I MOVE THAT THE VIEWER BE UPGRADED TO EXPORT .DWG FILES !

[unlurking]

I wish the future is now. Hey! This really doable - the last bastion of consultant lazyness will be buried forever -I MOVE THAT THE VIEWER BE UPGRADED TO EXPORT .DWG FILES ! Everybody that must distribute .dwg files to tons of human autocad bio-robots will do the happy dance (that must be worth something!) I invision somthing like Christmas in July! ITS THAT BIG!

Make it free (with 2000 only even!) to users unless they must have 2003/2004/2005 then, $lam them for a lic.

Or, limit the number of exports to 100 before they have to re-download and, re-install the viewer - I bet you will garner lot of hits though.

Please?

[Christiaan]

How about a plugin for AutoCAD that let's them import VectorWorks files?

[unlurking]

How about a plugin for AutoCAD that let's them import VectorWorks files?

There is a rumor that the Mac version of AutoCad has just that feature. For some reason though, non of our consultants have Macs. Oh well..

[propstuff]

The Mac version of ACad!?? {:-)

[islandmon]

Screw em all ... keep VW .. like totally sacred ... ; )

[mike m oz]

What you are proposing will only work if your drawings are correctly organised so that you can switch unwanted classes off to achieve the desired backgrounds. If your drawings are organised this way then the existing DWG export by Classes does exactly what you want. If the consultants then can't be bothered turning off layers in the DWG drawing files that they receive from you to achieve the backgrounds they want, then they are unlikely to be interested in spending time doing it in another program. It just won't happen.

The problem primarily stems from the consultants not being interested in spending time figuring out what your 'AutoCAD Layering' (ie. Classes) system is. My advice is keep it simple, use Class names that mean something and are easily decipherable, and be rigorous about drawing stuff in the correct Class. If there is a standard that exists in your context that everyone is familiar with then use it (unless you have a good reason not to).

[islandmon]

Sage advise from a sagacious advisor ...

[mike m oz]

I sometimes wonder why we fall into this trap of 'the tail wagging the dog'.

The consultant's mostly get their jobs through us architects, and yet we still tend to bend over backwards spoon feeding them backgrounds exactly as they want them.

I have become contractually much harder on them these days:

- I give the consultants the drawings exactly as they are so that they don't "miss any information", and

- I make it quite clear to them that it is their professional responsibility to determine which parts they need for their backgrounds.

- If the check drawings come back with non relevant information on them I instruct them to comply with the above requirement.

[P Retondo]

I sometimes wonder why we fall into this trap of 'the tail wagging the dog'.

I find it's just easier to do the work for them, because more often than not they can't deal with it. I have to maintain a copy of AutoCAD to ensure that the background output is workable, especially as complex objects and symbols get translated into blocks, with a lot of extraneous lines in the case of walls.

But then, in our market most structural and other engineers are constantly booked up two to three months in advance, and they can afford to play dumb.

But I agree that the suggestion is, perhaps (forgive me!), a bit naive. A viewer .dwg translator is going to be no better than the VW .dwg translator, and won't really solve the problems. Better to have a system such as Mike's in place to make the translation smoother and more intelligible. Better yet to have tractable consultants!

[Christiaan]

My advice is keep it simple, use Class names that mean something and are easily decipherable, and be rigorous about drawing stuff in the correct Class.

Couldn't agree more. This is why I was having such a moan about the inability of Artlantis exports to handle long Class names back a few months or so. We use fully descriptive Class names in our template for the above reason but also because it makes it much easier for new staff to learn.