Exploding Doors, Window and Wall Objects - Colour issue

[mhamson]

Hello,

   I'm trying to send a set of drawings for my consultant. They will be using it as a background for their mechanical and electrical drawings and they only need the 2d information. They want to be able to explode them and remove any items they don't need before switching all the layer colours to grey.

   When they get the drawings and explode them the doors and walls explode onto the correct layer but the colour of those object and lines are now set to the actual color of the layer rather than colour "bylayer". The line actually take on the colour of the layer in the properties dialogue box. Therefore when they change the colour of the layer to grey the doors remain 'red'.

   Which setting would be doing this?

   I would like the doors/walls to stay on their respective layers...AND their colour to be BYLAYER when exploded.

   I've played around with a bunch of the options but have yet to find the one that governs this.

mrhamson

[pendean]

Your ACA version?

Their AutoCAD version?

Method of "exploding" the AEC content being used first? And afterwards?

[mhamson]

Mine : ACA 2012

Their : Autocad 2011...i think. I was etransmitting it back to 2000 just to make sure.

Method : etransmit to 2000 with AEC object exploded...xrefs inserted... Then exploding the block when that file is opened.

But...you can probably test it out by exploding a door in a typical drawing and then checking out the colour in the properties dialogue box. it shows "red" at that point...or whatever colour you door layer was.

mrhamson

[pendean]

>>>...or whatever colour you door layer was....<<<

You answered your own question. You have a few more steps to contend with as you found out.

XPLODE command, note the missing E, is a core command that better lets you control what your exploded objects become: built into R2011 (they can do it on their end unless you really are contractually obligated to deliver a lines-only drawing), ACA2012 has it, and is also found all the way back to at least R2000 AFAIK.

OR change layer colors as needed.

OR have them use AECTOACAD command in R2011 after receiving your files, or you can, and clean up the 'mess' as needed since everything will be line objects.

[mhamson]

I realize that it is taking on the layers colour...my question is...is there a way so that the explode line of the door takes on a "bylayer" colour.

[mhamson]

OK...hold on...after i explode the doors and walls once with the regular explode command...I can use the xplode command break up that block and and change the colours to "bylayer". Got it. Should work pretty well.

   I would still like to know if there is a setting somewhere so that the "exploded" doors could take on a "bylayer" colour...but this will do for now.

   If anyone has another solution...I'd like to hear it.

   Thanx Dean

mhamson

[bryce.thelin]

AutoCAD Architecture 2011 and 2012 use the same file format, so no need to eTransmit back to 2000.

There isn't a way to explode something and have the resulting components acquire a different color setting. I think maybe the easiest way to accomplish what you are trying to do would be to use EXPORTTOACAD (or AECTOACAD) to get a file with everything exploded. Then open that file, select all, and change the color in the Properties palette to ByLayer.

[mhamson · Accepted solution]

OK.

Thanks for you help guys. Great info and solutions.

Not exactly the info I was hoping for but enough to work around.

mhamson