Many Acad drawings aren't set up (w.r.t. pen weights) for different printing scales.

IMHE none of them ...

Besides - the AutoCAD users do NOT as a rule (again IMHE) know what eTransmit (used to be called Pack&Go) does. If you want DWGs, ask for eTransmit - pen assignments, blocks, fonts, lines, XRefs, whatnot, comes across. Only then you can be sure that you have everything needed.