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Anonymous
1124 Vistas, 7 Respuestas

Help on taking over a someone elses drawing

I'm quite new to CAD and have been asked to take over one of my company's drawings for a construction site layout that spans ~2 square miles. 

  • It contained over 600 layers and over 100 different blocks.
  • None of the layers were grouped or had descriptions.
  • Some layers, and all blocks had obscure names like; line, S281C05 and A$C1BDB3141.
  • Layers have been mixed up; e.g. there are objects in a windows layer that shouldn't be, and there are windows in layers they shouldn't be. 
  • There were over 200 empty layers and some with only one or two objects (some of which I have no idea what they are supposed to represent).
  • Most of the blocks had been created with 'by layer' settings instead of 'by block', so I have to edit them individually to change their color, transparency, etc.
  • Turning off layer visibility doesn't always turn off the visibility of blocks in that layer, sometimes it makes some of the block invisible and sometimes makes blocks or parts of blocks that are not in that layer invisible.

I've spent several days sorting out the layers and purging all the unused ones; while far from perfect, it's now usable.

So I was hoping for some advice; what tasks or functions are there that can be performed to expedite cleaning up a drawing and avoid going through everything manually? 

Tomislav.Golubovic
en respuesta a: Anonymous

Sounds like a shocker, I don't get it how people can get to 600 layers, anyways...

 

Purge, Purge and Purge. Also, I would do ERASE, ALL, and then REMOVE, [Window] to remove the elements you see. You'd be surprised at how many invisible on non-element elements are in drawings like that where people cut and paste from one drawing to another.

parkr4st
en respuesta a: Anonymous

let us know:

 

What software are you using?  Autocad version?  Vertical such as Map3D or civil3D? 

 

What computer setup?  desk top? # monitors?  laptop?

 

Is this a site plan? with Buildings? with windows? With roads, curbs, water lines, etc?

 

2 square miles is the total project area or is a lot of that outside the project?

 

Add a screen shot of some of the dwg.

 

someone can get a better feel for what you need to know possibly.

 

And the person that did the work?  gone for obvious reasons? or retired?

 

dave

3wood
en respuesta a: Anonymous

I think you can leave most of the drawing as it was, only focus on the new part you need work on.

Don't worry too much about how clean or organized a dwg file is.

As long as when it is printed out on the paper and looks good, it's OK.

At moment, the construction work is still rely on paper hardcopies, not electronic files. I guess you are not working on a 3d-printing building.

So no one is going to use a microscope to zoom up the hardcopy and the laser printer is not going to tell people which line is one a wrong layer.

 

What I usually do with such drawing is:

Make a copy.

Change everything to "bylayer", include all entities in all blocks.

Xref it as the background.

Change all xref layer color to a lighter color.

Use XCLIP to clip it to clear the area where the new building is.

Unload it.

Only reload it when necessary, such as before printing.

 

It can speed up the process. Sometimes too much efforts spent on unnecessary works.

imadHabash
en respuesta a: 3wood

Hi, :cara_con_una_leve_sonrisa:

>> As long as when it is printed out on the paper and looks good, it's OK.

Yes , Unfortunately that's right !!!! hard-copies didn't really reflect the real of CAD dwg files . BUT it's too hard and so painful when you receive a bad quality CAD files ; and i touch that ( as others ) with the OP @Anonymous   words . spending hours for fixing others mistakes was ( and still ) always my career nightmare and i hope to NOT meet those others ... 

 

 

 

Imad Habash

EESignature

Anonymous
en respuesta a: parkr4st

Hi Dave,

I'm using AutoCAD 2018 with a laptop and two additional monitors.

 

It's a site-plan/port:

  • Buildings (offices, factory and warehouse)
  • The buildings all have doors, windows, stairs, desks, kitchens, toilet-facilities, etc.)
  • Roads, parking, curbs, fences, footpaths.
  • A river, vessels and wet and dry docks.
  • Manufacturing equipment, vehicles, components and cranes.
  • Swept paths of vehicles and and components. 
  • Railway lines
  • Area zoning/hatching.

I drew a 4 square mile rectangle around the site which took up around 50% of the rectangle, so about 2 square miles.

 

The person who used to used to look after the drawing left before I took up this position. Between him leaving and me starting, office staff did the best they could with what they knew.


Unfortunately I am unable to provide a screenshot: Both company policy and port/maritime law prohibit me from doing so - And while it's unlikely they would find out, it's not worth losing a job over.

Anonymous
en respuesta a: Anonymous

The layer translator may be helpful with stuff like this in the future "LAYTRANS". We use that on some files we get from different companies (retailers) to clean up their drawings and translate their layers to ours. Might speed it up if I am understanding your issue correctly.

Anonymous
en respuesta a: Anonymous

Thank-you all for your feedback! 

Given my question was quite open, there are several different answers that would assist with my previous problem so I have accepted each of them and will keep them on record for the next time I come up against this problem.