Huge Line weight when importing DWG's

[VW-PAD-Bristol-2014]

We seem to have an on going problem with importing DWG that we have been shrugging off as one of those things.

When we import a DWG it appears that some of the lines and markers come in at a large scale. Line weight being 6.48 and markers that take over the drawings.

I was wondering if this is a common problem or if there is an option that we simply have checked.

we are using VW2016SP2 on Windows pro8 but this has been an issue on previous VW versions.

[Art V]

It is a somewhat common problem, as I've had this happen too over the years.

Regarding line weight, in AutoCAD (and comparable dwg software) it is possible to give polylines any thickness you want, from 10mm to more than 1000mm (or even 1000 km if you desire).

The maximum line weight in Vectorworks is a little more than 6 if I am correct, so the 6.48 would match that.

This is something you can't really fix other than update the dwg file in a dwg program before importing.

Regarding the markers... this is a matter of setting the correct import scale and units in case of annotative dimensions etc., if possible try to set it to the scale it would be on the layout viewport of the dwg file, that way you should get normal sizes. After that you can adjust the scale to your working scale.

Also check if you have set the correct units. It is possible for dwg files to be unitless, i.e. no unit is set. In the past this was nice because you could draw at 1:1000 by pretending you were drawing in meters by simply setting it out in millimeters taken off the paper concepts that were supposed to be 1:1000.

So it may be possible that your import detects millimeters while it should actually be meters.

[Mickey]

We seem to have an on going problem with importing DWG that we have been shrugging off as one of those things.

AS long as I've been using VW this has been an issue.

I don't know anyway around it.

I have found that if you select the offending objects and "use class line weight" it fixes it.

When I import a file I'll select all and set this.

Sometimes you have to dig into a symbol or 3 but eventually it goes away.

[Art V]

AS long as I've been using VW this has been an issue.

I don't know anyway around it.

I have found that if you select the offending objects and "use class line weight" it fixes it.

When I import a file I'll select all and set this.

Sometimes you have to dig into a symbol or 3 but eventually it goes away.

Yes, it can be changed after import, but it would be better if there was an option to ignore the line width of (poly)lines in imported documents or to set it to a specified line width if it exceeds a threshold.

[VW-PAD-Bristol-2014]

Thank you for your help.

It sounds like we go through the same process as the suggestions. Import then using the wand selecting the by line weight and setting those lines to class thickness.

Thank you for the tip of importing to the page scale to avoid the marker conflict.

[bcd]

This is usually a result of importing at the incorrect scale.

Set the import scale settings to match the DWG and then rescale your VW Design Layers afterwards to taste.

[Michal Zarzecki]

Hi guys, can you advise how to control that behaviour when you use DWG as a reference rather then when you import the linework? I have project started originally in AC so have a whole load of our drawing as well as from other consultants so I am not going to import them to VW and save as new type of references.

Many thanks for your thoughts.

[Clint Alderman]

Hi. I learned AC first. An issue that was very perplexing and remains a challenge is the difference in how object properties in an AC “block” and a VW “symbol” behave. 
 

In AC blocks, objects are often drawn on layer “0 ”which is similar to VW None class. (Note: AC “layer” equals a VW “class”). When an AC block with objects on “0” is placed in the DWG file, the block objects inherit the line weight the AC layer (= VW class). Layer 0 is typically a very thick black/white line. Used correctly this is a great feature I wish was possible in VW. 
 

When you import AC blocks into VW as symbols, those lines in the new VW symbol can be the problem. You can either edit the symbol and redefine the line thicknesses or if you’re lucky, you can redefine the class 0 to a thinner weight for all class 0 objects. The later rarely works and you’re in for grunt work to get things to look right. If the DWG file was exported from Revit then there are other issues as rotated DWG blocks get imported as multiple symbols in VW for what is really the same object. Much more grunt work!
 

If you have AC or Briscad or even LibreCad, you can edit the blocks before importing into VW to move block objects to a different AC layer. 
 

Later I’ll post a Revit export to DWG options settings that works well. i give it to clients using Revit. The export settings create DWG files which when imported into VW look and print exactly like Revit. Huge, HUGE time saver!