Coversion IDW with linked bitmaps to DWG AND DXF

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I am trying to convert idw to dwg and dxf format using InventorAPI (TranslatorAddIn). My test.idw document contains 2 sheets with 2 linked bitmap in titleblock. After conversion I get in my output folder:

• 2 dxf files for each sheet
• 2 dwg files for each sheet
• 8 bitmap files  (2 for each format and sheet) 

The problem is with names of the bitmap files: test1.png, test2.png, ... , test8.png.

It's really hard to say which bitmap is linked to which file. Is the way to handle the naming problem? 

The secand problem is if I convert to dwg and dxf in separete folder I have 2 times bimat numberd from 1 to 4. In that case I have naming colision problem but I cannot simply change name of this bitmap because dxf and dwg files keep the reference to that one. 

Is any simply way to programmaticaly change the reference to linked bitmap in dwg and dxf files? 

Thanks for your help in advance:

Tomasz Szulik

[adam.nagy]

Hi Tomasz,

I'm not sure about the order of the bitmaps saved out but I'm quite sure that the DWG and DXF export are doing it in the same order. So if you have an IDW file with two sheets and each has two bitmaps then you'll end up with this if you save it to e.g. test.dxf:

- test_Sheet_1.dxf

- test_Sheet_2.dxf

- test0.bmp, test1.bmp, test2.bmp, test3.bmp

Even if you change the folder name where the images reside AutoCAD should find them when opening the DXF or DWG file if they are in the same folder as the DXF/DWG file. So might not even have to update the paths.

So if you want to save the IDW to both DXF and DWG, you could save them to different folders and then just move either the DXF to the folder where the DWG file is or vice-versa, but you would not need to move the image files.

If you really want to update the reference path inside the documents to the correct path, then it's much easier in the DXF file as it is a simple text file. DIrect editing of the file is not supported by us, but simply updating a path inside it should be quite risk free, so that's what I would do.

In that case it's the DXF file which you should save to a different folder temporarily because the reference path updating is much simpler.

For DWG you would need to buy/have either RealDWG or AutoCAD (or any vertical) to update the path with Autodesk technology.

Cheers,