dwg export

[BruceKC]

One of our main clients requires that we send the plans to a structural engineer that will only work with dwg files.  Although it's a true pain to do that (because we send all layout sheets, plans, elevations and roof plans to the engineers in the  layout format), it is possible to do.  Does anyone know if if is easier to do that if we upgraded to Autocad 2023?  We use Autocad Architecture 2014 presently and we're pretty sure that once we move to Windows 11, our old Autocad will no longer function. It would be wonderful if every layout sheet in Chief would export to a dwg without loss of images etc., but presently that isn't possible as far as we know. 

[KevinWaldron]

You might try CADdirect 2024. Very much a looks alike to Autocad style program. You can also get Print2Cad which is a very useful program if your dealing with any conversion and several other features of PDF to DWG or Reverse.  https://solutions.backtocad.com/features/caddirect/autocad-versus-caddirect

 

kw

[BruceKC]

Thanks Kevin, I'll check it out.

 

 

[JKEdmo]

1 hour ago, BruceKC said:

We use Autocad Architecture 2014 presently and we're pretty sure that once we move to Windows 11

 

Bruce,

 

For what it's worth, I use Autocad Architecture 2015 on my Windows 11 system and it works without issue.  Granted, it's one year newer than your version, but I thought I'd post to let you know.

 

Jim

 

 

[BruceKC]

Thanks!!  I might try to do that.  Have a great week!

 

[ACADuser]

I send the plan PDF file as a reference to read any notes & pictures.

For the CAD, I'm lazy, so I export the layouts needed to CAD, open the CAD file & scale up by 48 for my typical 1/4" scale model.

The text does not scale up. You can grab all the text & change the font height.

Or worst case open each needed view in plan view & export that. (only if I have to)

If I do that I export all layers & all floors. The Chief layer names are hard to sort so I use a lisp routine to rename the Chief layers, sort the layers by floors & create Layer Sets to turn floor & disciplines on & off.

Lisp attached, should run on most CAD platforms.

 

Layer CA.LSP