Elevations

[Sepult]

:x I hope someone out there can help. I am working in AutoCAD2004. I have backgrounds from an architect that where drawn in Autodesk (not sure what version, I am assuming the latest). These drawings I have received are drawn with elevations. I draw In plan view the mechanical designs for HVAC. Occansionally (more times than not) I get the message "Lines are non-coplaner" when I fillet or extend. I have a lisp routine that sets my work to elevation 0, but what a pain in the butt to do this once every minute. I am looking for a way to set the backdround to elevation 0. I have tried exploding/bursting and swearing at the backgrounds, but these do not work. Is this something the architect needs to do before sending me the drawings? Is there someone who has a lisp perhaps.

Thanks.[/img]

[f700es]

:x I hope someone out there can help. I am working in AutoCAD2004. I have backgrounds from an architect that where drawn in Autodesk (not sure what version, I am assuming the latest). These drawings I have received are drawn with elevations. I draw In plan view the mechanical designs for HVAC. Occansionally (more times than not) I get the message "Lines are non-coplaner" when I fillet or extend. I have a lisp routine that sets my work to elevation 0, but what a pain in the butt to do this once every minute. I am looking for a way to set the backdround to elevation 0. I have tried exploding/bursting and swearing at the backgrounds, but these do not work. Is this something the architect needs to do before sending me the drawings? Is there someone who has a lisp perhaps.

Thanks.[/img]

Try this...
Type "Change: in the command line.
It will ask to select objects, type in "All" and then enter
It will ask you to specify change point or [Properties]: Type "P" then enter
It will then ask you to enter property to change [Color/Elev/LAyer/LType/ltScale/LWeight/Thickness]: Type "E" for elevation and then tell it "0,0" for the elevation. See if this helps.

F7

[hyposmurf]

I understand your grief as I also produce HVAC drawings and find that quite a few of my problems are due to Architetcs drawings(usually those produced in Microstation.Havent experienced your exact problem that much.,but have just found another lisp that may solve http://www.caddepot.com/dcd/Autodesk/AutoLiSP/index-9.htmlr problems.
The lisp is called coplane.

[Sepult]

I have tried that. The problem is the drawing is not consisted of sperate entities. It was drawn in Autodesk Architectural desktop. When we get the drawing from the Architect it's similar to a bunch of manipulative blocks (smart objects). If we could explode it, than it would work. The only way I have known to change all the smart objects is to save the drawing to Acad2000 and from there to Acad14. I than have to open the drawing in Acad14 and save as Acad12. This disables the smart blocks and creates a million entities. This is not an efficient way to do it. The problem is I no longer have Acad14.