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ftribel Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 299 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:15 am    Post subject: DWG translator This morning I had to translate 8 dwg files, for various businesses. Each time : - open dwg - modificate the scale, with a little bug to indicate it (see other thread) - clik "OK" in one or two windows "this file may... not interrupted... paper space etc.." - delete NEWdwg.dwg file create by powercadd And, once the file opened, go to "drawing parameters" to : 1 - modificate the size of the drawing to adjust it 2 - indicate "meters; x,- nice flowers -" 3 - chose "square meters, x,- nice flowers -" instead of square feet 4 - uncheck "snap on grid" 5 - uncheck "units" 6 - uncheck "grid guides" 7 - uncheck "show pointer" 8 - uncheck "fine lines blurred" Then, I go to the Layers window 9 - create a firs sheet "received sheet" 10 - delete all empty layers An then I save my file. I did'nt talk about the translating time, with heavy surveyor files, it can be very long. And buggy, sometimes I have to pass by acad or other tricky ways to finally succeed. I am totally tired with that translator.
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ftribel Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 299 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:18 am    Post subject: Oh, one of the tricks : use "DWG-DXF converter 1,20.app" to translate your dwg file to version 2000, 14, or to DXF. Very useful
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Eric Pousse Joined: 24 May 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Tours, France	Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:43 pm    Post subject: Quote: Very useful Yes, but it is a shareware program. Eric
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Damon Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 49 Location: Vancouver, BC	Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:29 pm    Post subject: Very interesting. I too spent some frustrating time yesterday trying to translate a dxf file I received from a surveyor. I too modified settings, and also tried the import without any changes to the default setting. The result? a blank drawing. Eventually I turned 'edit all layers' on, copied all and did a 'paste special', pasting at 'next mouse' in a new drawing. I did get the file. Text blocks were scrambled and thrown all over, or spread out in long lines. This issue made worse by PCadd's frustrating handling of off page objects, and of course, the drawing stuck to the upper left corner of the window behaviour. My next move was to open the file in Vectorworks 2008 (which I am trying for 90 days). Much more successful import: dxf drawing opened the first time, with text mostly in the correct locations. Drawing centered in the drawing window and easily visible. I would spend much less time 'fixing' the VW import than the PCadd import. This pattern of clumsy import has been repeated many times, with dwg and dxf files from many sources. It is also true that sometimes even this multi-step process doesn't work, and I get nothing n PCadd. BTW, in those situations the drawing has always opened successfully in VectorWorks. Always. (repetition intentional) So, I'm feeling a bit irritated. I think ftriebel is too, and for good reason.
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ftribel Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 299 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:19 pm    Post subject: Funny to see that in my post x, xx became x,-nice flowers- !!
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fred johnson Joined: 04 May 2004 Posts: 87 Location: CT	Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:02 am    Post subject: Last week I downloaded some window details in dxf format to bring into autocad. Autocad could not translate the files as I kept getting a message that something was missing in the file name. I copied the files onto a thumb drive and brought them into Vectorworks and saved the dfx files into dwg format, returned to autocad which now was able to open the files.
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Peter Severin Carlsen Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 110 Location: St. Paul, Minnesota	Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:19 am    Post subject: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I suspect when nothing shows up that the orientation point in the dwg files is not in the upper left hand corner. If delete off layer objects is turned on, well, there is nothing if all the objects in the drawing are off the page. I often check the profile of the drawing to see if objects are actually there. If they are sometimes I can cut and past special back into the same drawing using past at next mouse click. But sometimes it just crashes. At least checking the drawing profile you tell if something is in the file. Text has always been a problem, both ways. Our drawings, when we use Optima become very ugly when returned from engineers. My partner says Arial works better. Dimensions sometime come in from a dwg file in inches. Mostly I smile when I read that even translating from one autocad file to another, there are still problems. [/b] _________________ Peter Carlsen
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patrickm Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 414 Location: santa barbara, ca	Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 8:34 am    Post subject: I just read that Microspot has a DWG Viewer application that allows Mac users to view DWG files, including x-ref's, paper space, etc: http://www.microspot.com/products/dwgviewer/index.htm This might be a handy application to have... patrick
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NRT.Rob Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Gardiner, ME	Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 7:18 am    Post subject: I would just be happy if the DWG importer could remember the drawing setup settings I like to use when importing drawings (1/4" scale default, show page breaks, etc)
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pbacot Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 980 Location: Northern California	Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:46 am    Post subject: Quote: I just read that Microspot has a DWG Viewer application that allows Mac users to view DWG files, including x-ref's, paper space, etc: I saw that, but one has to consider if it really offers anything over eDrawings which is free. Apparently you can print from it. I haven't tried printing in eDrawings. _________________ Peter B
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rjpotter Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 76	Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 1:56 pm    Post subject: You can print easily from eDrawings. While drawings display as white on black they print out as black on white.
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David Scott Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 210 Location: Orkney Islands, Scotland	Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:20 am    Post subject: rjpotter wrote: You can print easily from eDrawings. While drawings display as white on black they print out as black on white. Yes, but eDrawings always scales the window to your page size. Accurate printing to scale is a fairly hit & miss affair. David
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