CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTION 14

will place all elements drawn with pens 12, 13, and 14 onto the layer ‘CONSTRUCTION’ in the resulting DXF/DWG file.

It is also very important to think what one wants to achieve before actually starting the Pr oject. The #PENLAYERS is one very useful option by which you can achieve things not possible with other options. Read more about this in the ‘Setting up a Pr oject’ section of the ‘Workflow Models’ chapter. Also, consult the ‘Tips & Tricks’ chapter of this manual for additional uses.

The #LAYERCONV option

The option allows the user to perform layer name conversion during DXF/DWG Input/Output. Each line within this section contains two strings. The first string gives the name of a layer in AutoCAD and the second string specifies what the layer will be called in Ar chiCAD. The conversion works both ways.

Example:

#LAYERCONV

A1-WALLS “Exterior walls”

A1-FILLS “Fills”

A1-OTHER “Lines”

In this situation, all elements in Ar chiCAD on layer “Exterior walls” will go to layer “A1-WALLS” in the DXF/DWG file, element on layer “Fills” will go to layer “A1-FILLS” and elements on layer “Lines” will go to layer “A1-OTHERS.”.

Note: It is possible to specify the same AutoCAD layer for more than one layer. For example, the below commands in the configuration file,

#LAYERCONV

A1 “Exterior walls”

A1 “Fills”

will place all elements on the above three ArchiCAD layers onto layer “A1” in the r esulting DWG file.

Since the #LAYERCONV command, unlike the above #SPECLAYERS and #PENLAYERS commands, works during both input and output, the above example would try to place elements from the DWG layer “A1” onto three different layers when a DXF/DWG file is opened in ArchiCAD. The first command is executed, and when opening the DXF/DWG file in ArchiCAD, all elements on layer “A1” would go to layer “Exterior walls” in the ArchiCAD file.

The #LTYPECONV option

Commands in this section r egulate which line types in the DXF/ DWG file will be the equivalent of which line types in the ArchiCAD file. Each line contains two strings. The first string provides the name of the name of the line type in AutoCAD and the second string specifies the corresponding line type name in ArchiCAD. The option works in both directions.

Example:

DASHDOT “Dot & Dashed” CENTER “Double Dashed”

These commands will convert the ArchiCAD line type “Dot & Dashed” to line type “DASHDOT” in AutoCAD, and the Ar chiCAD line type “Double Dashed” to line type “CENTER” in AutoCAD, and vice versa.

Note: The ArchiCAD line type “Solid line” is always converted into line type “CONTINUOUS” and vice versa. On output, two more line types necessary in every DXF/DWG file are created: “BYBLOCK” and BYLAYER.” These are logical line types and have meaning only in AutoCAD.

The #SEARCHPATH option

Allows the user to specify directories or folders where files during or after DXF/DWG I/O are located. Such files can be of several type: line description files (*.lin), shape description or font files (*.shx), blocks or external r eference files – XREFs – (*.dwg, *.dxf), etc. These files are needed by the DXF/DWG files read into ArchiCAD.

The section can contain several lines, each of which pr ovides an exact path to a folder or a dir ectory. The program will know which paths apply to the Macintosh and which ones to the Windows platform fr om the difference in characters used in the specification

ArchiCAD 6.5 DXF/DWG Conversion Guide

of paths (on the Macintosh the character ‘:’ (colon) is used to mark a subfolder, while on Windows the ‘\’ (backslash) character is used.

Important: You must always use quotation marks for the path.

Example: “D:\ACADR12\FONTS” ! Windows “D:\ACADR12\SAMPLE” “D:\ACADR12\SUPPORT” “PROGRAMS_D:ACADR12:FONTS” ! Macintosh “PROGRAMS_D:ACADR12:SAMPLE”

The #NATIONAL option

All AutoCAD versions allow the standar d ASCII characters in layer , line type, etc., names:

- letters of the English alphabet (‘a’...’z’, ‘A’...’Z’) - numbers (0...9)

- the underscore character (‘_’)

When saving as a DXF/DWG file, all non-ASCII characters will be substituted with the closest matching character without an accent.

Example:

A German Ar chiCAD project file contains a layer named “Dächer” (meaning in English: Roofs). The saved AutoCAD file will contain the layer “Dacher” instead.

Localized versions of AutoCAD allow letters of the national alphabet as well. For example, if you ar e using a Ger man version of ArchiCAD and want to save DXF/DWG files for a consultant working with a German version of AutoCAD, use this command. Layer, line type, etc. names will go through without filtering the non-ASCII letters.

The #SOLIDFILLS option

This option allows you to save every fill into the resulting DXF/ DWG file as a solid fill. It is an option used only at exporting, and only has an ef fect if the version of the exported DXF/DWG is R14. With R12/R13 output, it is not consider ed. To use it, simply enable it in the configuration file by either entering it or uncommenting it.

Example:

Note: The appearance of the fills in the exported file is determined the following way:

1. If the export file is in R14 DXF or DWG for mat: a. If #SOLIDFILLS is ON all fills will be ‘SOLID’

b. If the Display Options of ArchiCAD or PlotMaker is either ‘UNIVERSAL SOLID’ or ‘SOLID’ all fills will be ‘SOLID’ c. If the Display Options of ArchiCAD or PlotMaker is either

‘EMPTY’ or ‘NO FILLS’ all fills will be ‘EMPTY’

d. If the Display Options of ArchiCAD or PlotMaker is ‘VECTOR’ SYMBOL fills are exported as ‘SOLID’ (AutoCAD up to R14 doesn’t support anything like this). All the other fills retain their original appearance (EMPTY , SOLID or VECTOR) e. If the Display Options of ArchiCAD or PlotMaker is ‘BITMAP’

since AutoCAD doesn’t accept bitmap fill patterns, they ar e exported as if the Display Options were ‘VECTOR’

2. If the export file is in R12 or R13 for mat: The #SOLIDFILLS option is IGNORED.

The appearance of the fills is determined only by the Display Options (even including ‘SYMBOL’ fills)

The #FONTCONV option

This is simply a section for conversion of TrueType fonts. The content of this section is filled with default values provided by Graphisoft.

The #TEMPLATE_FILE option

Allows you to specify a DWG or DXF file to be used as a template when outputting DXF/DWG files. With the use of such a template file, the resulting file can get the definitions of certain database items (attributes, blocks, environment swithes) from another DXF/ DWG file - called template file -, which can be desirable when working with consultants. The option works only at output. The section contains one dir ectory path that specifies the name of the file to be used as a template. The file name extension (.DXF or .DWG ) is ignor ed, the name applies to both formats. If ther e ar e two files in the same directory - one having the DWG and the other the DXF extension - the that is the same format as the tar get format (i.e., ‘T emplate.dwg’ when saving a DWG file) will be used. Make sure that the path is always between quotation marks. It is important to know that when you use a Template file, the resulting DXF/DWG file will have to be the same version as the

ArchiCAD 6.5 DXF/DWG Conversion Guide

Template file. This will be indicated by the fact that the version field in the ‘Save as DWG…’ Dialog will be grayed.

This option is important because it creates the connection between the Configuration file and the Template File. The connection of these files can be understood the following way: if we compared it to a dictionary the Configuration file would contain the headwords and the Template file would contain the exact

definitions within the file. You can read more about the usage of the Template file in the ‘Template file’ section later in this chapter.

Example:

“D:\MyWork\Template” ! Windows only

This will search for either ‘Template.dwg’ or ‘Template.dxf’ in the D:\MyWork directory.

“Work:MyWork:Template” ! Macintosh only

It will search for either ‘Template.dwg’ or ‘Template.dxf’ in the Work:MyWork folder.

Note: If either the specified directory or the specified file doesn’t exist, you will be prompted by the program to choose whether or not you want to continue saving the file without considering the infor mation contained in the template file. The #BYLAYER option

Use this option at output to get ArchiCAD to specify the BYLAYER attribute for the color and line type for elements in the r esulting file. This attribute has meaning only in AutoCAD and assigns to an element the color and the line type the layer possesses onto which the element is placed.

At input, Ar chiCAD will assign the color and line type values to elements that result from resolving this logical assignment. To use it, simply type it in the configuration file or uncomment it if it is commented.

Example:

#BYLAYER

The #DIALPARS option

This section is written by ArchiCAD into the configuration file when you click the ‘Capture Options’ button in the ‘Edit

‘Edit’ button in the ‘Details of Configuration File’ dialog. T o learn about its use, see the section covering the ‘Details of Configuration File’ dialog below. The effect of capturing the options set in the Open/Save dialog is that the whole content of the dialog becomes grayed. Users will not be able to change any of the options within the dialog except by going and deleting this portion of the Configuration file and r eturning to the dialog. This featur e is allows, for example, an office to create configuration files for data exchange (input and output) with each of their consultants,

captur e the settings of the dialog, and subsequently always use the same settings. Communication becomes more reliable and less prone to human err or. You can delete this line if you want to enable modifications to the dialog data.