Catalog for AutoCAD Files

[josephjones]

I work in IT and have very little experience with using AutoCAD. I'm trying to find a solution to manage thousands of AutoCAD drawings.

 

I need to be able to extract internal fields (Title, Author, Date Created, Modified, etc.) so I can put together an inventory of what we have.

 

Does anyone know of a product or script that will allow me to do this without having to manually open each file?

 

Thanks in advance.

[ReMark]

Can we assume all this information exists in the form of attributes? If so, maybe Lee Mac's program (click on link below) is what you need.

 

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?37127-Global-Attribute-Editor-amp-Extractor

[BlackBox]

Just to add another option...

 

*IF* the data is attributed, as ReMark has asked, consider using ObjectDBX. I've gone through 500+ drawings in less than 20 seconds... it's FAST!

 

 

Efficiently Opening Files, or “Warp Speed, Captain!”

 

ObjectDBX allows you to access drawings without loading them in the drawing editor. This results in a huge improvement in processing speed at the expense of not having the user interface. The lack of a user interface means that you cannot use selection sets. There may also be issues when modifying objects such as attributes. It is also useful for decomposing complex objects without the risk of modifying the original object or its host drawing.

 

The performance gains make ObjectDBX an excellent tool for querying multiple drawings. For example, many firms have developed applications that allow them to create and maintain sheet indexes across hundreds of drawings in seconds rather than hours.

 

ObjectDBX cannot directly work on drawings that are read-only or templates. Therefore, a simple wrapper function that detects those conditions and provides a temporary drawing file to use in such a case is useful.

 

 

Also, here is a thread where Robert Bell helped me:

 

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=117025&highlight=objectdbx