ADT2004 to ADT2

[mary.west]

I have worked out the various hoops of exporting from ADT2004 into a file that ADT2 can read with out generating Arx eNotThatKindofClass errors.

The remaining problem I am having is that both "aecobjexplode" and "AecExportToAutoCAD2000" insist on removing the AEC_VARS_DWG_SETUP dictionary, which means I lose my scale and units.

Any suggestions on how to maintain this data and still get a ADT2 readable file?

[aaronrumple]

You can't. You can only get a "flat" plain AutoCAD file down to R2.

[mary.west]

I agree that you can't do it with any functions provided by ADT.

As a software developer, I can write an app to capture all the AEC vars, save them as another dictionary or xdata in the drawing before the the export, and then restore them when the drawing is opened again. My question is, has anyone else done this?

Existing apps, code snips or advice are always welcome.

[aaronrumple]

...not even Autodesk. That's a huge project.

[mary.west]

Yep. But I'm making progress. For reasons beyond my control my corporation's 300+ cad users are split between ADT2 and ADT2004. My job is to make the dwgs portable without user intervention.

I have already automated the export so the users are unaware of the save back (beware rotated UCSes and set the reg vals so your xrefs don't bind, etc). Now I need to deal with the aec vars so that these dwgs do not create scaling issues when they are reopened.

Today I tried renaming the AEC_VARS dictionary before the export, but it still got removed. I suspect anything on the AEC reactor chain is purged, so I'll need to find another way to preserve the data.

If anyone knows of other export-related issues, please let me know.