xref updating in a master reference drawing?

[jt6572]

hey all,

i have just completed a project wherein a master reference was used, however it became quite problematic when it came to its initial setup and the subsequent lack of updating of the drawings reffed into it... if that makes sense?

 

basically, it wasnt managed as well as it could have been at conception and this caused a lot of productivity loss and pain in the correct representation of the deliverable end product.

 

coming onto my next project, my question concerns the usage of, and maintenance of a "master reference" drawing - that is, a single drawing with others that are in basically every plan drawing in the entire set.

 

in the past i have used MicroStation for this to good effect, but i have found the properties differ between it and AutoCAD.

 

is there something we have done wrong, whereby the settings (eg; layers) can be updated within the master reference without it having to be detached and then reattached? this is the only way i have found they update?

 

just hoping for some advice, because i really want to avoid the same pitfalls just experienced....

 

thank you.

[RobDraw]

Look into the VISRETAIN variable. Let us know if you have any questions about implementing it.

[jt6572]

Thanks Robdraw.

Vis retain is set to 1. It seems the drawings within the master xref don't update after being inserted, so does this mean it may have been better to have visretain set to 0 to allow them to update?

[RobDraw]

Yes, but that means any changes to the XREF layer properties in the referencing drawing do not get saved.

[jt6572]

okay, so i just did a little test to get my head around it:

am i correct in saying that the visretain setting is pretty much applicable to the incumbent drawing, that is, if the drawing that has x refs in it has a visretain setting of 1, it will retain the layer state (eg colour) of the x reffed drawing as it was when it was inserted, when it is set to 0, it will update as the x ref is updated?

 

so it is really a setting to determine the way x refs are handled?

[RobDraw]

That is correct. Being a multi-trade house, each trade might have slightly different requirements for their drawings, so we use a setting of 0.

[jt6572]

Thats awesome. thanks very much for your help.

[Jeff H]

Were you xrefing in other base drawings into master then xrefing master into say sheet drawings then trying control all the the nested xrefs in master for sheet drawings?

 

If that made sense.

[jt6572]

hey Jeff,

i basically have one master xref with different drawings in it that i ref into all the sheet drawings. the issue was continued usage of this master xref after the visretain was set to 1 and the drawings within it were not reffed in correctly.