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imported DWG with colour lines ----> B&W?


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Hi,

I'm new to VW and my knowledgeable colleague is away on holiday.

I have imported a .DWG with the lines retained as colour, but now regret this.

 

Is there a magic setting to make that whole design layer black  and white, or grey scale?

 

I can see in the 'Organization' pallet that one can set the default colours of a design layer to ... anything. but this does not seem to change the data as it exists.

 

I am loath to re-import it as it would mean lots of fiddling / scaling / rotating (which was not as easy as it should be).

 

Thanks for indulging my naivete.

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Usually the colors are inherited from AutoCad Layers, which are translated to VW's Classes during the Import process. If you select any of the colored objects it will probably have a little swoop-y "By Class" arrow showing in the Attributes Palette. The easiest/fastest way to change colors to black is to Select the objects ("Select All") and then:

1) Change the Line Color to black in the Attributes Palette.

2) *Sometimes* also might want to use the little dropdown menu at the bottom of the Attributes Palette to "Remove By Class Settings".

 

Do not actually change the Class of any of the Objects. These are useful to sort out visibilities, etc.

 

Another note: It is usually advised that all the objects from an Imported DWG File reside on their own discreet Design Layer. All of the tracing or whatever you will do later should happen on a new Design Layer. And you can Copy and Paste In Place from the Import Layer to any other Layer, thereby keeping the original imported date intact/unaltered (except perhaps the line color).

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This may not be appropriate depending on what the DWG is + what you're using it for, but if you have imported it into its own blank file + your design file is a separate file, an alternative is to bring the DWG into the design file as a Referenced Design Layer Viewport. This is advantageous in that you leave all the millions of DWG classes behind in the import file but you can also, because the DWG is a viewport, go to Advanced Properties in O.I.P. + check 'Black + White Only' to get rid of the multicolour look.

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Another option, if you do want to import the DWG for editing but absolutely do not want the line colours you could set the colours to Black and White upon import.

 

When in the DXF/DWG Import Options dialog (below), click on the advanced button

image.thumb.png.1d3dc6a11a44656ca8d031e163d4a3ea.png

 

You will then get the advanced options, click on Graphic Attributes in the column on the left and you can set option for "Colors and Line Weights". Tick the "Set Colors to Black and White" and it should import as B/W.  (See below)

image.thumb.png.b2db7c0c2b40c6b611452ed883158b2e.png

 

Another useful option, in case you don't already know, is to add a prefix to imported DWG layers, for that you need to go to the Classes/Layers section where you can set the prefix. I used DWG as an example, but if you import multiple DWG's into the same drawing you may want to create separate prefixes for each imported DWG file e.g. DWG1, DWG2 of whatever is meaningful for you to identify them. That way you keep all imported DWG layers grouped together for that imported DWG file, which will make navigating easier because it will not clutter your existing VW classes too much.

image.thumb.png.12ddb0e078c65ffb34d29641e288d1e3.png

 

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