topic Re: Clean up drawings in AutoCAD Forum

Clean up drawings

rune_gausnes — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 07:37:48 GMT

In our company we get a lot of drawings from suppliers.
Parts of these drawings we use as blocks in our drawings.

I assume most of the drawings we receive are made in 3D programs like Autodesk Inventor, Solidworks or Microstation and then exported as 2d drawings to dwg.

Unfortunately, not all drawings we receive are easy to work with, some contains 3D polylines, 3D Solids, surfaces, duplicate lines etc.

What we normally do with such drawings before making blocks:

1. check drawing for 3d objects
2. Use Flatten, Flatshot and some other commands to get these objects into 2d
3. Convert to Lightweight Polyline if necessary
4. Convert Splines to Polylines and use the LISP routine Polyline Diet to reduce the number of segments.
5. Overkill to delete duplicate objects.
6. Put all objects on Layer 0, except from centerlines and indication of servicespace around the components.

What routines do you use to "clean" such drawings in your company?

Re: Clean up drawings

Alfred.NESWADBA — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 10:39:53 GMT

Hi,

e.g. run command _PURGE to purge unused definitions and command _-PURGE with option _REGAPPS

BUT I NEVER EVER put all objects on layer 0. This is destructive and does not help in any way.

- alfred -

Re: Clean up drawings

imadHabash — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 10:42:13 GMT

Hi,

>> we receive are made in 3D programs

Here is the problem !!!! what ever you do ... you will loose a lot of your efforts to manage such plans to reach for a non complete accurate drawing . i hate to say that but this is the truth . i feel that it's like a punishment to cleans OTHERS works . 😳

Re: Clean up drawings

rune_gausnes — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 18:48:42 GMT

Forgot to mention that we always use PURGE in the drawings.
The reason for putting object on Layer 0 and properties, linetypes set to ByLayer :
1. We want to put the new block on correct layer according to our layer system

2. We do not want all the layers from suppliers in our drawings.
On some projects we have 75-100 different suppliers, such that our drawings will be a complete mess if we have all these layers in our drawing.

Re: Clean up drawings

rune_gausnes — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 19:25:59 GMT

Next step will be to teach suppliers how we want the drawings to be like when we receive them. 🙂

One of the worst example I got was a washbasin tap, exported from a high detailed polygon mesh such that the 2d drawing had approx 17000 lines.

But for the moment we have to try to handle the drawings as we get them from the suppliers.

Re: Clean up drawings

Alfred.NESWADBA — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:15:58 GMT

Hi,

>> The reason for putting object on Layer 0 and properties, linetypes set to ByLayer

You lose everything then, different colors, lineweights, linetypes, transparency, possibility to freeze/show different content. Using these "other drawings" as references makes it easy to have the main drawing with just your layers while keeping the external content working.

SCNR

>> One of the worst example I got

The worst drawing files I get have all on layer 0 😉

- alfred -