Clientizing drawings

Hi all,

I’m trying to figure out a way to improve/automate the way we make client files from our AutoCAD drawings.

Typically we have a file that contains a layout of our machine in Modelspace, using different layers extensively, then in paperspace we have layout -01 for the client installation, then layout -02, -03 etc. for various assemblies.

Usually we need to supply Layout -01 to the client, in which case we need to ‘clientize’ the drawing before we send it off. The process is as follows:

- Insert all xrefs

- Explode all the blocks

- Go in all the viewports one by one, select all objects visible in the viewport, and move them off to the side (about 50 metres, far enough to be well clear of the remaining modelspace objects).

- Go to modelspace, and delete all objects that stayed in place (so the client does not get to see what was not visible in layout -01 in the first place)

- Move all the objects that were moved to the side back into place.

- Purge the drawing and save the file as the full drawing number + revision.

Now this doesn’t take a whole lot of time, however, it needs to be done every time there’s a new revision, and on big projects this needs to happen on many more drawings as the client will get the assemblies as well. This starts to get a bit old after some time and people have been complaining.

I’ve been looking for a solution;

I tried to create a Macro which calles up a lisp routine which I found somewhere on the net, but the lisp routine fails most of the time and I don’t know what the problem might be.

I looked into the ‘exportlayout’ command (I’m using acad 2010), but this scales everything down to paper format, places it in modelspace, and removes my paperspace. The client usually requires drawings to scale to insert into their own plant layouts.

I looked into the ‘exporttoautocad’ command, but this keeps all my layouts and all my modelspace objects, and creates all these funny AecObjExplode layers which cannot be purged. It would be useful as an intermediate step to take care of some of the xref inserting and purging.

How do others deal with clientized files. Do you use AutoCAD’s built in tools as is, or do you use a custom solution to create these?

There are lots of ways to do each part of this, but of you want a 'One Button' soloution you will need to roll a bit of your own code. I suggest that you post something on the programming forum, I'm sure that they will be able to get you started.

Psedo code:

Inputs- A drawing, A layout in that drawing, A selection of Viewports within that layout, the Drawing number, The drawing's revision number.

Output - a new file, cleaned up and saved as Drawing number + revision

Programme:

Create a copy of the origional file

Delete all other layouts

bind all xrefs

explode all xrefs

explode all blocks

delete anything that does not appear in a given selection of viewports

purge the drawing (and audit?)

Save the drawing ad drawing number + revision

Hi Pablo,

Thanks for you input and thoughts in the matter (and sorry for the late reply).

I had created a macro that could cover most of my steps (anything from deleting layouts to purging the drawing), but it only worked in specific instances, so I need the 'intelligence' of lisp. I will take this to the programming forum