Is it Possible to Reference Another VWX File Using Design Layer Viewport for Design Layer Objects?

[Phillip Tripp]

Our landscape architecture office typically converts DWG consultant files into VWX files and then references the converted VWX files into our Working File using the Layer Import method of referencing.  This works well for most projects, but can become difficult to maintain in a timely manner on large complex projects with numerous consultants and frequent file exchanges.  We recently started testing directly linking DWG files into our Working File using the Design Layer Viewport method of referencing and found it seems to work fine for our needs and has the potential to simplify our consultant file update process.  Some projects have 8 architectural backgrounds or 20+ civil background files that update weekly, so setting up the ability to swap out DWG links without taking the time to convert them to VWX files would be beneficial.  We'll still do color and lineweight overrides via the viewport properties of the reference which tends to be greying lines.  We understand that the viewport visibility settings would be forced to be consistent across all sheet viewports, but that is what we typically do for all reference files except survey linework.  We also noticed that if the original DWG author does not assign their objects to be color controlled by autocad layer, that Vectorworks cannot apply the color override which may be the one downside.  The exception in our office to potentially using the Design Layer Viewport method of referencing, would be a survey reference file that we manually edit to move some existing linework onto demolition classes.  Given a survey does not frequently update and we have to actually edit the file, unlike an architectural reference file, we will continue to convert a survey DWG into a VWX file.  Our question is how to reference consultant DWG files that will remain as DWG files and also reference a survey VWX file into the same Working File.  When we attempt to reference another VWX file into a VWX Working File using the Design Layer Viewport method of referencing, no objects from the VWX survey file are visible in the working file and no design layer viewport is created.   It also appears we cannot have both a methods of file referencing in the same document, so we must choose one or the other.  In the interest of reducing reference update processing time of consultant files, it seems we would choose the Design Layer Viewport method and then we would have to add the VWX survey linework directly to our Working File without referencing the survey, which is also fine; but we would like to hear from others if the Vectorworks referencing behavior described above is normal.  We'd also be interested in hearing if others have encountered workflow issues using the Design Layer Viewport method of referencing for consultant DWG files.

 

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