I need a GTM if available..... I need help importing DXF

[dshall]

Hi All,

 

I need a GTM if available.....  I need help importing DXF,  if you have some time between now (5:37 pm pst and 9:00 pst). please email me at 

 

dscotthallATmacDOTcom

[MarkMc]

5 hours ago, dshall said:

Hi All,

 

I need a GTM if available.....  I need help importing DXF,  if you have some time between now (5:37 pm pst and 9:00 pst). please email me at 

 

dscotthallATmacDOTcom

Worked it out I think. Double check the scale. Flattened it all, imported, then resized, copied the part ou need, and resized again. I may have missed size?? but appears ok. Back to home improvement now :)

site plan.plan

[dshall]

I saw nothing in plan.  Cid anybody else see anything in the plan?

[Alaskan_Son]

9 minutes ago, dshall said:

I saw nothing in plan.  Cid anybody else see anything in the plan?

Its all in a CAD Detail

[dshall]

THX

[MarkMc]

emailed you a fresh one with all layers imported instead of to single layer.

[Alaskan_Son]

A few quick tips for importing and inspecting problematic DWG and DXF files...

• It can be a very good idea to switch to a layer set where all layers are displayed and unlocked.  Sometimes the layers are imported otherwise.  If layers are locked or hidden, you'll be chasing your tail.
• Select All and Fill Window are your friend.  This will help you to get a feel for where everything is.  However...
• Chief has a difficult time dealing with VERY LARGE and VERY SMALL things so Fill Window won't always work and also, Fill Window only works to a certain extent before it needs to be reset.  If you're having issues, try to de-select, Select All again, and then Fill Window again.  If this still doesn't work then your selection is probably too large for Chief to deal with...usually because there are some objects in the file that are super big or drawn way out in space.  To help deal with this...
• Select All, Block that selection, and then open that CAD Block.  Inspect the size of that CAD Block, check Retain Aspect Ratio, and then downsize it (maybe by something like .001).
• Try to Select All and then Fill window again. 
• As soon as Select All and Fill Window are obviously working and manageable, inspect the extents of that selection by zooming in.  You'll almost always find your desired information in one of the 4 outside corners (almost always in the upper right or lower left in my experience).
• Once you find what you're looking for, you should be able to inspect the other extents and delete unnecessary/rogue objects.
• You may find that you need to explode CAD blocks to make all the above more manageable.  One easy way to explode all the CAD blocks is to select one and then use the Match Properties tool by using Object Type to select all the rest.
• If you can't seem to select any of the CAD blocks to start with (perhaps because they're too large), then just create one for yourself from scratch and then select that as your starting point for using the Match Properties tool.
• You may or may not need to repeat the exploding CAD Blocks step to explode nested CAD blocks.
• Throughout this whole process, remember that Select All and Fill Window are your friend.  You may need to use them multiple times while cleaning things up.
• Once you have things down to a manageable point, size the plan back up by the inverse of what you downsized it by(1/.001 or x1,000) using Select All and Transform/Replicate. 
• Inspect for proper scale and adjust as necessary.  It may be that you discover you just imported the plan at the wrong scale.  If this is the case, you may or may not want to re-import at the correct scale.

Hope that helps some of you. 

[MarkMc]

There were two main issues.There were some lines or other items, not visible in anything, that stretched out miles, maybe to infinity. The other issue was that things were on multiple work planes and at least a few objects crossed several Z axis so it was sort of a 3D CAD though it would come into Chief. Tried it in both Draftsight and nanoCAD, one could open it the other nogo.   When I opened it in TurboCAD at some point got a warning about selecting a 3D object in 2d but didn't get it. Later I opened it and rotated to discover the extra work planes. So then placed all on one work plane, then brought it into Chief. I was unable to find and remove the infinity line so after bringing it into CA resized by 0.125. Isolated what was needed, copied, pasted, resized.

 

IF I had not opened it in TCAD don't know if it would have worked regardless since I believe the "infinity" line (s) were on a work plane that couldn't be accessed, but I'm guessing there.

1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

You may find that you need to explode CAD blocks to make all the above more manageable.  One easy way to explode all the CAD blocks is to select one and then use the Match Properties tool by using Object Type to select all the rest.

That works well. There are quite a few blocks in this. If I were doing this completely I'd have cleaned it up in TCAD (Deluxe only) which will list all blocks with images of each and allows delete or explode from the list. I usually do layer clean up in CAD too, which one depends on the file and what I'm best at with which program. (sometimes wish I still had a usable copy of Intellicad

[Alaskan_Son]

 

23 minutes ago, MarkMc said:

There were some lines or other items, not visible in anything, that stretched out miles, maybe to infinity. The other issue was that things were on multiple work planes and at least a few objects crossed several Z axis so it was sort of a 3D CAD though it would come into Chief.

 

Try it again.  This time make sure all layers are displayed and unlocked, and use the CAD Block trick I mentioned above...

 

1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Select All, Block that selection, and then open that CAD Block.  Inspect the size of that CAD Block, check Retain Aspect Ratio, and then downsize it (maybe by something like .001).

 

...to downsize the whole thing before trying to further inspect and clean it all up.