Attributes (DXF/DWG Translation Setup)

There are five groups dedicated to different attributes: Layers, Pens and Colors, Line Types, Fills, and Font-Style Conversion. Each group consists of a “Method” set and/or one or more conversion “Dictionary” sets.
•
The “Method” set contains options to define the actual attribute.
•
The “Dictionary” set contains a list of ARCHICAD attributes and their AutoCAD counterparts.
Dictionaries are listed in the Attributes tree as “conversion” dialogs (i.e. Pen-color conversion). During Save, an ARCHICAD attribute found in the dictionary is renamed to its AutoCAD counterpart, and vice versa during Open. Attributes not found in the dictionary remain unchanged.
All the Dictionaries function in the same way:
•
Click New to create a new entry.
•
Click Edit or double-click on an existing entry brings up the same dialog to modify the entry.
•
Select one or more items and click Delete to remove them from the dictionary.
If you set up a dictionary, the entered attribute pairs will appear on the corresponding panel of the Translator.
The creation of dictionary items is performed in dialog boxes listing the available choices.
Note on Attribute Names:
•
ARCHICAD supports attribute names of essentially any number of unicode characters.
•
AutoCAD 2000 and later versions allow almost any character attribute names. Names can contain up to 255 characters. (Character lengths are halved for Japanese, Chinese and Korean versions).
Note on Colors and Fonts:
•
While ARCHICAD pens can be set to any colors you like, AutoCAD versions have set pen colors that cannot be changed. In AutoCAD 2004 and later versions, it is possible to define further pen colors by specifying RGB values for them. These pens will have a pen index number of 256 or higher in these programs.
•
Font names are stored differently in DXF/DWG files and in ARCHICAD. Even when one-by-one font matching is possible, a dictionary is necessary. (On a PC, ARCHICAD supports all available fonts including those installed by AutoCAD.)
•
Symbol line types are stored differently in ARCHICAD and in AutoCAD. Due to these differences, some of ARCHICAD’s symbol line types won‘t look the same in AutoCAD. There are two solutions to this problem:
•
Redesign the problematic line type until the disturbing differences disappear.
•
Set up a template file containing an acceptable substitution for it.
The following sections describe the method and dictionary (conversion) options for each of the five attribute groups.
Layers (DXF/DWG Translation Setup)
Pens & Colors (DXF/DWG Translation Setup)
Line Types (DXF/DWG Translation Setup)
Fills (DXF/DWG Translation Setup)
Font-Style Conversion (DXF/DWG Translation Setup)