Tree symbols that are made up of individual lines

[Viper x]

I have numerous tree symbols that have come in a drawing made up of dozens of individual lines rather than as one symbol.

I need to be able to grab and move/delete the individual trees but this is not practical when the are made up of numerous lines.

Should I individually change each tree shape into a symbol or a group, does it matter which and which is the better option ?

Plus many of the trees are on top of each other and it makes it very difficult to pick up each line before changing form to a symbol or group, is there a way to do this easily ?

Thanks

[ 05-17-2004, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[propstuff]

In general, if you intend to use an object a lot (or even a little) turning it into a symbol is usualy a good idea.

Smaller file size.

"Easier" insertion (with rotation as well)

Intsant editability of every instance by editing the symbol definition.

Easy to duplicate and make an alternate version by editing scaling etc.

Easy to replace one or many of the symbol with another fiurther down the track if you want to change trees.

If the lines are all in a heap then I can't think of a way to easily separate them. Unless they came in from ACAD layers and you can sort them by VW class or layer.

If the trees are nice, then it's worth the effort to pick through them and make symbols.

HTH

[ 05-17-2004, 07:32 AM: Message edited by: propstuff ]

[Viper x]

Unfortunately they are all on the same class so I can not seperate them that way.

The trees are on a drawing created in Archicad and saved as a Autocad DWG that I have imported in VW, I don't know why they came in as lines rather than symbols but I have to work with them some how.

Also I had not exploded this file prior to importing to VW so any symbols should still have remained.

thanks Viper

[ 05-17-2004, 09:25 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Viper x]

Any ideas on this one please Robert.

[Robert Anderson]

There's no good "trick" for this. I'm a little surprised that the plants came in as individual lines and not groups. Is the data going to go back-and-forth multiple times?

[Viper x]

Yes possibly as my info needs to be included in their drawing at Town Planning stage, after that I do my drawings as a stand alone in VW.

Interfacing between VW and Archicad via DWG is shakey it seems.

[Robert Anderson]

If all you have to do is move / delete the trees and don't have to do anything more intelligent with them (e.g. put them in a list), I'd say just group them. Don't forget the option-key selection which may make some groupings easier.

As far as DWG/DXF goes, not everyone makes the ongoing improvements in DWG/DXF that NNA does. It's a less-than-perfect proposition in any case. I speak French, you speak German, and we converse in English. It's not perfect, but the basic ideas are conveyed.

[Viper x]

Tvetter, what basic setup do you get them to save the DWG files in ?

Do you have them explode anything before they save for instance ?

Is it true Archicad creates a lot of things in symbol form. ie like doors, windows, interior fittings, etc. When importing Archicad files I see VW struggling with puttingg all these symbols in the Resource brower and once they are in there it seems to slow the drawing down, especially when I don't need to work on any of these symbols in the drawing, so do you just import the Archicad file as is or do you get them to explode before saving ?

It would be a great help if you could list the main saving steps you have found to work the best.

Thanks Viper

[ 05-17-2004, 06:23 PM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Thom]

I am suprised at the problems you are having Viper X. I exchange dwg with an Archicad designer frequently. While there are things that bug me and we have yet to figure out. I find that overall the files exchange fairly well. One thing that we found useful is to create a set of dwgs that we experimented with to find a dwg system that worked for both of us. Granted, many consultants are willing to take the time to work on exchange issues together.

Good luck