The Global ARCHICAD Community

[Ataman]

Hi!

This request is a response to the same dilemma a different user has been having a few years ago. I am working in Sweden as well, where regulations dictate that external doors, external windows, internal doors, and internal windows EACH must be on different layers in .dwg files (that's a total of 4 different layers). See this thread:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/vie ... &&start=10

At the moment there are 3 workarounds I know of, but neither would be beneficial for the company I work at (it would involve countless lost hours) :
1. Splitting each wall that contains a window/door in order to isolate the window/door and assigning different layers to the parent wall.
2. Going into the .dwg file and manually changing the layers line by line.
3. Assigning different pens to the different doors/windows and use "Create Layers according to Pen Numbers". We already assign autocad layers according to archicad layers so changing this would mean our company will have to rework all the settings from the ground up.

I am requesting feature in the dwg exporter to allow different layers to be assigned to windows based on the layer the parent wall is located on. Our company already uses different layers for internal/external walls according to Swedish regulations.

Basically, it would work just like the custom layer section under Attributes > Layers > Methods where you can export windows and doors each to their own layers. Except there would be a new parameter (or a new column in objects list) called "parent wall layer" or something like that with the option to choose from any layer you have plus the choice "all other layers", which would be the default setting.

A user would have to create multiple such window/door layer export definitions in order to refine which windows/doors go where or simply just use one layer conversion definition with "all other layers" marked.

I might as well extend this functionality to skylights (and parent roof relationships) and the various door/window marker tools.

[ejrolon]

Off the top of my head the work around I would try to develop with the current tools would be the following.

For each Floor Plan that needs to be exported like this I would:

1. Create different Wall Layers for exterior and Interior.
2. Define Floor Plans Views that
-----2A Have only Exterior Walls On
-----2B Have only Exterior Walls On
3. Define DWG Translators that:
-----3A Export 2A with Window/Door Name - Exterior
-----3B Export 2B with Window/Door Name - Interior
4. Optional? Place Views on Layouts one on top of the other and Create a Layer set that turns each other off. One of them should also turn off the Sheet Title etc.
-----4A Exterior Layer Set - Only Exterior Walls View and Sheet is On
-----4B Interior Layer Set - Only Interior Walls View is On

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The Export to DWG trick would be as follows using different DWG Templates in the Translator

1. Translator 01 - Will have your basic DWG template with door and windows layers defined as exterior (3A).
2. Translator 02 - Will use the Published DWG that use Translator 01 as a DWG template and will have doors and windows layers defined as interior (3B). You will need one of this per floor in the Project.
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Procedure
1. Publish to DWG the Exterior floor plan set with only Exterior Plan on (4A) using Translator 01. - This will give you a DWG with Sheet Title and only the Exterior walls. The result should be First Floor Exterior Walls (01EW.DWG), Second Floor Exterior Wall (SFEW.DWG), etc.
2. To publish the interior walls you will need to assigned the previous published DWGs to the correct Translators 02. "First Floor INTERIOR Walls" should have as template DWG (01EW.DWG), "Second Floor INTERIOR Walls" should have as template DWG (022EW.DWG), etc. In theory this should only be needed to do once per project per floor to be exported. The result after publishing this step is that the Template will bring the Exterior Drawings and Sheet into the Interior Wall exported DWG.
3. Once this is done to publish any changes you first do step 1 and then step 2.
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I have not tried to do this so there might be some limitations or errors in my thinking but based on what I know it just might work. DOn't forget to vote on your Poll.

[Ataman]

Hi Ejrolon!

Thanks for your ideas. I think one problem with this is (I am thinking in theory, without testing it) wall connections between the hidden and unhidden layers get lost/messed up when you export and hide/unhide certain walls.

Then I thought of exporting everything except doors/windows, then in a series of exports only the windows/doors without the walls and then pasting everything together. Still a lot of work.

But then I realized it is simpler to simply edit the .dwg in AutoCad by hiding all the nonwindow layers to simplify selecting lines. Obviously it is still extra work after .dwg export and it might not be managable when dealing with dozens of plans exported to dwg.

We are still interested in seeing door/window export refined in the next AC version to enable layer-by-layer filtering.

[borki]

I believe the solution lies in that there is an export function that converts Archicad objects into blocks, which groups walls, doors and door stamps into one element. Choosing to explode these objects into lines and individual elements solves this. That choice resides in the 'Save Options' portion of the 'Settings' drop-down, and can be found under the 'Saving Floor Plan' option.