Page 1176 - Chief Architect Reference Manual

Importing 2D Drawings

A .dxf or .dwg file can be imported into floor vation Data. See “Importing Elevation
plan view, a Wall Elevation view, Cross Data” on page 1232.
Section/Elevation view, or a CAD Detail. • Text and Multi-line Text - Both are
®
Only drawings created in AutoCAD ’s imported as Rich Text and mapped to the
Model Space can be imported directly into Text layer. Multi-line text objects retain
Chief Architect. Entities drawn on the first their original width. The first font in a
page of Paper Space are imported as a CAD multi-line text object is applied to the
block and can be inserted into a drawing entire object. If that font is unavailable,
from the CAD Block Management dialog. Arial is used.
See “CAD Block Management” on page 329. • Unicode - Fully supported in text objects
Entities drawn on subsequent pages of Paper only.
Space are not recognized. • Blocks and Block Inserts - A block is a

External references (xrefs) are not named group of CAD entities that have
recognized by Chief Architect, either. been joined together to behave as a single
object. A block insert is a reference to
In general, all Z coordinates are mapped to such a block. Blocks are loaded by name.
zero. If an entity in an imported drawing has If a duplicate name is found, you can
thickness, Chief Architect ignores it. specify whether a block is imported under
a new name, replaces an existing block or
Supported Entities simply uses the existing block of the same

The following is a list of the entities that are name.
imported and how they are converted. All • Hatch entities - If Import Hatch entities
other entities are ignored: is selected on the SELECT FILE page of the
Import Drawing Assistant for a .dwg
• Lines - Both 2D and 3D lines.
file, Hatch patterns are imported as a
• Circles - Fully supported in 2D. CAD block consisting of solid black filled
• Arcs - Fully supported in 2D. polylines.
• Ellipses - Fully supported in 2D. • 2D Solids (Not ACIS Solids) - Fully sup-
ported in 2D.
• Spline entities - Fully supported as 2D
polylines. • Solids - A solid is a 3 or 4-sided filled
area. These are imported as 2D faces.
• Polylines and Lightweight Polylines -
Polylines are imported as polylines. • 2D Solids (Not ACIS Solids)
Bumps are converted to arcs. Line widths • 3D Faces/Polyface Meshes - A 3D face
are ignored. has its Z coordinate mapped to zero, and
• Lightweight Polylines - Fully supported imports as a polyline.
in 2D. • Dimensions - Rotated, aligned and 3-
• Points - Points are not supported unless point angular dimensions are supported.
the layer they are on is converted to Ele- All other dimension types are imported as
lines and text rather than functioning

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