Resolving Autocad .DWG Detail Importing Problems

[ben]

In a Architectural office of 40 employees, we only have 2 Revit seats. In our lone Revit comdominium project, we are just starting to detal in 2d and will soon need to bring non-Revit savy detailers on the job. I'd like to hear from others who have incorporated this workflow successfuly. Have you been able to complete a drawing set with linked Autocad Details?

I've tried to link Autocad .dwgs and have encountered text probems. linked .dwgs seem to loose any text formatting resulting in text overruns on the inported drawing. Also, fractional text does not work; the "/" in 5/8 is replaced with a "#". Even patterns like concrete do not import correctly.

Are there other problems anyone has had?
Workarounds and suggestions would be most welcome.

[mlgatzke]

You are absolutely right. I've run into the exact same thing. I've even had some text spaces change to the box (representing unknown ASCII text characters). As far as the "/" turning to a "#", this is because AutoCAD understands that character to be a representation. Example: take one of your stacked Mtext fractions and unstack it. You'll have the same occurance. The only work-around I've been able to find thus far is just to have the text annotation done in Revit. Default dimension text seems to display just fine if unstacked in the original AutoCAD dwg file.

[BomberAIA]

The following is how I use acad details in Revit. I open a drafting view at the scale of the detail. Then I import the acad detail and explode it. I change all the text to Heavyhand. Then I change the arrows and dimension ticks to wide lines. I change the line weights of certain lines so the detail will read as if you have drawn it. I have a detail sheet w/ boxed out squares to locate my details. I open my drafting view and insert the detail on the sheet. You can also use some detail components in your acad details that you need. I have over a 1000 acad details in a library that I can use in Revit. I copy & paste the details from one project to the other.

[sbrown]

Open all your acad details and use the same text as you use in revit, now that acad uses ttf this isn't a big deal. Next remove any text with a width factor used since revit can't handle that. Make sure your layers are good and all the lines are "by layer" and you should be fine. I don't recommend exploding, it seems to mess stuff up for me.

[Cathy Hadley]

I've also run into some Mtext - right justified problems from older versions of ACAD. Along with everthing Scott just said, If the text placement is still ODD... I'll go back into the Acad file and explode the offending Mtext to Dtext and then it'll all come in as expected.