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dwg template file changes among pure AC companies?

Mats_Knutsson
Advisor
Hi,

If you are a company only on ArchiCAD and need to add layers in the dwg template file...how do you go about it?
I'm looking for a best practice solution.

Cheers,
Mats
AC 25 SWE Full

HP Zbook Fury 15,6 G8. 32 GB RAM. Nvidia RTX A3000.
7 REPLIES 7
Thomas Holm
Booster
You can add layers in Archicad before exporting. AFAIK they will be exported to the resulting DWG even if their names are not in the DWG template. However, they will not have the attributes that Archicad can't set, like BYLAYER attributes.
(edited: AC12 can set BYLAYER)

This is what I can understand from Archicad's help file. The help file doesn't tell what happens in your case, so I have no idea what attributes the new layers will have. If Autocad has some default that should be it.

It also doesn't tell what else cannot be set in Archicad, but that Autocadders are likely to want, like LTSCALE.
(edited: AC12 can set LTSCALE. However, it should be set to 1 in most cases anyway. See
here and here - this latter tip makes Autocad scaling work almost as in Archicad! it just took 20 years!)

The DWG conversion is severely under-documented.
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Mats_Knutsson
Advisor
Thomas wrote:
You can add layers in Archicad before exporting. AFAIK they will be exported to the resulting DWG even if their names are not in the DWG template. However, they will not have the attributes that Archicad can't set, like BYLAYER attributes.

This is what I can understand from Archicad's help file. The help file doesn't tell what happens in your case, so I have no idea what attributes the new layers will have. If Autocad has some default that should be it.

It also doesn't tell what else cannot be set in Archicad, but that Autocadders are likely to want, like LTSCALE.

The DWG conversion is severely under-documented.
Hi Thomas,

I forgot to mention that it was the attributes I was after...It's been a nightmare day and my head is totally ups-ide down.

We're going to document the dwg export "for regular users" and most of it is straight forward but when an office needs (shouldn't need to in 95% of the cases...) to fiddle anround with the dwg translation file I was looking for the best way to do it. In my mind I can just let it go and tell the other consultants that layer XXXX is XXXX....but it ends up as an ugly dwg default since bylayer is the usual situtation.

Mats
AC 25 SWE Full

HP Zbook Fury 15,6 G8. 32 GB RAM. Nvidia RTX A3000.
Thomas Holm
Booster
Mats_Knutsson wrote:
We're going to document the dwg export "for regular users" and most of it is straight forward but when an office needs (shouldn't need to in 95% of the cases...) to fiddle anround with the dwg translation file I was looking for the best way to do it. In my mind I can just let it go and tell the other consultants that layer XXXX is XXXX....but it ends up as an ugly dwg default since bylayer is the usual situtation.

Mats
Maybe we should talk about your job elsewhere... you can phone me in Swedish if you like.

I have posted some advice previously in this forum. As I see it, BYLAYER is an obsolete convention. Autocad doesn't need it anymore. But if you really want it, and still want full graphic control over your output, it means that you have to blow up your number of layers unproportionally.

I've managed to avoid that issue, and have never been forced to use templates. If a consultant insists, I tell him to EXPLODE the dwg he gets, then he can do what he wants with it.

The most important thing is to NEVER use any other translator than the KEEP PEN INDEX NUMBER translator. If you do that, customised to your needs, and also have a pen set that shows the output correctly (Autocad standard, pen/color #1 = red 0.25 mm etc) , you will have full control over your DWG output.

Graphisoft's other translators introduce an element of chance in the pen/color mapping and should be avoided if you want full control. They absolutely screw up roundtrip conversion, for example!

At import, you have to remember that pen/color mapping only works correctly when you MERGE or XREF the dwg file. Never use Open - it disregards your pen translation table even if you've selected the correct KPIN translator!

This isn't documented anywhere, but I have it directly from the horse's mouth!
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Thomas wrote:
At import, you have to remember that pen/color mapping only works correctly when you MERGE or XREF the dwg file. Never use Open - it disregards your pen translation table even if you've selected the correct KPIN translator!
You reminded me of these guys. Maybe they are consulting with Graphisoft regarding interface design etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/garden/03destiny.html?scp=59&sq=architecture%20design&st=nyt
Thomas Holm
Booster
Ignacio wrote:
You reminded me of these guys. Maybe they are consulting with Graphisoft regarding interface design etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/garden/03destiny.html?scp=59&sq=architecture%20design&st=nyt
Ignacio, not having seen your comment before, I stumbled on it today (searching for more info on LTScale at export). Thanks!

Architecture that defies death -that is really something
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Anonymous
Not applicable
We've done a lot of IPD work lately so our consultants have had a greater benefit in doing the following for us which may or may not be your situation: We told them the extra layers we needed for that project, they added the layers & then sent us the dwg file to reference in the translator. This is our best practice but may not be industry best practice???
Thomas Holm
Booster
s_wet10 wrote:
This is our best practice but may not be industry best practice???
Yours is of course the best practice - to co-operate is always the best solution!
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1