Topic: Attached Drawing Query to include "On" Layers (including XREFs)

[pacohaas]

I agree dan, like I said I am new to Autocad, so these requirements aren't coming from me.  They didn't even think of saving a PDF until I brought it up and I think the more they think about it, the more they'll realize that is the way to go because like you said, it doesn't make sense most of the time to make a change to an old drawing that you wouldn't want reflected in a new one.  I think what they're more worried about is the opposite: making a change in a new drawing that would be reflected in an old one, in which case PDF/DWF/Etransmit is the way to go, unless for whatever reason they'd want to change that "snapshot" independently of any new changes, in which case BINDing will suffice.  The reason I posted it here was that my boss came to me and asked if I could write a routine to query each layer in xrefs and copy everything from each "ON" layer to the current drawing, props to zoltan for the quick and dirty(clean?) solution to my original problem.

[ronjonp]

you never said, do your xrefs have some complex data in them somehow? some raster images or something?  Try a set that just has linework.

The data in the drawings is an array of a 4 point polyline (14000 of them). Nothing complex.

[pacohaas]

That's weird, I just made some drawings with arrays of 14400 4 point polylines each:

02/24/2006  08:04 AM           291,048 array1.dwg
02/24/2006  08:07 AM           295,151 array2.dwg
02/24/2006  08:04 AM           291,048 Copy of array1.dwg
02/24/2006  08:07 AM           295,151 Copy of array2.dwg
02/24/2006  08:20 AM           968,779 Drawing1 BIND.dwg
02/24/2006  08:21 AM           966,100 Drawing1 Insert.dwg
02/24/2006  08:18 AM            99,191 Drawing1.dwg
               7 File(s)      3,206,468 bytes

Total of 5 non-bound drawings: 1,271,589 bytes

I'm sure the difference has to do with the specific content though, as does all compression.

[Dinosaur]

I don't know if there is still any interest in finding an answer to the original question in this thread, but I have a suggestion that may work and avoid all of the binding of xrefs, etc.  It will only work if you can still open and save all of the drawings.  If you first open the xref and original drawings and make a group out of a selection set of all the visible objects in each, you should then be able to query those groups into your new drawing with "location all" and "property | layer | *" and "property |group | the new group names".  This is untested, but I think it should work.

EDIT

Upon reflection, there are a few things I must add.  First, I am sure you will have to attach both original drawings to the drawing set.  Also, there will be some problems with the original xref.  You most likely will have to change the drawing to have all of the properties match in both and make sure all of the layer visibility is the same.  This may be a non issue or a prohibitive chore depending on how different the layer states are in each and the visretain settings.  Any changes you make will have to be saved, so you may also have to make copies or restore backups after you are finished.