Layer management during DWG import

Winner of the TechTip Contest of the month of May, 2002

The only way to go when importing consultants's drawings is to use the Autocad tools "Xref management." Sure they add to your list of layers but at least you can hide and show without using the layers dialog box, plus you can automatically update the info by just referencing another DWG file. It works brilliantly. I will never go back to simply opening up a DWG and merging it into my ArchiCAD project file.

I've also had success bringing in dwg/dxf data as ArchiCAD objects. Go to file/open ArchiCAD object then select DWG. You can use this technique when you simply want to "check" some consultant's drawings by overlaying them onto you project. You will not add to the file size, the object can be turned off and on instantly, plus it can be updated quickly. If you want to add hotspots then open up the object and click hotspots where you want them in the 2d symbol.

Importing consultant's DWGs is the quickest way to blow out your file size. When was the last time you were happily working on your design at around 1.2Mb file size then as soon as you imported a survey DWG your project exploded to 8Mb? huh?

Also see escribe: http://escribe.com/software/archicadtalk/m16683.html

Page last updated: Thursday, June 10, 2004