DWG file cleanup

[Dusan Kanduc]

Hi all,

I have developed some HVAC AutoLisp routines for drawing air ducts and
pipelines.
Usualy, client uses my routines for constructing air ducts in drawing, which
he receives from architect.

It happened that my routines behaved in very strange way if used in
architect's Autocad 14 or 2000 drawings. If the routines were used in newly
opened "clean" file everything worked just fine, but in architest's drawing
they begun to behave very strange.

I have purged the file but after that I still had some unused blocks in it.
Then I have exploded all entites and copied them to new layer and deleted
all unused layers.

Still no succes.

Then I have exported the needed objects as a block and inserted this block
in a "fresh" drawing.
That hepled a lot, but I ahve still had one unused block, which I couldn't
delete or purge.

Also, a client used my routines in a drawing which was created with ArchiCad
and exported to AutoCad14. It happened that my routines couldn't recognise a
simple line...
I had to export the file to ACAD12 format and reimported it to ACAD14.

Have you encountered such problems and do you konow of any better and more
elegant way to "clean up" a DWG file?

Best regards

Dusan

[Jim Claypool]

The fastest and most complete purge is to wblock the entire drawing.
(command ".wblock" "<DrawingName>" "*")
--
Jim Claypool
jcla...@kc.rr.com

"Dusan Kanduc" <dusan....@email.si> wrote in message
news:HhVI7.1300$x52....@news.siol.net...

[John Payne]

Might have unintended results if you don't thaw/turn on all layers before
invoking it.

[Paul Turvill]

Uh, no. The whole drawing goes into the new file regardless of layer states.
___

"John Payne" <cadman...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:tvad4p6...@corp.supernews.com...

[Jim Claypool]

Just to clarify this:

Only the layers that are being used will go to the new drawing
If layers are frozen and/or locked they will be removed if they are not
used.
Anything unused will be removed...layers, linetypes, styles, blocks etc.

--
Jim Claypool
jcla...@kc.rr.com

"Paul Turvill" <nos...@turvill.com> wrote in message
news:tvafbkm...@corp.supernews.com...

[John Payne]

not exactly, Paul, try freezing your dimension layer and defpoints, then
doing a
writeblock and open the resultant file...the dimensioning layer will have
survived
but did the dimensions?
Is defpoints there?

"Paul Turvill" wrote in message

[John Payne]

Jim:
do you use the international version?
(Just wondering why the "." before wblock?)

[Paul Turvill]

Yes. And yes.

As I said, everything (and as you clarified, that's in use) survives.
Defpoints will go away only if either (1) there are no dimensions in the
drawing, or (2) dimensions are non-associative (which, actually, is the same
as (1).
___

"John Payne" <cadman...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:tvajmdl...@corp.supernews.com...

[Jim Claypool]

I do not use the international version.
I use the "." before all commands to allow for commands that have been
undefined.
The "." will use the native AutoCAD command.
Without it you get an error if the command has been undefined.

In defense of my wblock solution for a complete purge
I just tested my wblock solution on a drawing with dimension and defpoints
layers locked and frozen.
If there is something on them, they go with the new drawing. If they are
not being used, they are removed.

--
Jim Claypool
jcla...@kc.rr.com

"John Payne" <cadman...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:tvan88a...@corp.supernews.com...

[John Payne]

Dunno' why, but that doesn't work for me in Acad 2K...the dims and defpoints
go away!

[Paul Turvill]

Can't vouch for A2K, but that doesn't happen here in either R14 or A2Ki.
Could you perhaps post a small drawing with one or two dimensions that
exhibits that behavior? I'd like to see if there's something odd about it.
___

"John Payne" <cadman...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:tvapd7t...@corp.supernews.com...

[Jack Goldstein]

There is an AutoCAD add-on called Superpurge. With it, you can
delete anything from a drawing, including active layers with objects,
lines, or anything else in that layer.

[Richard Olson]

My 2 cents,

I seem to come across the most unusual things... Murphy's law is how you can
predict my life. That said, I've seen a few things that have been
interesting to me, that causes odd behavior.

My most recent thing is that if there is a line in either a drawing, or
block (same thing essentially) that has the same start and end point, it
doesn't always show up. (perhaps never) It can make it look very odd when
you're trying to zoom extents, and you get a lot of blank space. The other
cause is text that has no actual text in it. (Make a text object. DDEDIT
the text object, and delete all text inside.)

Other things I've found is that you have to purge/all a few times to get
everything out. Reason being, if you have a block that has a text style
with it, you have to purge the block out, then you have to do it again to
get the text style. Sometimes the same is true with layers. An other
problem that you might find is that there's tons of drawing variables that
do so many different things (too many different things). If one of those
variables are changed, and you just assumed the program to work the way
you're used to not knowing about the variable, it might appear odd when you
get it back from someone who changes those variables.

I'm not sure how you found the unused block, but I'd be interesting in
hearing about it.

Good luck, I hope this helps, (although it might be exactly on the same
subject.)

Richard
Radio...@qwest.net

"Dusan Kanduc" <dusan....@email.si> wrote in message
news:HhVI7.1300$x52....@news.siol.net...

[Dr. U]

I just tried that with a dwg I've been practicing with, and it wouldn't
read the new dwg - it said I had to recover it; when I tried to do that,
it said it was write-protected. ACAD2000, Windows 95.

Thanks!
Rich