Xref files...

[jonk..]

if i have a couple autocad DWG files, one of them xReferenced into the other.

What is the procedure of importing them so the xRef DWG is properly situated in the other file within vectorworks?

Or is this possible?

thanks for any help.

JonKai

[propstuff]

Binding the xrefs proior to importing is generally a good idea we've found.

hth

[jonk..]

"...and that can only be done in Autocad."

wouldn't that be an excellent thing for VectorWorks to add to a future version? to simple ask in the input dialog box where the Xrefs are so so we wouldn't need AutoCad?

seems like an easy thing to add, since importing would know that there is an Xref request in the DWG file..

jon.

[jan15]

Yes, it would be nice, but I'm not sure it would be easy, and there are a lot of other things that VectorWorks needs more urgently.

It's finally becoming common to bind xrefs when sharing Autocad files, perhaps because people have finally figured out that even Autocad can't deal with its own external references if they originated on another computer.

If I create an xref in an Autocad file, and send both the host file and the externally referenced file to another Autocad user, the xref won't show in the host file when he opens it, because the xref won't be stored in the same drive and folder path that I stored it in. That problem can be avoided if I study xref markup language and learn how to make the xref's relative rather than absolute. But that's even more of a nuisance than binding, so noone will do it.

And it may soon become less common to use xref's, because Autocad since 2000 has had the ability to create multiple sheets in a single file, and therefore xref's now are usually just another way of wasting time in Autocad.

[ 08-11-2005, 01:50 AM: Message edited by: jan15 ]

[jan15]

...and that can only be done in Autocad. So if your correspondent doesn't know how to do that, you'll have to import the referenced file and the host file separately, and then cut and paste the contents of one file into the other.

If you're using VW 11, you can keep everything that was imported at 1:1 scale, and recreate the viewports in VectorWorks.

If not, you'll have to use the scales that are hopefully given under the title of each drawing to tell you what layer scale to use.