Hi,

Trying to export some drawings for client evaluation on AutoCAD.

Exporting the 3D Model seems to work fine. The 2D drawings not so much, see attached screenshots.
The dimensions are still there but f. ex. the preceding diameter symbol is gone on most dia. dimensions. Some other junk is added after the dimension, like in the top left dimension where the original says "Ø 55.00" I get "55.00 11." Tolerances are changed to some other garbage...

The callout ballons are drawn by me, not generated by the BOM feature - I gave up on that long ago as it's completely infuriating to work with. Upon DWG export the circles (and rectangles) grow and the text inside them disappears (maybe the circle gets filled, hiding the text?).
I traced the growing circles to flattening of the layer, but the disappearing text I don't know...

I should add that I have only opened/imported the dwg files in TCMP9, not AutoCAD, for review.

Ideas anyone?

Mats

Thanks Larry,
Your example shows that this is not a new issue.
Exporting to .sat is not acceptable to my customer. Program specs says it's compatible with AutoCAD dwg format, but apparently it's not.

- Tim, what's your take on this?

Cheers,

Mats

Question for Tim on this: When exporting DWG, the dimension settings in the current file are exported. However, if you're checking your export by reading it back into ViaCAD, do the default settings in the blank file take priority over the settings in the DWG file? I have seen this happen in other (high end) CAD products. A good way to check your DWG export is to install something like DraftSight and use it as a checker, or download the DWG viewer from Open Design Alliance. I have about a dozen different CAD products installed (several of them free products) - great environment for checking things out.

It's good to have programs to check your .dwg/.dxf export from Shark or ViaCAD.
But the big problem is the Shark or ViaCAD .dwg/.dxf export is not importing or
opening correctly in the customers AutoCAD program.
The only reliable test is to open or import the file in the software the
customer is using, or am I missing something?
And what do you do when you find out the diameter symbols are missing, the arrow heads are
missing, the text is changed, missing or on an angle?
Larry

Edited by user Tuesday, June 14, 2016 3:24:00 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

in general, don't evaluate DXF/DWGs by reimporting to Shark/VC or other CAD systems for avoiding errors created by their import filters, use a dedicated DXF/DWG viewer instead:

• the reference: Autodesk DWG TrueView (a stripped down AC)
• alternatively: OpenDesign Teigha Viewer avail. for macOS too (DXF/DWG toolkit is used by Shark/VC)

be aware, that the DXF/DWG format, as the industry standard for 2D CAD data exchange, is covering an intersection of element types only if exchanging data between different CAx systems. Geometry typically work fine whereas e.g. formattings/styles of text/dims/hatches or worse proprietary element types as e.g. Autodesk ARX objects etc. might not resp. not fully supported. Knowing this, the only way to achieve a 100% data exchange is to use the same program in the same revision on the same platform...

... vanishing special characters in text/dims/layer names as e.g. the diameter symbol might already be caused by the character encoding of different platforms, i.e. creating stuff under macOS and opening under Windows.

Edited by user Wednesday, June 15, 2016 4:47:38 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified