Cleaning Up a DWG

I am currently using AutoCad 2008 and when i get DWG from another consultant I need to 'clean' it up to make it appropriate to xref into our working drawings. I need tips on the best way of cleaning up the consultants drawings. I delete a majority of information I don't need and put the information onto a couple of layers then purge. Should I explode the blocks? Any other ideas? Please help!! The xref keeps crashing the working drawing.

Purge and Audit a couple of rounds. Not explode blocks, that just makes the drawing larger methinks... other than that I got no ideas..

Thanks for your post but I have purged and auditted the drawing a bunch of times and it still crashes when I xref it. Is there something else I can do to make it easier to xref? I always overlay and use a full path when i xref is that right?

Hmmm...AutoCAD MAP has a drawing cleanup utility...

...Can be used to simplify objects and delete duplicates, etc...

Are there any OLE or image refs that can be removed?

How do i use AutoCAD MAP? I've never heard of it before but it sounds like what I need.

There are no images in the drawing but I don't know what an OLE is so I guess they could be in there? How do i get rid of them?

It depends how much functionality of the original drawing you want to remain.

When I'm cleaning up an outside drawing I first purge & audit it, then change every layer (except 0) to grey & change the colour of every entity to bylayer... this way I can see the blocks which have been set up with their own colours & I usually NUKE.lsp them (except for large, 1-off blocks which I'll explode). Everything on layer 0 should be switched to a new grey layer otherwise it'll show up on your master. Another purge & it's usually ready.

Note:- NUKE.lsp converts block entities to layer 0, colour bylayer.

nuke.lsp

How do i use AutoCAD MAP? I've never heard of it before but it sounds like what I need.

 

There are no images in the drawing but I don't know what an OLE is so I guess they could be in there? How do i get rid of them?

Map is another Autodesk product used for GIS work. It has functionality that plain cad does not. Expensive.

OLE= Object Linking and Embedding

from help:

Object linking and embedding is a way to use information from one application in another application. To use OLE, you need both source and destination applications that support OLE.

Both linking and embedding insert information from one document into another document. Also, both linked and embedded OLE objects can be edited from within the destination application. However, linking and embedding store information differently.

Try quick select to find them?

What version of AutoCAD were the drawings created with or were they created with another CAD product? Are you using LT or Full AutoCAD?

You could try _WBLOCK the Drawing into a new drawing and rename it, see if that cleans it up.

The tone of the thread suggests that you're having problems with file size perhaps??? Or are you looking to just clean their dwgs up generally???

You could run them through the standards checker if you have a standards file set up for such a task. You can also use the layer converter to bring their dwgs to your standards.

You could try _WBLOCK the Drawing into a new drawing and rename it, see if that cleans it up.

If you were using Map you could query the data in rather than xref, but that's a thread for another day.

Here's a sales pitch for Map.

If you were using Map you could query the data in rather than xref, but that's a thread for another day.

Good point:wink:

What version of AutoCAD were the drawings created with or were they created with another CAD product? Are you using LT or Full AutoCAD?

 

You could try _WBLOCK the Drawing into a new drawing and rename it, see if that cleans it up.

The drawing was created with AutoCAD 2007 saved as AutoCAD 2004 as most of our office uses 2004(Full) but I have 2008 LT on my computer.

So after purging auditing and all the other suggestions my AutoCAD 2008 crashes when xrefing but the 2004 computers handle the files with no problem where yesterday it was the other way round.

I'll try WBLOCKING and see if that works....

Here is a tool that can help to handle in Autocad 2005 and lower drawings that were created with an higher version (2006-2008 )

http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2004/12/layer_filter_an.html

Do you have all applicable updates and service patches? It seems like that was a problem that they provided a patch for, but I'm not 100% sure.

Do you have all applicable updates and service patches? It seems like that was a problem that they provided a patch for, but I'm not 100% sure.

In particular you may need this HOT FIX on the 2007 for back saving.

Have you made sure that all layers were both visible and un-frozen before you purged?

Have you made sure that all layers were both visible and un-frozen before you purged?

I have made all sure all the layers were 'on' before I purged and only have about 30 layers left with no hatches but the file is still over 2megs.

As for the HOTFIX application won't the consultant that I recieve the drawings from need to use this before they send me the drawings or will it work when I use it? They are the ones with 2007 saving down to 2004.

I tried WBlocking the entire drawing and placing into a new file (and exploded it because I still need to edit this drawing) and the file was bigger than the original which makes sense since I exploded it. I also copied the entire drawing into a new file and tried xrefing that and it still crashes in my 2008 version.

Anyone else got any ideas....beside throwing my computer out the window

Have you checked the Z-values of the lines? And that they are lines and polylines and not 3D-polylines?

Have you checked the Z-values of the lines? And that they are lines and polylines and not 3D-polylines?

I just check and there are some 3D polylines and some 3D faces how do I make them not 3D.

Explode them - and they go 2D

or Flatten