AutoCAD Architecture 2011 - Door tag incorrectly finding information from other floors.

[Anonymous]

Using ACAD Architecture 2011

Have a problem with door numbering and xref's.

Drawings are set up with similar insertion points at 0,0,0.

Basement and 1st floor in scope of project. Drawings are xrefed into one another but they are overlay NOT attached.

Smart room spaces, room names, doors and door tags have been inserted into both plans for each room.

In the individual xref drawings, the door tag number coinsides with the room number as it should.

An automated door schedule has been produced and it works well. All room numbers are correct.

When xrefing the 1st floor and basement floor into the same sheet file for a CD document, the door tags on the basement doors, B101.1, B102.1, etc. are taking on the numbers of the first floor area just above it, 137.1, 137.2, etc.. This only occurs in the sheet file not the drawing base files.

When I unload xrefs of both the 1st and Basement drawings in the sheet file....save...close the drawing....reopen....then reload the basement xref only....the tags on the doors in question cannot find the correct number of the room. (message "space not found is displayed")

Then, when I reload the the 1st floor in the same sheet drawing and reload the basement floor again, the door numbers on the basement plan take the 100 series room number from the space above.

The Room name and number tag does not change in the xref, only the door tag.

When I detach both files from the sheet and xref the basement file only....the doors show up correctly. Then when I insert the 1st floor, the door numbers get screwed up again.

This has happened on another project in this office but in that situation 2 different floor plans were NOT inserted into one sheet. In that matter, we had to detach the xref and then load again in order for the door numbers to come out corrent.

After the drawing was saved, closed, and then reopened the door number were again wrong and picking up the door numbers from above or below.

Is this a bug in ACAD 2011? Is there a toggle switch somewhere that will fix the issue?

Please advise?

Thanks.

BTW

Using blocks established and populated while in 2008 ACAD. Does this matter?

Also, someone suggested that I move the xref in the sheet file so they don't align. I have move them 500' away from one another. This did not solve my problem.

Thanks.

[ The subject line of this post has been edited to include the product name by @handjonathan ]

[David_W_Koch]

Location grips look "down" and find the first Space (or AEC Polygon, depending upon the source property to which the Location property is linked).  If there are two Spaces at the same elevation, ACA will find one, but you will not have control over which one it is.  Offsetting the external reference vertically or horizontally should work; perhaps a property data override was established when both were in the same place initially??

If you try to create the file with the Basement and First Floor external references from scratch, externally reference one of the files and offset it before externally referencing the other, do the location grips work properly?

[Habitar_DV01]

Hi There.

Did you find a solution to this problem? I am strugling with the exact same issue.

Any commnets much appreciated.

Thanks

[David_W_Koch]

What version of ACA are you using?

I know that ACA 2010 behaves as described in the original post above (for ACA 2011). At some point the issue was partially addressed. In ACA 2014, if you insert the external references such that they are all located outside of the footprint that your plan would occupy if it were inserted at 0,0,0, then you should get the desired values for location properties.

Apparently, for external references, ACA is taking the coordinates of the location grip relative to the external reference insertion point but then applies that relative to 0,0,0 in the host file. If a Space is found there (from an external reference or "live" in the host file), the value will be read from that Space. In older versions, if no Space is found, you get the "Space not found" value. In more recent versions, if no Space is found, it displays the value found in the external reference file.

[Habitar_DV01]

Hi,

I am ussing ACA 2013.

I have asked Autodesk directy about this issue but they have not replied just yet!

Thanks

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

I have just verified that ACA 2013 behaves the same way as ACA 2014.  So long as there are no Spaces found at the spot where the location grip "maps" (offset of location grip from external reference insertion point, applied to host drawing 0,0 point), the value displayed in the external reference file (and, presumably, the correct value) will be shown in the Schedule Tag nested in the external reference.  But if a Space is found in that "mapped" area, then the nested Schedule Tag will read in the value from that Space (or show a ? for any properties not attached to that Space).

ACA 2011 behaves the same was as was described for ACA 2010, displaying *Space not found* if no Space is found in the "mapped" location.  I do not have access to an installed version of ACA 2012 to determine which way it behaves.

One thing to add to the previous explanations - in all versions, a Door Schedule Table placed in the file with the externally referenced files and set to scan external references, with the external references as the selection set, will show the correct value for any location properties (or other properties derived from a location property), even though the nested Schedule Tag may or may not show the desired value.  So if the only reason that you are externally referencing several floors of a building into one file is to generate a composite Schedule Table, there should be no problem.  But if you are doing so because you want to show multiple floor plans on one sheet and you need Schedule Tags that display a value that includes a value derived from a location property, then you need to keep the "footprint" area relative to 0,0 clear of any of the external references or any Spaces placed directly in the host file and you need to be using a version of ACA no earlier than 2012 (and, 2012 may or may not work; 2013 and 2014 will work).

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

An extended explanation, with some screen captures, can be found in this blog article.

The attached ZIP file contains the ACA 2010 format files used to generate the screen captures in the article.  You can open and save them in ACA 2013 or 2014 to see the difference in those releases.

[shampton]

Who's the genius that set that up?  under what possible scenario would you want to xref in a plan but want the door numbers to be derived from rooms say 30 feet west of where the door is?  A drawing should NOT change when you xref it into another drawing especially just because you happen to need to move it.

[David_W_Koch]

I am neither a genius nor the person (or committee) that set that up.  I have no idea why things ended up that way; I was just trying to explain what it does, based on my observations, so that you can work around the issue as best as possible.  I agree that the behavior is not desirable and should be fixed.