DWG Import - Set all attributes by class

[Ross McLee]

Hi,

Having spent an hour or so on the phone with one of your very helpful support team I thought it prudent to add this feature request to save time and effort for others in the future.

 

I have imported several DWGs into separate reference files and used reference viewports to view/snap to them in my main working file. However I want to grey out these backgrounds in the sheet layers so that my content (not the architect's) is clearly visible against their background.

 

By using viewport class overrides this should be possible (setting the line and fill colours to grey). I was advised today that this only works if ALL the reference file objects have their attributes set by class. The DWG import doesn't have an option to do this. Setting all objects to by class manually after the import doesn't always work well since the AutoCAD layer definitions (which are converted directly to classes - which is the right thing to do) may not have been used by every object in the drawing (colour by layer/fill by layer etc) but instead set manually.

 

Is there any clever way around this problem (perhaps creating more classes where manual overrides have been used). Creating and using classes based on an objects current line type/colour/fill type/colour etc to create a class automatically and apply the same class to objects with identical attributes and then setting all attributes by class? (I envisage hundreds of 'sub-classes' being created)

 

The other problem arises when dealing with hatches. AutoCAD, unless I am mistaken, allows you to use hatches where the hatch line colour is determined by the layer, VW has individual hatches one per colour if needed .... adding to my problems. I went through and changed all the pen colours and set them to grey (but I don't think that a good idea).

 

Love to hear your thoughts.

 

R

 

 

[Matt Panzer]

Hi @Ross McLee,

 

I think the best way to handle this would be to:

1. Open the Organization Dialog
2. Select all of the classes of objects you want to set attributes "by class"
3. Click the "Edit" button
4. In the "Edit Class(es)" dialog, select the "Use at Creation" checkbox and click OK.
5. When doing this, you should see another dialog asking if you want to set the attributes of all existing objects to "by class".  Click "Yes" or "Yes to All" and the objects should all change their attributes to by class.  BTW:  This should also effect objects nested in symbols and groups.

 

[Christiaan]

On 6/2/2021 at 6:37 PM, Matt Panzer said:

4. In the "Edit Class(es)" dialog, select the "Use at Creation" checkbox and click OK.

5. When doing this, you should see another dialog asking if you want to set the attributes of all existing objects to "by class".  Click "Yes" or "Yes to All" and the objects should all change their attributes to by class.  BTW:  This should also effect objects nested in symbols and groups.

In order to get the popup to appear you may need to check, uncheck then check again, if some but not all of the Classes are already set to Use at Creation.

[JoeDrafter]

This doesn't seem to work for 2D Symbol.

[Christiaan]

2 hours ago, JoeDrafter said:

This doesn't seem to work for 2D Symbol.

No, you need to either go into the symbol and edit separately or, as I generally do, convert the relevant symbols to groups, ungroup them. You can actually choose to import everything as 'exploded blocks' (DWG Import Options > Advanced > Blocks > Explode all blocks) when you import the DWG but I find this can result in loss of information such as drawing numbers.