converting colors

[Jose]

hello guys,

Is there a way I can tell ACAD to change all objects of a specific color to another, no matter in what layer it's in?

[Spageddie]

8) If the object color isn't set to bylayer then.
look at using the [b]quick select[/c] feature located under the tools menu, this will anable you select multiple objects by a specific parameter (eg layer, color ect)

[Methuselah]

is there a way to incorporate this into a script? i.e. a commandline version? i tried turning filedia off, but didn't affect the command... the command is _qselect, so the underscore in front of the command thing didnt work either...

[Methuselah]

man... i sure wish i could get some help here...

I'm runnin autocad lt 2006 and i need to convert dwg's created in solidworks 2005 to a version readable by Slick! version 4.0. now the problem i have is that slick only reads r12 drawing files (dxf and dwg). now autocad lt 2006 will save as r12 dxf, but pretty crappy since it won't remove the intelligent parts of item balloons and hatches, so therefore slick! won't read those entities and just leave them out of the dwg :(

i can convert the dwg from solidworks to a dwg in the r12 format but all the text become the crappy .txt font! i've done about three days of research trying to find a way around this... .plt files... scripts to convert entities... and such, but i can't seem to get around it without having to edit each file manually without scripts! So far, i have to explode the hatch and balloons and save the dwg as a dxf, but this usually does the really annoying thing of throwing all the exploded hatch lines on the "0" layer with the byblock color! and so that creates another issue...

please help! i'll be checking this post frequently, so if you need anymore info don't hesitate to ask!

[Methuselah]

BOY I WISH SOMEONE WOULD ACKNOWLEDGE MY EXISTENCE ON THIS FORUM!

MAYBE THIS WILL HELP:

me
http://users.telenet.be/eforum/emoticons4u/love/new/love-smiley-076.gifall the users that ignore me

[CarlB]

Few options:
-borrow someones full version of AutoCAD, then some lisp could be incorporated in a script to do what you want
-upgrade your Slick for $50? at http://www.slickwin.com/

[Methuselah]

Ok.. first off thanks for replying...

the lisp idea is something i've already considered, but what good would that do for the LT versions? this is something me and about 4 other drafters are going to have to do everyday.

second, upgrading the slick software is impractical, because we have maybe 20 comps out in the shop and close to 30 here in the office that all use slick! ... do the math! we're not about to buy a new set of licenses!


now if there happened to be a viewer out there with an interface similiar to slicks... but i doubt it. we've all looked all over the net for another viewer and haven't found anything. i just wish they'd hurry up and make the dwg gateway from solidworks compatible with LT!

[CarlB]

Given your desire to automate and the use of LT and your budget the options are limited.

You might try tackling the DXF file and fixing problems in that. It is possible to change layer colors and block colors. That could be done for text style name. Possibly some find and replace macros. Hey I'm helping you grasp at straws...

[Methuselah]

There's a few options left that we're trying... at the very least we'll just end up converting the dwg to wmf format. That actually works quite well in the viewer, because it displays it as though it were a vector image. The only problem is that the format isn't very "user-friendly" when viewing it in Slick!:(. The reason we're using LT, is because we primarily use Solidworks for all new parts. We're in the process of gradually moving everything over to pdf format out of solidworks, but that's years down the road since we neither have found a good viewer nor have the time to convert them all to solidworks then pdf. But right now, we're kinda stuck with the issue at hand. And as far as the budget goes, I can't justify spending all that money for 4 seats of AutoCAD 2006 the full version. There's just no way to justify it when the only reason to get it would be to install the dwg gateway plugin!

I'm going to try stripping some popular converters and viewers of the binary code needed to convert the files and use Visual Basic to create a small application. I'll let you know what I come up with. It would be nice to create a viewer similiar to slick! that could read dwg's, pdfs, and tiffs (some of the old paper drawings were scanned in as tiffs).

[hendie]

Look at buying IntelliCAD ~ full autocad functionality (and more), DWG format, Lisp VBA and less than $400 a copy

[Methuselah]

The DWG editor software that comes with Solidworks uses the intelliCAD engine. The dwg's produced aren't perfect clones, and can't be read with Slick!. Thanks for the help everyone, I'm just going to see what I can do with the OpenDWG code...