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Never really understood which was the best one to use (mainly Attach) and now I'm using C3D (large models, lots of objects etc) I'd like to optimise my use of XREFS.
How does everyone else handle them and what works best for you??
Thanks
neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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AEC Collection 2025 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
"An overlaid xref is not included when the drawing is itself attached or overlaid as an xref to another drawing".
That is the key thing to remember.
More on that below.
http://exchange.autodesk.com/autocad/enu/online-help/search#WS1a9193826455f5ffa23ce210c4a30acaf-5d72...
Beside that, it all depens how you work and what are your goals.
I almost never used Overlay in my life, but I guess others may never have used Attached...
Probably some consistency will be good, so you know what to expect, whatever drawing you load.
I would tend to avoid having here a drawing "attached" and there a drawing "overlayed", unless you have a clear folder structure with "rules", so results can be predictable.
Nicolas Menu
Support Specialist, Civil 3D
Product Support
Autodesk, Inc.
DON"T USE ATTACH FOR CIVIL DRAWINGS! (I make it sound so scary)
I may get skewered for this but I would avoid using "Attach". I have found many many drawings all gummed up due to nested xrefs. It may be conjecture on my part, but the correlation cannot be ignored. It may work well for architects backgrounds, but I have yet to see a civil project work without errors.
The use of "attach" may be ideal for deliverable sheet construction but look what happens to working drawings:
In our office we use xrefs for alignment(all the flatwork), Grad&drainage(contours&structures), utilities(sewer,gas, elec,...), and landscaping... x-align, x-grade, x-util, x-lscape. For working purposes each of those xref need to see the other for reference. If x-align has-grade,x-util.... "ATTACH" then in x-grade needs x-align and it ends up trying to xref in itself because of "ATTACH", and this can spiral out of control because each xref keeps building these nested occurrences. By the time you get to a sheet file it becomes a complete mess.
I'm sure someone can prove me wrong but I would not use "ATTACH" unless I was absolutely sure of the consequences
I create a template with relative path, overlay (empty)xrefs. copy into a project folder and everyone is ready to go. No one really needs to concern themselves with attaching xrefs, the project template has it done for them - all I need is a better layer standard and states and I would be golden> IMHO it keeps this clean.
Joe Bouza
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Thanks for the replies
Joe, I had been using Attach in the past but over the last few projects the XREFS did seem to get a bit out of control with circular references messages, hence the original question.
Can you please clarify how you "..create a template with relative path, overlay (empty)xrefs. .." as this sound like its worth a try
neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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AEC Collection 2025 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
Joe,
I too believe Attach can lead to trouble. We use only Overlay. How are you Creating empty Xrefs? That sounds like a great thing to include in a template!
Allen
Allen Jessup
CAD Manager - Designer
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Email me: jbouza(at)cameronengineering(dot) com
If you look at an example you'll get the idea pretty quick. Essentially, I create a prototype project folder with all the subfolders I want. The I made file new with my c3d.dwt, saved as xref\x-name. Then did all my relative attaching for working drawings, next made a starter sheet file, and again loaded all the xref relative. Even setup a starter SSM.dst file. So now when a job open all the user needs to do is copy the prototype folder to the projects drive on the server, rename the folder to the job number, insert the survey into X-topo, load any aerials to X-aerial, and start working. The relative path for xrefs does not care where the root folder is - try it. Add some crap and copy the root folder around the xref path goes with it - this is great for archiving.
Joe Bouza
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