FUN with Imported Drawings

[Jim Smith]

One of the fun, fun things about importing drawings is all the great Classes that get imported into one's drawing. (Sorry my Irony font doesn't work.)

To better identify these Classes I have the term IMPORTED as a prefix. While cleaning up my drawing, & others like it in the past, I find the following situation:

- All Layers turned on to SHOW/SNAP/MODIFY

- All Classes turned to ACTIVE ONLY

- Navigate to an Import Class & Select All

- Depending on the item(s) selected, determine if they stay, if the Class is correct, or if the Class should be Deleted

All is fine, but from time to time I will find a BLANC Class that when I delete it, I am asked if I want the items in this Class moved to another Class. If I say yes, sometimes these items magically appear, in a Catch-all Class I call TEMP, sometimes not so much. Is this the case that a Symbol or Group has items nested in several classes and one happens to be this Empty Class? Or, is this something far more sinister? And what happens to the item that is nested (if this is the case)?

[zoomer]

A problem for me too.

If you walk through your Classes one by one,

a Symbol on Class Symbol will not appear if it contains elements on Classes A, B, C.

When you think that Class is empty and want to delete, you will notice this behavior.

Depending on File,

it can be better to go through all Symbols and fix Classes there,

or convert/delete all Symbols and Groups.

Maybe set Classes to "gray others" will work better,

but I think, if you activated Class "A",

all "A" Class objects in Symbols on a grayed Class will be grayed too and non selectable.

Another option could be to show/edit all Classes and try to go through Class settings

and temporarily assign as "Signal Color" to identify.

[Art V]

This is why I requested an option to group imported resources (symbols, linetypes etc.) in folders per imported drawing.

As well as a "merge" function to remove duplicates.

One problem, as zoomer already mentioned, are nested or multiple classes in a symbol or group.

Maybe we should have some indicator for objects having multiple classes in the resource browser, or a find feature for such objects.

Until some solution is found, my preferred way is to either move things I want to keep to a new layer (not class) then remove the old layers, or delete items I don't want to keep but keep the layers.

Once this has been done, I purge the drawing to get rid of all non-used classes/layers and then "fix" what needs to be changed/updated.

[digitalcarbon]

i never import any foreign drawings into my master file. import into a clean file then WGR to your main file. that way you will not get any extra classes.

[Jim Smith]

Digitalmechanics,

Yup, that's the technique I'm going through, getting things cleaned up prior to Referencing into the Master. The problem I find with many site service companies, & LA's is unlike Vectorworks Exports I get every single ACAD Layer (as a Class) that is in their drawing template and often every Block as well.... even when I ask nicely. It seems that many things one takes for granted in Vectorworks is LOTS of extra work in ACAD.

Custom Selection and Purge are BIG helps but it still comes down to hours of donkey work.

[Benson Shaw]

I have heard ACAD users complain that it can take hours to "clean up" dwg files they receive from other ACAD users. I think every practice or individual CAD operator uses different standards, short cuts, organizational strategies, etc.

It's not just ACAD, either. I look at classing and layering in some of my old vwx drawings and wonder what I was thinking!

We just have to be wary enough to predict and deal with those endless and apparently nonsensical class lists.

+1 for prefixing and referencing.

-B

[zoomer]

I think the reason why many people use so many Classes (Layers) are

1. CAD Standards

2. They can filter their Layers

[AlanW]

Have you tried using Class and Layer Mapping Go Tools/Class and Layer Mapping.

Its great for combining and grouping imported classes into separate groups of your own liking and naming to minimise all the clutter.

HTH

[Jim Smith]

I looked at this tool but need to spend some time on it in a Test file not one I'm already burning daylight on.

Thanks!

[zoomer]

I think the problem with Class/Layer Mapping is that you should already know what

the classes are for and which content they will have.

If I would know that and understand them, I would not need to do much with

them beside renaming these to my standards.

[AlanW]

Agreed you should know but it is very helpful if you need to import someone else's drawing like a CAD file or Survey. But I usually like to reference the file into mine rather than importing it in.

[zoomer]

Yes, import into an empty file and reference by DLVP

[Art V]

I think the reason why many people use so many Classes (Layers) are

1. CAD Standards

2. They can filter their Layers

Definitely number 1, 90% of the cases.

Often project standards specify that in the final deliverable any non-used layer needs to be purged, sometimes with exception of the not-yet-used discipline specific layers.

Ditto for blocks.

This does not solve the problem if you get the drawing at a stage when it is not a final deliverable.

[Art V]

Have you tried using Class and Layer Mapping Go Tools/Class and Layer Mapping.

Its great for combining and grouping imported classes into separate groups of your own liking and naming to minimise all the clutter.

HTH

This may or may not work, as it depends on how the drawing is set up.

Some standards specify that items should be put on layers based on their lineweight and linetype regardless of their function.

In Vectorworks we tend to put items in classes based on their function and not necessarily their appearance (lineweight and linetype).

Class and Layer mapping may not going to be of much use in such cases. It comes with the "deficiency" of AutoCAD and the likes having only a single layer type system.