topic Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates in Civil 3D Forum

XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 16:42:52 GMT

I have an XREF drawing of the legal lines of my site, let's call it drawing A, that I'm trying to XREF under all of my design drawings for pipes, alignments, corridors, etc. When I XREF it into drawing B it it does not show up in the correct coordinates. Both files have the same reference coordinate system, my BASE parameters are the same and my INSBASE parameters are the same.

I've grabbed a reference block from the surveyor's DWG and inserted it into both drawing A and B to check if it was inserting at the same coordinate each time and it was. If I XREF the surveyor's original drawing into drawing B it comes in at the right spot.

had a similar problem with another file but that was solved by closing drawing A before I XREF'd it into drawing B. No such luck here.

EDIT: I should add that I'm XREFing drawing A using the "Locate using Geographic data" option.

Any ideas?

I'm using Civil3D 2019.3 on Windows 10.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Jeff_M — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 17:09:25 GMT

If all things are the same, then inserting at 0,0 should be what you use.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 17:28:05 GMT

Yes, that did work. Do you know why using the geographic location is not working in this case? We do this method for a lot of projects and haven't had an issue until recently.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 21:30:59 GMT

I've had issues in the past importing like you described but my xrefs look rotated. Then if you copy and paste from one file to the other is is correct. Normally restarting cad or deleting the xref and reloading works. GL

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:24:10 GMT

I tried restarting CAD and also deleting the XREF entirely and starting over but no luck. This has only happened with two subdivisions we recently started designing. Every other project has been fine. I have no idea what the correlation there is... we do the same procedure with all our projects.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:35:08 GMT

Check the UNITS in both drawings. Both should be the same. We have issues when one is set to Feet and the other to US Survey Feet.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:38:50 GMT

Both drawings are made from our template unfortunately, so unless something weird happened between opening up a new drawing and XREF'ing in the units shouldn't have changed.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

AllenJessup — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 20:04:27 GMT

Lets reshape the terminology. it's not units or the drawing coordinates as defined in AutoCAD. For the "Locate using Geographic data" option to work. Both drawing have to have the same Geographic Coordinate System set. I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. Also. Check if there is a UCS set in the drawing that's being Xreffed.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 20:49:13 GMT

Yes, I thought I had mentioned in the original post but both drawings are set to the same Geographic Coordinate System. Thanks for showing me a new way to change the coordinate system! I usually use the command ADESETCRDSYS instead of going into the drawing settings. Also, both drawings are using the WCS.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Beka_Tchigladze — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 07:14:28 GMT

check -dwgunits sometimes it helps me to insert in a proper location

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

ChicagoLooper — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 13:14:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote

<<….I should add that I'm XREFing drawing A using the "Locate using Geographic data" option….>>

It sounds like your xref isn’t georefenced properly.

Perform this experiment:

Open a clean, brand new OOTB template and assign your coordinate system. Turn on Bing Hybrid aerial map. The Bing logo will appear in lower right corner of modelspace.
Zoom-out until you see the red geomarker (it looks like a bicycle wheel with red spokes).
Zoom-in on the geomarker until you can read the labels of the aerial map, then using pan and zoom, navigate to your site.
Draw a circle surrounding your site. Copy the circle with 0,0 as the base point.
Go to your xref drawing and paste the copied circle using 0,0 as the insertion point. (You may also paste it to your subdivision drawing.)

The pasted circle should surround your xref. If it doesn’t then your xref isn’t georefd properly.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

ChicagoLooper — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 13:18:59 GMT

Duplicate post.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

rgrainer — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 18:15:41 GMT

Check the following:
INSUNITS, INSUNITSDEFSOURCE, and INSUNITSDEFTARGET

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

arodriguezDQBHW — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 23:01:25 GMT

Importing surveys done in Microstation causes havoc in Autocad including coordinate problems where there is no way to align the drawings properly unless you use brute force (moving the drawings to align them). Is a pita. I strongly suggest that if you procure survey work that the drawings are done in Autocad and not microstation.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

walelign_ayaliew — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 19:11:48 GMT

For me setting the "INSBASE " as 0.000, 0.000, 0.000 fixed it. Sometimes you may set everything, including the units and the coordinates system correct or consistent but the XREF drawing may appear away. Setting the reference insertion base point in the used UCS as 0.00, 0.000, 0.000, and then setting the insertion point in the XATTACH window the same will do the trick.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

Jerry_Barnes — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 21:29:03 GMT

My two cents worth:

Of course, Drawing B in this instance must be in world coordinates before xrefing in Drawing A. Secondly, the BASE parameter in Drawing A must be set to 0,0,0. And thirdly, the Set Autocad variables to match box must be checked as well.

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

rajender.kumar — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 11:20:18 GMT

Thanks, it worked for me

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

CoraForun — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 17:24:04 GMT

This solve my issue. Thank you!

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

jc.gilbert — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 20:45:52 GMT

Thanks, it worked for me too !

Re: XREF does not come in at correct coordinates

jc.gilbert — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 17:27:54 GMT