Convert layer names in (e) drawings to AEC cad standards but retain (e) viewport overrides

[tara.122699]

Hi
We have a set of drawings that is complete except we need to convert the layer names to new standards the AEC Cad standards. Problem is with the xref and viewport overrides. The existing overrides need to be retained. Anyone know of a way to do that easily or even semi easily? Someone has had to have had this problem before.

Tara

[dherbstr]

Create a standards file (.dws) with the "new" standards. Attach that .dws file to the .dwg file you want to change using the STANDARDS command. Once attached, click the "Check Standards..." button. This will allow you to change everything in the .dwg file that doesn't match the .dws file.

[david_peterson]

I'm thinking the layer translator would be the best solution if all you need to do is change layer names, colors and or plot/no-plot check box.
But I'm wondering what you mean by "over-rides". What are you over-ridding?

[cadtag]

But, will that break the viewport over-rides to the Xref layers? eg when XREFFILE|LAYER99 comes in as XREFFILE|A-WALL, will the over-rides applied still work, or will they need to be recreated in each viewport/drawing?

[david_peterson]

Not sure if that will. If you were doing this case, where you're xrefs have already been bond as a bind (ie bind as bind vs bind as insert), You'd would most likely need to recreate a translator file for each drawing. That would be painful. If you were to use the bind as an insert, then it should work since the layers are all in the drawing and named the same as the x-ref block.
If you're not binding them at all, you'd need to do this on each of the x-refs before hand; which you may want to do anyway. Part of this will depend on what your client standards are.
I did do a quick little test. If you bind as a bind, you can use the layer translator to remove the xrefile| name and push to a new layer or combine layers into one another, you can do that and it will stick. You just may have to do them 1 file at a time to ensure you've accounted for all layers in that drawing.

Edit post:
Let me re-phrase - you can get xreffile|a-wall to end up as a-wall. But if you had that layer turned off in the view port and you've combined it with a current layer that was on, I think you would loose those over-ride (Layer State). As well as if you changed them in the x-ref, you'd have to re-apply those layer states to your paper space drawing.
I hope this helps to clarify.

[cadtag]

no binding or inserting here - just attached and overlain xrefs. From what i see, renaming the layer in the Xref from Layer99 to A-Wall means that the overrides in the target file that reference XREFFILE|Layer99 now point nowhere, and XREFFILE|A-WALL has no over-rides.

[david_peterson]

Yep, that what I was trying to say. If you've modified the layer color (or I should say if visretain=1), you'll loose that. Only way around that would be to go into the xref and freeze/thaw layers the way you need them in that plot (target) file. There is no way to remove the "XREFILE|" from a drawing that has a drawing x-reffed into it.
But for that point, I don't think the standards checker would solve that problem either since you would need to change the name in the file being x-reffed and again loosing that connectivity between the parent and parent and host.
ie I think if this is the case you'd have to do this in multiple steps and also have a very intimate knowledge of the files you were working with.
I guess you could maybe write some lisp to read the layer states in the host file and give and save an output. Modify the parent drawing to get the correct layer names. Write another routine that would link the layer state to the new layer name (ie if a-wall = froze; then a-wall-stud = froze) and run that back through. I'm terrible with programming, but that would be the way I would envision it.
Make any sense to you?

[tara.122699]

I have two copies of my set of drawings. One is the original with the incorrect layer names. The other is the current working set where I have fixed the xref file layer names. I have been going into each viewport and saving a named layer state and exporting that to a .las file. Then I open the .las file and manually replace the old layer names with the new ones. Import that file into the current drawing and restoring the layer state for the viewport. It is a tedious task.
It seems to me that the CAD standards checking programs out there for sale, would have some programing set up to do this for you. I have spoken to 2 different ones and they do not. I would think it wouldn't be to awful hard to create a program to do this. But I'm not a programmer so I don't know.