DWG Export issues

[janunson]

Per Tatjana's request on this thread: http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=30805

Please post issues or wishes concerning improved DWG import/export. Prioritise the list by urgency.

[gibson.tim91884]

1. (from this thread: http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=31033) Make export work with shared coords and crop regions. Medium Priority. Has been submitted to support.

2. Export wall hatches to a seperate layer. Medium Priority.

[janunson]

Apologies, factory if any of these issues have been solved since i last ran up against them. But my list as far as i know is as follows:

1.Core boundaries of a wall should be on a separate layer from other layers. Hatches and fills need to be on separate layers too. While it's great to be able to set the different categories of wall layers to different layers, we need to be able to define a single layer that core boundaries land on and another single layer that wall fills and hatches land on.

2. Different instances of the same component or family should become different instances of the same block in AutoCAD. The block insertion points should correspond to the Revit insertion point, and the location should be set via location, not base point. This includes items like rail balusters.

3. Object Styles - I'd like to pre-define object styles by layer name, so that i don't have to set object styles for every individual drawing i import/reference. If i import 30 separate detail Dwgs, i don't want to have to change the linetype or color of a single layer 30 times, i should be able to pre-define the import settings for my office's standard layers. I'd like the option of treating layers this way AFTER importing as well. (this applies to linked files only. I'm aware that i can explode inserted files and get more options like this)

4. Export Filenames - Instead of the limited auto-naming options for exported files, I'd like to be able to define within a view's properties what it's export filename will be. That way i can batch export many files without having to rename every one to our office standards.

5. I would love it if we could set up a default export batch have an option to update all files in that batch after saving to central. (same way there's a checkbox for compact central file, and save local file after saving to central add a check to update DWG export batch)

6. Imported leaders and notes in DWGS should explode to Leaders and linked text in Revit.

7. Imported hatch patterns - I'd really like it if imported hatch patterns that are made from the same hatch definition could share the same definition in Revit as well... My list of fill patterns gets really long when i import a bunch of details. Also, some hatch patterns break when you explode them. (their appearance alters and they become unusable)

[deepikapadam]

I have some imported ACAD linework in Revit files. These Revit files are linked to one Revit Base Plan. The ACAD linework shows up in individual files, but doesn't show in the Revit Base Plan to which these individual files are linked. Anybody knows how to fix it?

[janunson]

2. Export wall hatches to a seperate layer. Medium Priority.I second that and add a "HIGH priority" to it! I'm thinking abou the vast amount of time and sanity i'd save not having to hear consultants complain about that... Hatches and core boundaries...

[gravelin]

Priority hight
choose an unit for the export in DWG
One autocad unit is Meter or centimeter or millimeter.

Il faut pouvoir choisir une unité lors de l'export vers autocad (pour le modèle ) et dire que Une unité AutoCAD correpond à telle ou telle unité de Revit.

[DanielleAnderson]

I second that and add a "HIGH priority" to it! I'm thinking about the vast amount of time and sanity i'd save not having to hear consultants complain about that... Hatches and core boundaries...

I'm going to "third" that request. Also, I'm not sure if this is possible, but when exporting annotated drawings to autocad, can leaders be preserved as leaders controlled by dimstyles? I find it to be a real pain that they come in exploded.
Also, the product of exporting elevations and sections could use some help--if one was drawing an elevation or section in autocad to begin with, one wouldn't necessarily put walls/floors/roofs on separate layers, one would put the section cut lines on one layer, and so on...This is where I find the subconsultants grumbling the most.

Wow--I am feeling like a real nerd--I took the day off today and I am here on AUGI. :)

[knurrebusk]

An option to export a clean/fast DWG that is manageable in a short time in MAX/Rhino/Inventor etc!

Just basic logic that make materials/shapes easy to work with in these applications.
I find myself wonder many times if I´m just stupid!

Is this solved in a way that I´ve missed, as site tools seem to be.
Or what is wrong with this fantastic community.

Seem to be an endless source of bright minds on this forum, why not find a sollution to long time problems that Revit suffer from.

If 3D-DWG export will be clean/mean I´m a very happy Reviter this year.

[Scott D Davis]

Wow--I am feeling like a real nerd--I took the day off today and I am here on AUGI. :)
Funny, I've met you and you look nothing like a nerd..... ;)

[DanielleAnderson]

Funny, I've met you and you look nothing like a nerd..... ;)

Okay, so now that I am on vacation here in San Diego and checking in on AUGI--does that make me a nerd? ;) (a bit bored at the in-laws tonight)

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Okay, so now that I am on vacation here in San Diego and checking in on AUGI--does that make me a nerd? ;) (a bit bored at the in-laws tonight)
Nerd status confirmed.
Wear it as a badge of honor.

[amara]

Export scale. Allow us to specify export units other than mm which is currently the case. I wonder how others are dealing with export scale but exporting is a real headache. I hope this will be dealt with soon. High priority.

[beegee]

Export scale. Allow us to specify export units other than mm which is currently the case. I wonder how others are dealing with export scale but exporting is a real headache. I hope this will be dealt with soon. High priority.
There were some solutions posted in THIS THREAD. (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=15015&page=1&pp=10&highlight=export+unit%2A)

[Chad Smith]

I just want the exported DWG to look to same as in Revit, i.e all the linework showing.
See this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=25068).

[janunson]

I just want the exported DWG to look to same as in Revit, i.e all the linework showing.
See this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=25068).IN addition to that linework problem, i often use solid white filled regions to block out linework from the model. It would be nice if all the solid white hatches didn't export as hatches, but just lines cut as they appear in the revit detail. same with draw order items, like hiding elements behind other elements. Especially the solid white filled region, though.. this shouldn't really export to AutoCAD, it should just cause elements to be trimmed/not exported for the same graphic appearance.

[Andre Baros]

1. Export using STB's vs CTB's. We stopped using colors to represent lineweight in the late 90's... medium priority since we are slowly stopping to use DWG as well, but still a real pain when we do work with AutoCAD.

2. The whole export to DWG to link to Max or Viz is embarrassing. I don't know if the problem in on the export or import side but the results are random. Sometimes a re-import works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I change one element in Revit but the export redefines everything so I have to re-assign every material in Max and sometimes it works and only the one element changes. Sometimes I wait 10 minutes to export, re-import and all the coordinates are screwed up, export again and it works fine. Sometime it works on the third try (I don't try more than 3 times, at that point it's faster to start over).

3. Apart from the reliability issue with exports/imports via DWG, I would like to have control over the Material exports the same way as the layer exports. In the revised material editor (it has to change at some point) you would have a section for an export material name for each material, and a way to sort by used materials.

4. Why just DWG?

5. High priority would be the ability to filter exports. To only export a single design option (just like with worksets) to export a file with design options as separate linked XREFs, to export just a single object, or just the selected objects, or just the visible objects, or the ability to export all worksets to separate linked files. The closest thing to options now is to create a new "export workset" and put objects there, then to move them all back to where they belong afterward.

[aaronrumple]

IN addition to that linework problem, i often use solid white filled regions to block out linework from the model. It would be nice if all the solid white hatches didn't export as hatches, but just lines cut as they appear in the revit detail. same with draw order items, like hiding elements behind other elements. Especially the solid white filled region, though.. this shouldn't really export to AutoCAD, it should just cause elements to be trimmed/not exported for the same graphic appearance.
Set your fill pattern to white.
Set the fill pattern to No Fill.

You'll get just what you are after both in Revit and on export.

This has always been this way except for a short time between builds around Revit 6.5/7. Complaints restored this little gem.

[JamesVan]

When you export using shared coordinates in the DWG options, hatch patterns are not aligned to project north - which is usually how the DWG's will be oriented when used by other parties. I believe this is the same for tags that get exported as blocks with attributes. There should at least be an option to allow for both alignments on export. This is particularly bad on model patterns such as glass patterns or floor tiles...high priority.

Shared coordinates with crop regions - must be fixed, high priority.

Hatch patterns using Autocad standard hatches instead of custom hatches so they can be edited later. Low priority.

[janunson]

Stacked fractions need the same support in Revit as AutoCAD to ensure good data round-trips.

[janunson]

Set your fill pattern to white.
Set the fill pattern to No Fill.

cool, thanks. Must be we're using solid.

[janunson]

Another DWG IMPORT issue - i get a lot of hatches and blocks that when exploded either shift location, or become unrecognizable. I think we should be able explode imported vectors without any changes occuring... of course for this to fully happen, revit needs import hatches as filled regions with drafting patterns in them instead of 'symbols' and would need to support complex linetypes, including those that contain SHX files and/or letters and numbers.

[tjk0225]

2. Export wall hatches to a seperate layer. Medium Priority.

I would call this a high priority.

In addition, I am having problems exporting from Revit when I have a DWG base file linked into my model. We are using existing DWG base files and doing tenant improvements to a number of existing buildings. When I export to DWg for our consultants, the new work exports, and the linked file is in the DWG as an XREF, but it isn't pathed correctly. Seems like the export should be able to handle this automatically. This is a high priority.

[rgesner]

We have to export for civil, structural, and MEP weekly. We always export the same views to the same locations and names and have to apply View Templates and make sure the correct detail level is set prior to export. We also have to open the AutoCAD drawing and set the UCS 0,0 after export.

It would be great if per view export settings could be applied that controlled the UCS base point, detail level, file name and location and automatically applied a view template to the export, and if we could specify the per view export setting to views in the Export View/Sheet Set dialog.

- Rusty

[rgesner]

The integrity of slab or roof edges in exports needs improvement. When they are contiguous with walls and other object lines, some of the slab or roof edge lines disappear from their exported layer.

Currently, to get continuous slab or roof edges in exported dwgs, we have to use a view template to turn off everything except the grid and the slab or roof and export it as a separate dwg, then export the rest of the view as another file and then combine the slab edge dwg with the main exported dwg in AutoCAD.

[rgesner]

Interior doors and interior walls need to export to separate layers from exterior doors and exterior walls. I have not been able to achieve this differentiation with export layer settings, except when Detail Level is set to Coarse, which is OK for Civil site plans.

[janunson]

It would be great if per view export settings could be applied that controlled the UCS base point, detail level, file name and location and automatically applied a view template to the export, and if we could specify the per view export setting to views in the Export View/Sheet Set dialog.

- RustyI would LOVE to set export settings and filename settings per view - would save literally HOURS on each project!

I hadn't noticed the UCS stuff... could be a problem if someone xrefs it and you ref their stuff back in, eh? Haven't seen any shifts, so maybe World UCS is ok, but the curent one is set by the view?

[tomnewsom]

4. Export Filenames - Instead of the limited auto-naming options for exported files, I'd like to be able to define within a view's properties what it's export filename will be. That way i can batch export many files without having to rename every one to our office standards.


High priority for us. All our views and sheets are named and numbered with our office system. When exporting to .dwg, the 'master' drawings come out with the correct filenames, but all the xrefs are named "xxxxx-view-1.dwg" and so on. It would be fantastic if the 'model' drawings came out with the same names as the views from Revit.

As mentioned above, linked dwgs from Revit don't come through with the right path at all!

Do we have any way of knowing if any of these issues are fixed in Revit 9?

[davidcobi]

I just want the exported DWG to look to same as in Revit, i.e all the linework showing.
See this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=25068).

I'll second that. I assumed the intended purpose of the PCP file was to accomplish this.


1. Export using STB's vs CTB's. We stopped using colors to represent lineweight in the late 90's... medium priority since we are slowly stopping to use DWG as well, but still a real pain when we do work with AutoCAD.

A lower priority for us but it couldn't hurt.

[davidcobi]

Stacked fractions need the same support in Revit as AutoCAD to ensure good data round-trips.

I have to agree. When we try to export revit details to DWG any text with stacked fractions disappears.

[Adrian Esdaile]

Exporting a Revit file 'masterplan' containing 35 linked Revit villas - all wall, roof and floor fill patterns (surface patterns) switch on by default and cannot be switched off.

We would really like to export the DWG wil no fill patterns (ie, switch them off in Revit - can't do that through linked Revit files) so the result DWG files are 250k instead of 12MB!

It seems that Revit creates a unique hatch pattern for *every* occurence of a fill pattern - we end up with literally thousands of hatches in DWG files, which we then edit by hand (yuck) to fix, because most email accounts in Australia will only accept a max. 5MB email. etc. etc. etc.

[d11sunshine]

I would like to know why so many unique hatch patterns for *every* occurrence of a fill pattern also. What's the point there? And when exporting to dwg I've noticed some don't show up. Apparently changining them by hand to all be one version on concrete instead of concrete2, 3, 4 etc. doesn't even help.
Anyone else have problems with filled regions not showing on export to dwg? Suggestions?

[ppaige]

Is anyone aware of a method to export a revit file by material? Topo, for example, all goes to the same DWG layer. I need it to split out so that grass goes to one layer, concrete to another, etc. The same is true of walls. Brick walls to one layer, metal panel to another, and so on.

[greg.mcdowell]

There isn't but I'd like there to be. Make using Impression so much easier.

[fnegro]

The integrity of slab or roof edges in exports needs improvement. When they are contiguous with walls and other object lines, some of the slab or roof edge lines disappear from their exported layer.

Currently, to get continuous slab or roof edges in exported dwgs, we have to use a view template to turn off everything except the grid and the slab or roof and export it as a separate dwg, then export the rest of the view as another file and then combine the slab edge dwg with the main exported dwg in AutoCAD.

Has anyone found any improvement to this workflow yet? Seems like it has been an issue for too long...