Reduce Linework

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

I recently started working with iBwave Public Safety software by importing floor plans from AutoCAD. Before importing, however, I have been required to manually go through and remove all the extra line work in the walls and close all the doors as the program requires the floorplans to be greatly simplified, and closed doors increase the reliability of iBwave's simulations.

Is there any feasible way to automate even a small part of this process, particularly reducing the linework of all walls to just two lines maximum? The attached images give an example of what I am looking for. I need a way to get from image A to image B.

EDIT: My primary concern is the extra linework. I want to reduce the walls to a single pair of lines. I imagine this working similarly to the OVERKILL command, where parallel lines within an inch are treated as duplicate or overlapping lines and deleted.

[ronjonp]

@daniel.orourkeUWE7W Post a sample drawing to look at.

[paullimapa]

If the Doors are all Blocks that include the swing & jamb, you can always run BEDIT command which goes into the Block Editor for you to simplify each of the Door Blocks. If you can share an example dwg file that would be helpful

[pendean]

@daniel.orourkeUWE7W Sadly that's a task that is predominantly manual, performed by a drafter, especially if all those are lines and arcs (not AEC content), and you only use plain AutoCAD (and even then you have to have built a library of AEC content ahead of time for every eventuality).

Are are there enough of those elements on unique blocks that you can just simply freeze? That could be an option to consider.

In our offices those types of tasks are assigned to junior staff and interns, it's tedious work but someone has to do it. Sorry if at your office that is you.

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

Done. The original is straight from the architect. The edited version includes greatly simplified linework, closed doors, and simpler layer management based on construction material.

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

Examples posted. The original is straight from the architect. The edited version includes greatly simplified linework, closed doors, and simpler layer management based on construction material. As for the doors, I have mostly been using BEDIT to so far, but for some reason the architects like to use a different block for almost every door, even if they are otherwise identical in size and style. The walls are the biggest issue.

[paullimapa]

You can request from the architect a reflected ceiling plan which should typically have a pair of lines over each door opening instead of the door swings.

Also looking at the Pre-Edit dwg, why are there no Blocks since you mentioned you've been using BEDIT?

Are the walls actually just drawn with lines and not wall styles?

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

Unfortunately I am at the mercy of the architect's poor standards. We just receive the floorplan and have to deal with it as is. I can eliminate a lot of the detail work, furniture, and unnecessary bits by freezing layers, but the layer management for walls is almost universally terrible. Most of the architects we work with also tend not to use AEC objects, and my experience with them is limited anyway. I am pretty sure the software I am importing to only accepts lines, polylines, and arcs, though, so it's a lose-lose situation.

The best I have been able to come up with would be something similar to the OVERKILL command, but it would need to eliminate lines within an inch of each other rather than strictly overlapping.

[pendean]

@daniel.orourkeUWE7W Thanks for the DWG file: it appears the Architect when out of their way to destroy their content before sending it all you you. That along with the remnants and artifact scattered everywhere, I don't see how a LISP can make such individual judgement calls. 

Best of luck.

[paullimapa]

If the dwg from the architect contains no blocks as you've shared with the Pre-Edit.dwg I'd suggest you try AutoCAD 2026's new AI features:

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

Most of the architects we work with either don't use wall styles or send us drawings converted to regular AutoCAD objects instead of AutoCAD Architecture if that makes sense. I have been using BCONVERT quite a bit with some success when blocks are not present. When they are present, the architects have a bad habit of making nearly every door, even when identical, a unique block. I'm not sure what the deal is there, maybe something to do with importing from other software.

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

My main concern is with the walls. I can use BCONVERT to handle a lot of the doors, it just tends to be a bit finicky. My first thought was something like the OVERKILL command to delete any parallel lines within an inch or so of another. Messing with the tolerance on OVERKILL hasn't seemed to allow it to recognize close parallel lines as overlapping lines, but I'm not sure if that sort of functionality is possible in LISP.

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

I've been using these features in the 2025 version with some success, but it only partially solves the door problem. The primary issue I am hoping to streamline is simplifying the walls down to only a single pair of lines.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@daniel.orourkeUWE7W wrote:

... the architects have a bad habit of making nearly every door, even when identical, a unique block. ...

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That sounds like what happens when Revit exports to AutoCAD.  It may not be the Architects' fault -- I would suggest at least asking them whether the AutoCAD files are coming from Revit.

[paullimapa]

Actually Revit to dwg exports should still end up with blocks and if the same door occurs in multiple locations it would be the same block.

But @daniel.orourkeUWE7W 's Pre-Edit.dwg is completely block free. I don't know what software the architect used to create this unless they purposely exploded everything and purged all blocks.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@paullimapa wrote:

Actually Revit to dwg exports should still end up with blocks and if the same door occurs in multiple locations it would be the same block.

....

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Not for me.  Two identical doors, for example, came in as Blocks with one named

"Door-Passage-Single-Vision_Lite - 36_ x 84_-6390712-lvl 2_FURNITURE"

and the other named

"Door-Passage-Single-Vision_Lite - 36_ x 84_-6395023-lvl 2_FURNITURE"

[which also points up the enormously long Block names it makes, involving elements from the family, floor level, view, etc].  Pretty much is the same in both, but....

That's from Revit 2024 -- maybe it's been improved in later versions.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@daniel.orourkeUWE7W wrote:

.... something like the OVERKILL command to delete any parallel lines within an inch or so of another. Messing with the tolerance on OVERKILL hasn't seemed to allow it to recognize close parallel lines ....

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I have something that will recognize that two Lines are parallel, but I need to select them -- it won't find them for me.  But even if it did, you are left with the further challenge of having it determine which of the two to delete.  Presumably you want to keep the outermost ones in a wall, but how could a routine know which side of the wall the Lines are on, so it can figure out which is on the inside and which is on the outside, if they're just independent Lines?  That seems like an even greater challenge than finding parallel pairs.

[paullimapa]

Yes, there are situations where Revit identifies & exports the doors as separate blocks as well as situations as the same block.

[daniel.orourkeUWE7W]

When using the OVERKILL command, I just select everything and run it. Any duplicate or overlapping lines are deleted. Ideally, the command I am fantasizing about would do the same thing, just with a much higher tolerance when judging whether two lines are overlapping, and keep the outermost lines as you say. Quite frankly, though, I don't really care which line is deleted. The standard of precision in iBwave compared to AutoCAD is abysmal, so it wouldn't make much of a difference if the inner lines are kept instead.

[Kent1Cooper]

Here's another situation that occurs in your drawing that would be a real challenge for a routine to work out:

On the left is an excerpt from your drawing.  On the right, I changed the colors of a few Lines for discussion.

Say the routine discovers that the red Line and the yellow Line are parallel and close enough together to eliminate one of them.  And say it gets rid of the yellow Line.  It isn't done with the red Line yet, because that still needs to be compared to the green Line.  And suppose, when it does, and finds them parallel and close enough together, it chooses to get rid of the red Line and keep the green one.  Then that whole side of the wall in the red-and-yellow stretch will be gone.

Situations like this make such a thing extremely difficult, if it would even be possible to get it to work reliably as you want.