Non Co-planar drawings!!

I have a huge site plan that was sent to me by someone and almost all the layers are at different Z-axis values...I have read up the previuos threads on flattening and tried out the different lisps. While some lines are working...others are not changing and I cant proceed with such a messed up file....is there any other way out of this?..

It depends of objects type you have in the drawing...

You can select everything and set the elevation to 0..

Something like: Change; all; ;p ;e ; 0; ;

Then select all lines and in properties dialog set Start Z and End Z to 0.

This has no effect on Dims, 3dPolys, 3dRotated objects or so.

Other options to flatten entities outlined in this thread.

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?63979-How-do-I-bring-the-Z-axis-on-survey-dwgs-to-zero&highlight=FLATTEN

Make sure all the layers are thawed, turned on, and unlocked and you may need to exploded everything (a nightmare I know but maybe required) .

Make sure all the layers are thawed, turned on, and unlocked and you may need to exploded everything (a nightmare I know but maybe required) .

Yes...if there are blocks that are out of whack in the z axis, you will need to explode them to fix them. None of the routines I've tried will tunnel into blocks and fix that stuff. I usually grab the block, move it somewhere outside the drawing, explode it, fix it, then save it back to a new block and then put it back where it was.

Pain in the butt, I know, but it's a way that works. I'm sure there are others too.

Wow!!! ...that's a lot of work...but seems to be like the only solution here...i am doing that but there are still some stubborn lines that refuse to change...but i guess i can live with that!!!thanks guys!!

Have you tried contacting the person who sent you the file and asking them what the heck their problem is? I would ask them to flatten everything and send you a new file, or charge them accordingly to fix it yourself.

hahah...yeah I wish i could do that...really...but unfortunately it doen work that way...they would just ask me to deal with it....what would take me just one day to do has now taken me 2 and im still working on it...isolating each layer...changing its elevation/ Z-axis properties one by one are a real pain...

Why are you isolating layers and doing things one by one?

Start off by grabbing everything and working through your properties box. This'll still separate things by object type, but will at least give you a bit of a starter compared to doing it by layer object.

Regarding Jack's method for dealing with blocks, would it be easier to BlockEdit (BEDIT command) the blocks rather than exploding and redefining?

I would suggest doing all this in a 3D view because as you progress it will help show the stuff that's got a elevation, rather than it all looking flat like it would in plan view,

dJE

It really amazes me how often this problem comes up. I run into it from time to time from various clients, and I can't for the life of me figure out how it keeps happening, especially when so many places work in "2d" only, or so they say. When I was at the aircraft company, we had a guy do a set of 2d drawings using 3d coordinates, but I thought surely he was the only person in the world that would do that. On top of that, he didn't telll anyone he'd done it that way, so people would go get one of his elevation drawings, paste it in to thier drawing and draw some accessory or whatever, only to discover that now thier drawing was all screwed up now too. I fell victim to that just drawing a cabinet for a lounge in that airplane. I used snap points off the original elevation then listed a line for one of the shelves just to see if it met what the customer as!ked for, only to discover that the line was over 1000 inches long, when it should have been somewhere around 30!

After i figured out what it was, I called the boss over and showed him what I'd found. He called a meeting and told everyone that was working on that project to hold up, demonstrated the issue and told them all to send me links to any drawings they'd made because I was going to fix them! Well, that was news to me! I asked him jokingly what I'd done to make him mad, but then if he realized the time frame. There were roughly 1200 drawings to fix and only one guy gonna do it? Didn't matter, that's what was gonna happen. At ten minutes each that was 200 hours. I was start on the newest ones first, and release a list every day of what got fixed, so folks could go back to work on it. In the mean time, everyone was to start on the next project. Took me almost 7 weeks to get them all done with all the interuptions that come along.

Did you even try the MACRO in the link ReMark posted?

I agree with danellis, you are making this way too complicated, by isolating layers and doing everything one-by-one.

It really amazes me how often this problem comes up. I run into it from time to time from various clients' date=' and I can't for the life of me figure out how it keeps happening, especially when so many places work in "2d" only, or so they say. When I was at the aircraft company, we had a guy do a set of 2d drawings using 3d coordinates, but I thought surely he was the only person in the world that would do that. On top of that, he didn't telll anyone he'd done it that way, so people would go get one of his elevation drawings, paste it in to thier drawing and draw some accessory or whatever, only to discover that now thier drawing was all screwed up now too. I fell victim to that just drawing a cabinet for a lounge in that airplane. I used snap points off the original elevation then listed a line for one of the shelves just to see if it met what the customer as!ked for, only to discover that the line was over 1000 inches long, when it should have been somewhere around 30!

 

After i figured out what it was, I called the boss over and showed him what I'd found. He called a meeting and told everyone that was working on that project to hold up, demonstrated the issue and told them all to send me links to any drawings they'd made because I was going to fix them! Well, that was news to me! I asked him jokingly what I'd done to make him mad, but then if he realized the time frame. There were roughly 1200 drawings to fix and only one guy gonna do it? Didn't matter, that's what was gonna happen. At ten minutes each that was 200 hours. I was start on the newest ones first, and release a list every day of what got fixed, so folks could go back to work on it. In the mean time, everyone was to start on the next project. Took me almost 7 weeks to get them all done with all the interuptions that come along.[/quote']

 

around here nothing from gets used from outside without going through my inbox first, if it has problems it sits on my desk till I can fix it ...... it's way worse to have something slip through, get drawn off of and create a nightmare like you speak of there Jack, and yes, it has happened lol.

 

Regarding Jack's method for dealing with blocks, would it be easier to BlockEdit (BEDIT command) the blocks rather than exploding and redefining?

 

Yeah, but anybody could do it that way. Old habits die hard. Using the block editor would fix every instance of that block at the same time too.

It really amazes me how often this problem comes up. I run into it from time to time from various clients' date=' and I can't for the life of me figure out how it keeps happening, especially when so many places work in "2d" only, or so they say. [/quote']

 

I suspect the reason is one of the first things people do is turn off that pesky UCS icon (we really don't understand it anyway). The result is users do not have any visual clue as to where they are in a drawing. Then you will have undisciplined use of blocks with base points out in infinity, and should I go on?

 

Turn your UCS Icon on people!

I agree with you Patrick up to a point. The ucs icon really doesn't do you much good in plan view. If you draw from some other view, absolutely it helps. But strictly in plan view, just takes up space unless you need a reminder of which way x and y go.

These are random lines...can anybody tell which intersection has a negative z value? I moved one deliberately for the purposes of this demonstration. If you work in 2d and plan view only, how do you get off in the z axis? It shouldn't be possible.

If you work in 2d and plan view only' date=' how do you get off in the z axis? It shouldn't be possible.[/quote']

 

If you use a surveyor's file as your base, without flattening it, and then snap to endpoints to create your drawing, you will end up with lines drawn at random Z elevations. I'm dealing with that right now, working on a drawing created by someone else. It's very aggravating because the lines are all over the place. I need to open all the xref's and flatten everything.

Jack, not being argumentative, even in plan view the value of having the icon on is to let you know if you are in the WCS. If your icon is indicating a UCS it is possible that the only difference to the WCS is the z value. I think the problem often stems from not just knowing what UCS you are in but the big grand daddy is if you are in the WCS. I'm probably harping on something based on my own methods for modeling and object creation and simply tilting at windmills. The thing about using the icon is an understanding of the WCS/UCS would eventually occur and ultimately get a little more comfortable in moving to 3d.

To your question, nope, I can't tell. Being well versed in 3d however if I had a problem snapping to an intersection I would likely do a LIST command on an object or two and examine the endpoint z values. Then I would probably switch to an ISO view or side view to get an overall picture.

If you use a surveyor's file as your base, without flattening it, and then snap to endpoints to create your drawing, you will end up with lines drawn at random Z elevations. I'm dealing with that right now, working on a drawing created by someone else. It's very aggravating because the lines are all over the place. I need to open all the xref's and flatten everything.

i understand the surveyer thing but i also encounter files that shouldnt have any z coordinates yet they do, aggrivating is an understatement ....

Jack, not being argumentative, even in plan view the value of having the icon on is to let you know if you are in the WCS. If your icon is indicating a UCS it is possible that the only difference to the WCS is the z value. I think the problem often stems from not just knowing what UCS you are in but the big grand daddy is if you are in the WCS. I'm probably harping on something based on my own methods for modeling and object creation and simply tilting at windmills. The thing about using the icon is an understanding of the WCS/UCS would eventually occur and ultimately get a little more comfortable in moving to 3d.

 

To your question, nope, I can't tell. Being well versed in 3d however if I had a problem snapping to an intersection I would likely do a LIST command on an object or two and examine the endpoint z values. Then I would probably switch to an ISO view or side view to get an overall picture.

I agree and leave mine on all the time. I do work in 3D quite a bit so it's old hat for me. But what I'm getting at is that you wouldn't have any problems snapping to the intersection that I moved, even if you're only using LT. It would pick that intersection or end point and draw to the next one you picked and you'd never know it was off unless you listed the line and found out it was a half mile long instead of 5 inches or whatever. And in these later versions "apparent intersection" will take over for intersection and the two points could be a mile apart and you still wouldn't know. I've made a practice of any time I work from an actual dwg that a client sends in the first thing I do is look at a side view even if its a 2d drawing so I can fix these anomolies before I start.

Jack thats horrible that you had to fix all those drawings!!!!!its been a few days for me now...but luckily for me its just one file and today im almost done....

What i dont understand is how does it happen in the first place....does anyone know why this happens and when you start your file afresh are there any values to enter to aviod this along with setting your units and limits is there some additional settings to be changed??i dont quiet understand how switching the UCS icon on avoids this problem?