Leaders not displaying arrowhead in ACAD import

[Ross_Robertson]

Hi,

I've imported a bunch of details I prepared in ACAD into my revit project, unfortunately the arrowheads in the leaders doesn't display. Does anyone have a solution to this?

[Alfredo_Medina]

You could bring just the linework, not the annotations, and then add text in Revit, or...Do your details in Revit, with parametric detail components, text, dimensions, keynotes, etc...

[Ross_Robertson]

Thanks Alfredo,

I'd considered that be fore I made my post, its not really a solution though, there not much time saved, (if any), in importing the line work then re-doing all the annotation in Revit...

[Anonymous]

Revit doesn't recognize Polylines...so if your arrows were polyline created, then Revit sees them as a single line.  

Just another reason to follow the steps @Alfredo_Medina mentioned.

[Ross_Robertson]

They were created as leaders......, just another reason to keep using ACAD for detailing...

[Anonymous]

Good luck to you then....eventually you will see the light that exporting to CAD for detailing is a rocky road and not worth it.

[Ross_Robertson]

I'm not exporting to ACAD, I'm importing to Revit, Autodesks promo vids suggest that you can use your existing AutoCAD library of details to start to build a library of details in revit so that you are not redrawing your library of details form scratch, to me this means you should be able to import elements like leaders without having to redraw.....

[Alfredo_Medina]

Doing your details in Revit gives you parametric details, keynoting, and consistency in the graphics. As you have seen, surface patterns and annotation elements coming from CAD look bad in Revit. And, not because Autodesk mentions this workflow in their documents it means that this is what the exerienced Revit users recommend. Remember, these two programs were created by two different teams in two different companies. Now they happen to be under the same roof, Autodesk, but that doesn't mean that everything transfers smoothly between the two applications. 

[ToanDN]

If you insist on using AutoCAD details, can you upload a simple detail with the text and arrows here so that we can look at?

P/S: we gave up doing that long time ago.  Detailing in Revit is very efficient and sustainable.  If you like AutoCAD dynamic blocks then you will like Revit detail components.

[Ross_Robertson]

Its not so much a case of insisting on using ACAD for details, I just don't see the value in redrawing details that I have drawn before. Where I have a new detail to prepare on a revit project I use the detailing tools within Revit.

I've attached a screen grab of the details once they are in Revit for info

[ToanDN]

I just did a test and both QLEADER and MLEADER show properly when linked or imported into Revit.  If I exploded it the leader and arrow became line segments and fill pattern.  But they still look graphically the same.

[ToanDN]

Can you upload an actual CAD file? Erase everything except for a couple of leaders and notes.

[Ross_Robertson]

Hi,

Many thanks for your reply, apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I've been snowed under with project work. I've attached a DWG file with just text and leaders showing, it would be good to see if these import okay for you.

I created the DWG in AcadLT 2016, this was imported into revit LT2016. Both the text and qleaders are annotative set to a scale of 1:5

Any help greatly appreciated.

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

I tried both linking and inserting your drawing file into a 1:5 drafting view in a Revit 2016 project started with the DefaultMetric template file.  The arrowheads on the leaders did not come through at all and the word wrapping and text line spacing also were all wonky.  Given that we do not have the DIN Offc true-type font, the text issues are not terribly surprising.

I even tried exploding the inserted drawing file, and found that there were only lines for the leaders; there were no graphic objects for the arrowheads.  I suppose that means I am seeing results similar to yours; perhaps one of the previous respondents will try it out to see if she or he gets a different result.

We have converted most of our standard details using native Revit objects to avoid issues like this.  We now maintain the masters in Revit, and have CAD files made from Revit exports for CAD projects.

[ToanDN · Accepted solution]

That is because your leaders are Annotative.. I changed the ones on the right to non-annotative and they show up correctly.  With that said, I don't know of a fix without changing all the leader to non-annotative.

P/S: I am out of the AutoCAD world for quite a while so that I will need some time to brush up my understanding of the whole annotative thingy.

[Ross_Robertson]

Many thanks for your assistance, I've tried turning of the annotative scale and it now works. Must be something to do with the import set up..