how to export to CAD

[momocat67]

My office has both VW and auto CAD.

We are trying to export drawing from VW to CAD.

the file exports fine execpt once in CAD all the line weights get screwed up.

I think that this is because in CAD each lineweights are aasigned by colors.

I am thinking I should try to match VW line colors to those of CAD one by one. Is this the best way to do this? Or is there better way to export VW to CAD with proper line weight assignment?

Somebody help!!

[Guest]

If you are using AC 2000 or later, go to the Format menu, and select Lineweight. Move the slider to the left.

In AC 2000 and later, true lineweights are supported. If this above setting is moved all the way to the right, heavy lineweights will be huge.

[jan15]

Most Autocad users still use object color to assign plotter lineweight. That's a stupid, inefficient way to work, but, after all, if they wanted to be intelligent and efficient they wouldn't use Autocad.

VectorWorks accomodates that impulse to be stupid, by offering to translate lineweights to colors when exporting. To use that translation, you have to check the box in the Export window that says "Map lineweights to colors" (or something like that). If you do that, VW will make up a table of pen assignments. For each lineweight it finds in the VW file, it will suggest a color to assign to objects of that weight, and it will allow you to change the suggested colors.

Once you choose those pen assigments, VW will keep using the same translation table every time you export, only asking what to do with any new lineweight it finds, until you tell it to change the table.

It can also make the translation back to the real world when importing, assigning a VectorWorks lineweight to each color in the DXF file.

[jckii]

jan15:

What is stupid and inefficient about using color to identify the thickness of a line? I prefer to draw with "zoom line thickness" turned off, (for accuracy reasons, because the snap accuracy of VW leaves much to be desired) and find it extremely handy to have all line-thicknesses "by class" and thus "by color".

Most ACAD users I know use v2000 or later and none of them use color to assign plotter lineweight. They do, however, have the ability to use lineweight to assign color, so to speak, regarless of class or ACAD layer. That''s something VW would do well to develop.

Lastly, maybe you should try being a bit less stupid and inefficient yourself, by not wasting time brainlessly slagging off hardworking, intelligent and dedicated people who choose to use excellent, industry-standard software that happens not to be VW.

[Jonathan Pickup]

I don?t think it?s right to say that it?s stupid and inefficient to use line weights to help you to read a drawing.

Even with Zoom Line Thickness turned on, there are many times when I want to know what thickness the line but you can?t see it on the screen. Try looking at a whole elevation of a building. You need something to help you to know that you have put the correct lineweights on it.

My method avoids having to zoom in to make sure that the elevavation has the correct line weights.

[mike m oz]

The problem with using export lineweights by colour is muddied by the fact that very few AutoCAD people stick to the program defaults for the colours.

Therefore for an export of this type to be useful to the recipient you MUST know the protocol of the recipient.

When you are exporting for more than one recipient the likelihood is not all will be happy, unless you do individual exports for each.

[ 12-18-2004, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[jan15]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jckii:

What is stupid and inefficient about using color to identify the thickness of a line?

---

Here's what's inefficient about it:

1. We use multiple lineweights in a drawing to make it easier and faster to read. That applies to the person creating the drawing as much as it does to the person reading the finished product.

2. Mentally translating colors to lineweights takes time and brain power. Each translation takes a small amount, but the operation is repeated constantly, and so it adds up to a huge waste.

3. If you don't use color to represent lineweight, then you're free to use it for many other very valuable and time-saving purposes, such as distinguishing between different drawings, or different parts of a drawing, that are transposed on top of each other. Many Autocad users further confuse the drawing process by trying to use color both to represent lineweight and also for some of these other purposes.

I apologize for having introduced the S word, thoughtless of the offense it might give. It was not only impolite but also inaccurate. "Inefficient" alone would have been a more accurate way to characterize the practice of representing lineweight by color, and "stubborn" would have been a more accurate way to characterize people who continue to use that method (if there had been any need for me to characterize them, which there wasn't).

Certainly I wouldn't suggest that anyone who uses color to represent lineweight is unintelligent. I myself used it in Autocad versions 10 through 14 before I ever heard of VectorWorks. I'm using it again now, as I've just started a new job at a company that uses Autocad, and their cad administrator seems unaware of the introduction of lineweight in version 2000.

If, as you say, most Autocad users are now plotting using object lineweight, I'm relieved to hear it. None of the dozens of firms with which I've exchanged cad files since 2000 had done so, and in fact this forum thread was started to address the problem of a firm which still plots using a plot style table.