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Hi, Having spent an hour or so on the phone with one of your very helpful support team I thought it prudent to add this feature request to save time and effort for others in the future. I have imported several DWGs into separate reference files and used reference viewports to view/snap to them in my main working file. However I want to grey out these backgrounds in the sheet layers so that my content (not the architect's) is clearly visible against their background. By using viewport class overrides this should be possible (setting the line and fill colours to grey). I was advised today that this only works if ALL the reference file objects have their attributes set by class. The DWG import doesn't have an option to do this. Setting all objects to by class manually after the import doesn't always work well since the AutoCAD layer definitions (which are converted directly to classes - which is the right thing to do) may not have been used by every object in the drawing (colour by layer/fill by layer etc) but instead set manually. Is there any clever way around this problem (perhaps creating more classes where manual overrides have been used). Creating and using classes based on an objects current line type/colour/fill type/colour etc to create a class automatically and apply the same class to objects with identical attributes and then setting all attributes by class? (I envisage hundreds of 'sub-classes' being created) The other problem arises when dealing with hatches. AutoCAD, unless I am mistaken, allows you to use hatches where the hatch line colour is determined by the layer, VW has individual hatches one per colour if needed .... adding to my problems. I went through and changed all the pen colours and set them to grey (but I don't think that a good idea). Love to hear your thoughts. R

Hello, I am trying to import a dwg however the fill of the objects is not coming across properly... When I import the objects (which are represented in AutoCAD as a polyline and a hatch) come across as a polyline which has the same fill associate with it as the original hatch, however in AutoCAD these hatches are derived from the class and once they are imported to Vectorworks they are simply solid (static, not based on the class) where as the line style and colour continue to be based on the original class... Is there an import option somewhere I've missed?

Hi all, While this is not a completely new issue, it seems that (using project sharing/2018 designer SP4) DWG file import is extremely slow. Importing a simple 200k DWG might take several minutes. The procedurally following project file update from the working file will extremely slow, as well. The DWG files really are small and simple, HVAC line drawings etc. Is there any setting that might cause this?

Good afternoon everyone, I wanted to inquire about two things today - 1. Is it possible to center all objects in a symbol to a center? I.E. Group all objects in the symbol and center them based on origin? 2. Is it possible to mass convert all nested symbols inside of symbols into groups? 3. Is there an easier way to replace or merge the same symbols inside a vectorworks folder? This is a major hurdle when created libraries from existing dwg files - 1 - Vectorworks makes a copy of all the nested symbols from separate files after import and then renumbers them from 1 to however many copies there are. Getting rid of them and cleaning up the file becomes a very grueling task. Was hoping someone has had similar issues? Is there an easier way to replace these copies other than right clicking -> replace with? Selecting a bunch and just saying merge would be a wonderful addition to vw, unless something like that exists? A possible workaround this matter would be to convert all nested symbols into groups upon import and then delete all the nested symbols inside of the file. But then there is the task of eliminating or merging similar hatches, line types, records, etc... 2. When importing dwg files directly into symbols - not all files have a 0,0 origin from the dwg file. Is it possible for vectorworks to assign it to all the symbols after they were imported? or perhaps during? 3. Is there a way to convert mass individual groups to independent symbols? In other words - select three groups - create three independent symbols based on their internal origin? I'm attaching a file that shows some of the problems I'm having.... Sample_symbols_import.vwx

Recently I've been working with a lot of AutoCAD files. Obviously as a native file, navigation/editing/modeling functions all perform very well in AutoCAD. But when I try to import the DWG into VWX2017, it is crazy slow and unmanageable. FYI - a 75MB dwg file turns into a 400+MB vwx file. I can tell this is caused by VWX turning AC objects into thousands of polygons. Being more comfortable in VWX, I would like to work there. Are there any DWG import settings that will cut down on the "thousands of polygons" issue but still retain the models integrity?