AutoCAD Platform Customization. Ambrosius Lee

Figure 1.13 Morethan one drawing can be checked for standards violations with the Batch Standards Checker.

Figure 1.14 Use this report to determine which files contain standards violations so they can be fixed.

      Translating Layers (Windows Only)

      Checking a drawing for standards violations is great for ensuring the files in the projects you create conform to your CAD standards, but working with drawings from a client or subcontractor can make this a bit more challenging, especially when it comes to layer standards. Over a set of drawings, you might use a few different dimension or text styles, but over those same drawings you could be working with dozens or hundreds of different layers.

      AutoCAD provides a tool called the Layer Translator that allows you to map a single layer or a group of layers to a single layer based on your established CAD standards. Once a translation map is defined, it can be saved to a drawing or drawing standards file to reuse on other files from the client. This tool can also be useful in transitioning from an old to a new layer standard that your company is implementing. The Layer Translator can be displayed using the laytrans command.

      Follow these steps to define a layer translation map and translate the layers in the current drawing to those defined by your CAD standards:

1. On the ribbon, click Manage tab ➢ CAD Standards panel ➢ Layer Translator (or at the command prompt, enter laytrans and press Enter). The Layer Translator dialog box (see Figure 1.15) is displayed.

      2. In the Layer Translator, click Load in the Translate To area.

      3. In the Select Drawing File dialog box, browse to and select the file that contains your CAD standards. Click Open. The layers in the file are populated in the Translate To list.

4. If your CAD standards file does not contain a layer you want to use as part of the layer translation map, click New. The New Layer dialog box (see Figure 1.16) is displayed.

      5. In the New Layer dialog box, enter a name for the layer and define the new layer's properties. Click OK.The new layer is added to the Translate To list, but it is not actually created in the drawing until it is used as part of the layer translation mapping and the Translate button is clicked.

      6. Click Map Same, adjacent to the Translate To area. This creates layer mappings for the layers that are named the same between the Translate From and Translate To areas.

      7. In the Translate From area, select the layers that you want to map to a layer listed in the Translate To area. Press and hold Ctrl to select more than one layer in the Translate From area.

      TIP

      If the layer list in the Translate From area contains a large number of layers, you can right-click the list and click Purge Layers to remove from the list the layers that are not being used in the current drawing. You can also enter a wildcard search in the Selection Filter text box to help you select layers listed in the Translate From area. For example, you can enter *DIM* to find all the layers that have a name containing the characters DIM some place in their names.

      8. In the Translate To area, select the layer that the layers you selected in the Translate From list should be mapped to. Click Map.One or more layer mappings are added to the Layer Translation Mapping list, and the layers selected from the Translate From list are removed from the list since they cannot be mapped to multiple layers.

9. Click Settings. The Settings dialog box (see Figure 1.17) is displayed.

      10. In the Settings dialog box, enable the options you want to use when translating the mapped layers. Click OK.

      11. In the Layer Translator dialog box, click Translate.

      12. In the Layer Translator – Changes Not Saved message box, click Translate And Save Mapping Information or Translate Only.

      • If you clicked Translate And Save Mapping Information, the Save Layer Mappings dialog box is displayed. Browse to a location and enter a name for the file. If needed, choose Standards (*.dws) or Drawing (*.dwg) from the Files Of Type drop-down list, and then click Save. After the translation mappings are saved, the layers are updated in the current drawing according to the layer mappings you created.

      • If you clicked Translate Only, the layers are updated in the current drawing based on the layer mappings you created and then the layer translation mappings are discarded.

Figure 1.15 Translating layers between CAD standards

Figure 1.16 Defining a new layer to use as part of the layer translation map

Figure 1.17 Changing the settings to use when translating layers

Chapter 2

      Working with Nongraphical Objects

      Nongraphical objects, also known as named objects, are objects that are stored in a drawing but that are not visually part of your design in model space or paper space. They do affect the appearance of the linework and annotations visible in a drawing, control which objects are displayed, organize plot settings for outputting a layout, and much more. The nongraphical objects you might have to work with in a drawing include the following:

      • Blocks

      • Render presets

      • Section view styles

      • Table styles

      • Text styles

      • User coordinate systems (UCSs)

      • Visual styles

      • Viewports

      • Views

      • Detail view styles

      • Dimension styles

      • Layers

      • Layouts

      • Linetypes

      • Materials

      • Multileader styles

      • Multiline styles

      • Plot styles

      Chances are, you've worked with many of these nongraphical objects and are already familiar with them. This chapter covers creating and managing the four most commonly used nongraphical objects: layers, text styles, dimension styles, and table styles. This chapter also explores the other nongraphical objects from the list and how you can work with them.

      Standardizing the Names of Nongraphical Objects

      The name of a nongraphical object is important to you and others who work in the drawings based on your company's CAD standards. Just as when you are naming projects and files, you should create meaningful names for your nongraphical objects so that you can quickly identify which object you need to work with and when. At a minimum, you will want to establish and use a naming standard for the layers in your drawing, since you can end up with dozens or even hundreds of different layers being used in a single drawing.

      Establishing and following a naming standard helps ensure that the correct objects in a drawing are organized on the appropriate layers; as a result, they appear correctly in the output that you eventually generate from a drawing. Utilizing standard names also makes it easy to identify which layers are used internally and allows your clients to efficiently use them with your drawings.

      As