compatibility backwards to acad?

[Anonymous]

ok, I'm intriqued! I've been dreaming of ways to make presentation drawings quick and easy from acad drawings for decades!

What I'm wondering is what methods are available to alter a presentation done in Impression when the autocad drawing is revised? Is there an easy way to accomodate ongoing changes?

[Anonymous]

Hi Gregory:

Yes, managing the design revision process was a key requirement for Impression. We have several techniques for making your design updates faster:

1. Style by Layer - you can setup style assignments to automatically apply to all objects on a layer. So when you add or change objects in your design, they will automatically inherit the layer style when you bring the data into Impression.
2. Block Substitution - you can substitution fancy Impression blocks for basic symbol blocks in your CAD file. Then when you move, scale, or add the symbols in AutoCAD the Impression version of those blocks will update automatically.
3. CAD Refresh - this is a planned feature that is not currently in the Technology Preview 2. However, we have it working internally and it will allow you to update your Impression drawing from the latest changes made to the source DWG file. This can be done for the whole DWG file, specific layers, or specific views. This should be available in the next update we post to the Autodesk Labs site.

Rod Recker
Software Development Manager
Autodesk Impression