Hello.

I'm working on several files that will have plot sheets laid out using Xrefs instead of using the old Multi Scale Plot routine. By saving GoToViews of each sheet with Xref'd portions of plans, and details dropped into a sheet layout with title blocks, I can Batch Plot the GoToViews both from within the file and externally.

I assume some or many of you have started to use this method for plotting (or maybe have been doing it this way for some time), as an alternative to MSP. I hope some of you can help enlighten me as one who is just beginning to tread this path.

One assumed advantage of this method is that it should be easier to export our sheets to .dwg as they should appear, instead of making the Acad user on the receiving end sort out all the details on the sheet.

For some reason I have not been able to get this to work, however. (The exporting, that is).

One problem I'm having is that the .dwg viewer programs I have (don't have Acad, but use Voloview, eDrawings, and Free DWG Viewer) cannot seem to find some or all of the referenced files. I see that Spirit automatically exports the referenced files as .dwgs into the same folder as the main file, but does the main file then know to look for those as .dwg's, or is it still looking for .s12 files as the referenced files maybe?

Are clip cubes of Xrefs (X-Cubes?) recognized in the resultant .dwgs? So far I can't see that they are.

It seems that there are unnecessary .dwg's created of nested Xref'd files. In other words, I think Spirit is exporting all referenced files, and the files that are referenced within those files, regardless of whether they are on layers that are "active" within the first references? (Sorry if that sounds confusing). Is there a way to control how Spirit converts Xrefs and nested Xrefs?

Also, does Spirit export view settings so the Acad user can choose different views (layouts?) as my sheets should appear? Or does the end user have to toggle layers on/off to get the sheets they want to view/print?

I think it would be very helpful to learn more about this process- maybe there is a tutorial that explains it somewhere? Spiritpedia?
If not, can someone at Spirit come up with one when they get a break from V. 14?

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Christopher Dickson
Camille-Alberice Architects
Asheville, NC USA

Hi Chris

There are a couple issues we can outline:

Spirit will export all required DWG's - including self references and nested references.
When you open the Master dwg file in DWG TrueView2 for example, sometimes the references do not appear automatically. However there is a way to load them. You will see a small icon at the bottom right of the DWG TrueView screen that when hoevered over reads Manage Xrefs. Click this icon to open the Xref Manager. Those Xrefs that have not loaded correctly, will probably have an Unresolved entry listed under the Status column. Select the unresolved Xref and then at the bottom select the Browse button to browse for the DWG file it is meant to load. Now the Xref status will change to Reload. You can also click the Save Path button to retain the new path for the xref. Now click the OK button and the xref will be correctly read in.

If you open the Layers Property Manager in DWG TrueView2 you will find and Xref node in the left Tree. Open this node and each Xref file from Spirit will be listed with it's corresponding layers in the ON/Off status when they were exported. You can click on each Xref in the Tree to see it's layers only and the on/off status of each of those layers. Xclips are fully supported, but not yet for Self References.

You can use the Layer States Manager in DWG TrueView 2 to create the equivalent of Spirit Goto Views.

Under Tools, Options, there are a variety of settings that can effect the working of DWG TruView 2, so I would check these out as well.

regards

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Gary Segal
Technical Director
STI International, Inc.
www.softtech.com

Hi Chris

Assuming Gary is right and unresolved references are not displayed in the dwg viewer program of choice then you could also go to the orphans menu and delete any 'orphans' and 'erroneous references' this should also fix the problem.

Also regarding Xclips, these are exported for external references and recognized by Acad and DWG Trueview 2 (not sure about other viewing programs), but x-clips of self references are not exported, this is a known issue hopefully to be fixed with pending release of 14.

regards,

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Warren Payne
Director
Ashton Mitchell Architects Ltd

Thanks for the replies Gary and Warren. I downloaded and installed the latest version of True View (v.2007, I think?), and I'm still not having any luck getting XClips to display correctly- the entire x-ref'd file is displayed instead of the clip of it. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

It'd be awfully nice to have layer status/view settings automatically export with the .dwg's so we or the recipient don't have to mess with toggling of 500+ layers in order to see the correct layout. Maybe something else for the wishlist.

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Christopher Dickson
Camille-Alberice Architects
Asheville, NC USA

Hi Chris

The reference file with the X-Clip not displaying wouldn't happen to be a self reference would it?

Regards,

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Warren Payne
Director
Ashton Mitchell Architects Ltd

My lack of Xref experience may be the problem here, but it think it is not a self reference. The X-Clip is referencing a file other than the one it is in.

However the file referenced does reference another file. I assume this means it's a nested reference?

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Christopher Dickson
Camille-Alberice Architects
Asheville, NC USA

hmm just tried testing some files, found that a drawing containing an xref of a drawing with a clipped xref of another file could be resolved in trueview via gary's method but if i referenced that drawing into another drawing it couldn't.

so in summary if you have drawing 'a' with an xref of drawing 'b' that contains an xref of drawing 'c' and drawing 'c' contains a clipped xref of drawing 'd' then export drawing 'a' to dwg format, drawing 'd' does not display in the dwg file of 'a' at least in trueview

not sure whether this is a spirit or autocad limitation

regards,

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Warren Payne
Director
Ashton Mitchell Architects Ltd

HI Warren

I've also noticed using xrefs in place of MSPs that if a drawing is referenced into itself - say a self-reference for a screened floor plan under a roof/floor framing plan - and then the total framing plan is referenced into a sheet layout as a detail - (so this is drg A into drg A = plan; then into drg A again for xref detail) - the screened floor plan xref wont display in the xref "detail").

I hope that makes some sense.

there are also some big issues with fills in xrefs not inheriting the xref highlight colour, but that's another story...

Steve

(resurrecting an old thread again)...

Anyone know if this issue has been resolved in v14?
I still can't seem to get X-Clips to export correctly into .DWG.

I'd like to move this thread to the Spirit 14 forum to get more input, is there a way to do that?

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Christopher Dickson
Camille-Alberice Architects
Asheville, NC USA

Hi Chris

As you can see the thread has now been moved to the Spirit 14 Forum.

As far as exporting xclips to dwg, there is nothing complicated about it. Simply generate the xclip and then export to dwg (ver 2000). Make sure that Automatically export reference files is checked in the export settings dialog.
I just tested this in 14.12 and it works fine when viewing the resultant dwg file in DWG TrueView.

regards

__________________
Gary Segal
Technical Director
STI International, Inc.
www.softtech.com

Hi Gary,

Did you test clipped nested reference files.

regards,

__________________
Warren Payne
Director
Ashton Mitchell Architects Ltd

Gary-
I'm still not having any luck. I'm using DWG TrueView 2007, and for some reason none of the Clipped Xrefs are showing up in the XRef Manager window. Their layers are listed in the Layer Manager list, and I can see that Trueview is looking for them in the command line sequence, but it can't find them or get Trueview to even acknowledge that they're missing.

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Christopher Dickson
Camille-Alberice Architects
Asheville, NC USA

I thought I would pick this up again because we use xref's often. I am trying to export to .dwg a spirit file with 20+ SketchUp components that have been imported into the drawing file. I am getting an error message that there is a problem with dwgdxfwd.dll file.

This maybe over the limit of the amount of xref's that can be exported, and it may be a problem with the fact that all of the xref's are imported from SketchUp.

We would be interested in know how other members of the forum work with SketchUp as a source for components to import into Spirit.

Thanks.