H&A File Cleaning tool - free and attached

[JamesMaeding]

I spoke of this tool in the thread about the Performance Enhancement Fix thread.

If you know me, I have pursued file cleaning for years, since version 14 (not 2014) as my region of the US seems to be hit hard by junk like regapps.

Autodesk has done some tools to clean them, but they are blind as they don't tell you anything about your files before you decide what to clean.

In addition, things like Etransmit choke much of the time these days with Civil3D.

So I have a set of tools which solve this. I give them out for free, in the hopes others will clean their files, and also be able to diagnose issues so we can clearly push on autodesk to fix things for good.

There are several commands in the tools, but the Batcher is command PID (used to be PurgeIDs).

The typical use of it goes like this:

1) add your sheets or bases you are concerned about

2) add the xrefs of those files with the button for that

3) gather file props, and look at the columns to see what may need cleaning

4) set "todo" status for files you want to clean

5) if any of the files to be cleaned are open in acad, hit close to PID, and close the files

6) run PID again, it will have the previous list intact

7) check the top box for cleaning options "regapps, anno scales, layer filters, materials", and hit Run

Also, use the right click items on the file grid, to copy files to a folder or copy the names. There is a lot in there, and it allows you to do similar things as etransmit.

It does not do images though, so you have to add those by hand if sending out.

I attached the tools and instructions.

Note that the PID tool makes local backups of files cleaned, before it cleans them. The backups are in C:\Users\yourname\Dwg Backups Before Batch\

Also, the tool logs activity to a file you can set.

This way, when an entire company is using it, you can track down who did what, and possibly get backup files if they did something on accident like detach xrefs.

I will watch this thread, as I expect some bumps. The issues will not corrupt your files, that part is rock solid.

[JamesMaeding]

screenshot of PID in action, showing certain item counts in columns:

You can see app id counts, and other things, before cleaning files.

When it does clean them, it does not open them in the editor. It does it fast like the autodesk app id cleaner - all in memory.

The .net code to do all this is provided on Autodesk Blogs. I am not doing dangerous operations like with C++, my tools do not corrupt drawings.

Note that you can "delete civil3d styles" with this.

That option is aggressive. It does not purge them, it deletes the civil3d dictionary from the drawing, so actually kills point groups, and likely GIS settings.

You would use that option on files WITHOUT civil3d obejcts.

The reason I posted this was to show the recent Performance Enhancement hotfix from adesk, will work on dwgs that my tool runs on in a civil3d session.

It will be 10x faster than opening drawings and saving by hand.

I also have this for Bricscad but will post that on theswamp.

[rgraham]

Would it be possible for this tool to identify files that have the Performance Enhancement (I'm going to call it a "Performance Bug", until I understand better) issue?

We are still on 2015 for the next 3-6 months and I am somewhat concerned about the impact of old files that have not been saved post Performance Bug fix.   This issue could be costing large companies hours on the day.   An ideal tool would run when files are opened and post a message that stated something like "The following Xrefs contain the AeccNetwork.dbx issue.  Performance may be improved by opening and saving xrefs"

If we don't have a tool to help identify the bug, at least we have options to help eliminate the bug.   I believe I prefer your Cleaning Tools over Autodesks Batch/Script method.   Partially because we too have been battling RegApps for years.   We are mostly ahead of it, but a tool like this will definitely help.  

I may post this request on the other forum post too, but I thought I would go straight to the source of good information.   The other post is getting a little cluttered.   I attached the Autodesk PDF in case people don't know what I am talking about.

Thanks! 

[JamesMaeding]

Well, the file read time column on far right is how I decide if a file is healthy or not.

What I found is files with read times beyond 4 seconds are a problem.

The other issues like excess app ids and materials do not slow down the read that much, they just bloat file size.

You might also look at file size, so files over 10mb like topos would be considered innocent if the read was a bit slow.

The read mechanism does not resolve the xrefs, so it truly is just the read time of that file.

Anyone that is interested in portions of the source code, just ask.

I would give the whole thing out but that would include our entire company library of classes and I can't do that.

I can definitely give you enough to write your own cleaner though, you just have to develop an interface.

I would say that if you can put into words how we can improve the tool to detect the corrupt civil3d styles, let me know as we have the same need.

[GTVic]

Hello jmaeding,

Thanks for your posts, very informative. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

First, do you have a version of this tool that works with 2018 and 2019? I tried the 2017 version on AutoCAD 2018 but it wouldn't launch. The 2016 version worked on Civil 3D 2016.

Also, I'm specifically looking for a tool that can clean AEC objects from what is supposed to be an AutoCAD only drawing. For example, if you edit a DWG2013 drawing with AutoCAD 2018 and you have the 2018 C3D Object Enabler installed it will add in AEC objects when you save it back to DWG 2013 format. If you then open the drawing in any older version of AutoCAD or Civil 3D it will complain about either "newer versions of objects" or ask whether you want to view proxy objects or complain about a missing object enabler or display a dialog about incompatible objects and disabled Civil 3D commands. So now the drawing is useless in terms of being able to distribute as a clean source drawing. Autodesk's solution is to do an Export to AutoCAD which destroys parts of the drawing (unwanted purges, layer descriptions deleted, and who knows what else).

Thanks again.

[JamesMaeding]

@GTVic 

sure, latest is posted here:

H&A Tools

I will compile for 2020 this week.

The file cleaner tool does have a "delete civil3d styles" action. That does not explode objects, it deletes the civil3d dictionary which is invisible and has all the styles and settings. Do a test to see if it does what you need without unwanted side effects. Notice the original is always copied before any conversion to c:\users\.. folder, in case you later discover issues. In general, should be fine on drawings without visible c3d objects, but I don't run on other peoples real civil3d drawings as they would not like discovering their styles were reset to standard which is what c3d does when it opens one of the cleaned drawings.

I use c3d civil batch converter when I do want to explode aec objects. Way faster than exporttoautocad one by one.

thx

[GTVic]

Thanks, unfortunately this tool doesn't seem to have an effect on empty AEC entities, I still get the proxy and other dialogs. The closest I found was -PURGE REGAPP but that only deletes some. And of course Autodesk's export command which purges everything. One other option to try someday is to export to DXF and remove all 0 CLASS sections that contain the letters AEC.