.DWG importing

[HumbleChief]

Tim,

Thanks again for the effort and help. We opened the zip file using your suggestions and found a few improvements and a few of the same problems. The valve symbols don't look like valve symbols, the fills are incorrect.

The text in the valve flow boxes is still stacked and needs adjusting but the line weights are easy to adjust now after importing to their own layer. All together less work to mod the plans imported in the way you have suggested. Thanks again.

Still have a question about ACAD. Even if we had ACAD and could read the file exactly and even make a few mods we will still be up against the import imperfections (features?) of Chief, true? Which gets back to Rays question,

"Question - What can be done differently in ACad than in Chief once these guys receive the DWG's. They'll still be messing with all the layers to get them the way they want,,, so why not just do it in chief."

Still curious myself as to any other options other than just dealing with Chief as is.

Larry

[slatta]

Larry,

could you elaborate as to what you are going to do with this irrigation plan now so that we can better understand your question?

are you trying to do a 3d landscape plan?
or
are you doing a 3d irrigation plan
or
are you just trying to do a site plan

[HumbleChief]

Neil,

We are designing a 2 unit apartment and part of the planning requirements (here in San Diego) are that we submit a complete landscape/irrigation plan. I used to be a lndscape contractor and did small irrigation plans but his plan we subbed out to an irrigation guy.

Very unusual for us as we normally do simpler remodels but we are ALWAYS up against the ACAD question, from engineers and many other vendors who supply supplemental plans or details - always in ACAD.

If it were just this one plan we could deal, but our question is more general in nature as to what to with, and how to handle, ACAD files in many different applications.

Larry

Larry,

could you elaborate as to what you are going to do with this irrigation plan now so that we can better understand your question?

are you trying to do a 3d landscape plan?
or
are you doing a 3d irrigation plan
or
are you just trying to do a site plan

[slatta]

Larry,

in this case,

if the landscape plan was sub contracted out, why not just have the guy give you a plot for submittal or pdf. you can send pdf's around that anyone can plot

unless you are going to manipulate the data in the irrigation plan there is no need to be able to import it..


right? maybe I am misunderstanding

I work with all kinds of subs, when i get there .dwgs alls I have to do is change there colors to my colors and its done, it is only a matter of seconds to do this during the print routine

sometimes I am doing entire subdivisions with a survey xrefed in, then if the survey changes all I do is change the xref and everything updates automatically, chief does not have that capability yet and as such I will not be doing any chief site plans till they do. like now if your landscape changes you have to do the whole exercise again..

hope I am making sense

[HumbleChief]

Larry,

in this case,

if the landscape plan was sub contracted out, why not just have the guy give you a plot for submittal or pdf. you can send pdf's around that anyone can plot

unless you are going to manipulate the data in the irrigation plan there is no need to be able to import it..

It is possible IF the pdf is perfect, which it wasn't, requiring a phone call to the irr. guy to resend the pdf with the water meter in the proper place and the controller on the building and sprinklers changed......you know the drill.

And sending a plot would also mean it would need no corrections which they ALWAYS need. So e-mailing the files is by far the easiest way I've found to make the needed changes. It's just that we don't have a way to modify the PDF's or the .dwg files to make any changes in house in their native file formats.

I work with all kinds of subs, when i get there .dwgs alls I have to do is change there colors to my colors and its done, it is only a matter of seconds to do this during the print routine

I know everyone else seems to need only seconds to import .dwg's but we are technically challenged in some regards and dwgs give us a royal pain, could be just from lack of experience as this thread is helping with.

sometimes I am doing entire subdivisions with a survey xrefed in, then if the survey changes all I do is change the xref and everything updates automatically, chief does not have that capability yet and as such I will not be doing any chief site plans till they do. like now if your landscape changes you have to do the whole exercise again.

Yeah, kinda bringing us back to one of the original questions about owning ACAD or not. Seems to be invaluable to you, if I am reading your postings correctly, and we are trying to make that decision and maybe even understand their implementation of xref.

[Larry Kumpost]

Larry H.

I just opened the BORDES-IRRIG dwg file and there are a few clarifications I would make.

First in AutoCAD x-refs are references to other dwg files. In order to show the x-ref you must have a copy of the referenced file and the correct path to that file. An example of x-ref:

I could have a basic floor plan in it's own dwg file as an x-ref to an electrical plan dwg file, structural plan dwg file and mechanical plan dwg file. I could then draw the respective information in each plan/file for electrical/structural and mechanical. If the plan changed I would only need to change the dwg file of the referenced floor plan and every reference would automatically change.

Granted, we could accomplish the same thing with layer sets in Chief but in this case let's say you are dealing with 3 different consultants. If they x-ref your plan dwg file as a background for their work and you make revisions then you could just replace the plan dwg file and they could use the new file as the x-ref to automatically change the backgrounds for their files.

In your case the BORDES-IRRIG dwg file had 2 x-refs:

The IIC-BASE is used to show the basic site information.
The second x-ref "PLNT-Block" is not present. Probably blocks for plants but just guessing.

I have not had time to look at other files posted but will look at them when I get a chance.

[slatta]

Larry H

do you have the PLNT-BLOCK.DWG it would be interesting to see what was in there

Larry K

good piece of hunting, i seldom look for xrefs that are xrefed! usually creates a circular reference..gets confusing

[Larry Kumpost]

"Question - What can be done differently in ACad than in Chief once these guys receive the DWG's. They'll still be messing with all the layers to get them the way they want,,, so why not just do it in chief."

Still curious myself as to any other options other than just dealing with Chief as is.

Why not just change the layers in Chief? It depends. Are you only coordinating with 1 consultant? If so then coordinating some layer names may be useful. Which layers and how useful depends on what the consultant wants to do with the layers. If you have several consultants then trying to get layers to match each consultant gets a little more complex. Not impossible but, in my opinion, probably not worth it.

If you are working for someone else it is easy to decide what to do and that is you do what they want you to do...as long as they are willing to pay for it.

If you are the architect/designer and need to coordinate with a number of consultants:

First I would assume most of them use some version of AutoCAD (ADT, MDT, Land...) and

Second you get to decide how thing will be done. Mostly.

I suggest that you come up with some standard list of the layers you intend to use when exporting plan backgrounds and send it to them. Asking them for comments and making some adjustments at the beginning of the job is a good idea (but not mandatory ) and you make the call on the final list. That is the layers they all will get for the backgrounds. What they use to show their work is up to them. Trying to dictate their layer names is a waste of time due to different programs or "add-ons" setting layer names automatically and/or different office standards.

In the end you will discover that if you coordinate with several consultants on each job that use the dwg format you will want to get a program that can use dwg files directly. Perhaps AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT (AutoCAD LT is the same as AutoCAD but only 2D) but I would start with the least expensive program that will allow you to open, eidt and print dwg files. That may be the "Deluxe" version of TurboCAD ($150.00 for V-12) which is a 3D CAD program. That way you can review their work and review/refine your exports from Chief before you send them off. Just because Chief can import the consultants files does not mean you should. Unless you have lots of free time to waste I suggest you don't.

The above is the basics. There are lots of variations and refinements to what I described but most of them will depend on how you, and your consultants, work together.

[HumbleChief]

Just wanted to make sure the proper thanks were thrown at the proper people. This forum is still THE BEST source of information for any prograsm I have ever used.

So thank you all.

We will put to use all of the suggestions and it looks like TurboCad has a trial download available. I think we'll try that out and see if that helps clear up our .dwg files before importing into Chief.