Preserving Colors in DXF (binary) 12

[SLFY]

VW 12.5 Designer - Win Vista

I am a subcontractor doing the drawing and some of the programming for a CNC router. The software they have for the CNC is rudimentary - but for now it is what I and the cnc operator have to work with. It will import DXF(text) of any version and DXF(binary) up to 12. The program uses groups which are assigned autocad indexed colors for each tool set up. If the drawing is done using these colors, much of the CNC programing can be done automatically using a group template in the CNC software.

My problem - I have found that I can only transfer the colors through a DXF (binary) 12 and only if I setup VW layers to use the correct color. (I am using an RGB adjusted color table which I had set up for drawings to be exported into autoCAD.) I set the preferences to use layer colors, and then use VW classes more like I normally would layers (to seperate different drawings). I set layers to export as layers and everything works great.... until I want to create a symbol or just copy from one drawing file into another. Then all the layers copied get changed to the current layer - forcing me to work through all the objects to reset the layers each time.

If I were able to use classes set to the appropriate color, this would not be a problem. However, the class colors, apparently, do not get translated through the DXF file in the same manner as layer colors. The CNC software does not pick up the various colors, and all objects end up in the default group. I have even tried changing the class lineweights so that I can map them to indexed colors...with no luck.

Is there a way to either:

- preserve layers in a symbol, or when pasting to a different drawing file.

- or get class colors to export in the same manner that layer colors will export in a Binary DXF 12 file which I am missing.

Is there an advantage to be gained here in VW2008?

Thanks,

Sean

[vectormax]

Just a suggestion, as i am not 100% clear

1. create a new and empty file

2. use workgroups to reference the file into the new file

3. make the colour adjustments or settings (use layer colours, or set the class colours in the file you want to export from to what ever you need

4. export from there

if you make any changes, go to the colourful file and update the reference file afterwards to reflect the changes.

[M.CH]

I did a project some time ago where we used VW and to Export to CNC they needed Acad 11

If you map classes to different line weights, then on export, export line weights to colours that should get what you want. Do you see the check box in the export dialogue box?

Re Exporting generally VW 2008 will export to Acad 2007/2008.

It also seems to get better with each release.

When you are going as far back as 12 then it should not matter too much.

[SLFY]

Sorry I never got back. Shortly after posting the question I found my solution and only now remebered I had posted the question. In case someone else has had similar issues...

As for mapping classes to different lineweights and then exporting lineweights to colors...this seemed to me to be the simple solution when I started to learn the software. However - it doesn't work for this CAD application. I do not have a clue why. I can only guess that when the color information is mapped to lineweights it is put into the file in a slightly different way which this software does not recognize. I dunno.

HOWEVER, I found a plug-in at Vectorbits.com - Group Layers. It groups a copy of all the objects selected allowing it to be cut and pasted to a different location, file, etc. Once pasted, you can ungroup and all the original layer information is perseerved. It wasn't cheap, but well worth the money to resolve this problem for me.

Thanks for the help none the less.