Topic: Learn XRefs??

[craigr]

I am somewhat embarrassed to ask this, but.....

Where is a good place to learn about XRefs? I have been pretty much self taught in AutoCad, (with much help from you folks), but never saw the need to learn XRefs).

I believe I understand the concept, but would like to learn the do's & Don'ts of them, & how to set up and maintain them.

We currently use NO XRefs, but believe they would save alot of time on some of our sites that we use floor plans for.

Any advice is very much appreciated,
craigr

[Greg B]

I'm going to say that with a few easy examples that AutoCAD users post on this site, you can get a better understanding of how to use them effectively in your drawings.  Once you're at that point, it's a lot of self-taught learning to make the best use of it for your own situation.  I personally thinking using any bought resource is a waste of money for something like xref's.

I'd give you more xref information, but my information would be faulty as it's for a different CAD Package.

Gluck!

[hudster]

What do you want to know, we use Xrefs on every project that has a floor plan.

[PHX cadie]

We are very similar, (no insult intended). I'm self taught and the Navy never used Xrefs, so my first job with a real Eng firm was OJT.
Think the first thing learned was to use title blocks as Xrefs. Saves allot of time on 50/100 sheets when a city Engineer doesn't like a word in the title.
As much as poss Xref at 0,0,0 and 1:1, (not poss when Xref'ing Eng dwg's to Arch dwgs, but 0,0 and 1:1 will save alot of frustration if a Xref is lost and import print setups)
Xref layers are like any other layers. The layer on/off, LT or color can be changed.
Sometimes after saving changes to a Xref, then reloading in the sheet dwg the changes still do not show (why I don't know). There have been times I've had to close each dwg then re open for the changes in the Xref to show, not often though.
I'll xref sheet dwgs to a site plan and force a dark color just for ref (that will never print) and ensure all the site sheets match the detailed sheets.

Xrefs are great tool and well worth the time to learn. I don't know of a book or tutorial, so ask away here! and good luck

[ProtoCop]

We quite literally live and die by X-Refs.  Virtually everything is X-Reffed into the sheets.  When you attach a drawing as an xref, you link that referenced drawing to the current drawing; any changes to the referenced drawing are displayed in the current drawing when it is opened.

[craigr]

One possible issue just came to mind -

Our Engineers & Salesmen use CAD Viewers, (Bently), to view & print our dwgs.

If I decide to start XRef'ing the base floor plan, is this going to be an issue for them?

craigr

[Greg B]

Shouldn't be, since most viewers are designed around viewing autocad files and all their quirks.  Layout Tabs.  Xref's.  Doesn't matter.

[PHX cadie]

Man! Stump me on the first one.
I know 0% about Bently. I've never had a print/preview problem, unless I accidentally put the xref on a no-plot layer.  To be safe, maybe a quick test before you invest allot time in this, xref a circle to a sq dwg and ask an Eng to print, they're not doing anything and they like circles and sq's)!

[craigr]

When I set these XRefs up & their paths change due to copying to a CD or a coworkers drive paths use different Letter assigned to them, will the xrefs assignments still be valid?

I'm not sure how the dwgs actually link up.

A real nice person on this site sent me a .pdf tutorial that I plan to read over this evening may anwer some of these questions. Hopefully I will be off & running with XRefs in the morning.

Thanks for all of the replies, I appreciate help on this and all of my other questions.

craigr

[PHX cadie]

At no job I have had did anyone reccomend "hard pathing" an Xref. Like you brought up, if the file are copied to a CD the dwg will not find them. The first place CAD will look for an xref, unless hard pathed, is the folder the dwg is in. In my current place we keep all our dwgs in the same folder with the xref files name starting with an "x" (xcraigsfloorplan, xplumbing, xelect). I didn't like having all the file in on folder, but I do now compared to plan b
Plan B, in CA, in each dwg we used projectname, say bentley, then under options support path "bentley" would be added to point to the folder containing the xrefs. This would have to be done for each dwg and each computer, so I have grown to like the x naming
Have fun reading!

[Bob Wahr]

When I set these XRefs up & their paths change due to copying to a CD or a coworkers drive paths use different Letter assigned to them, will the xrefs assignments still be valid?

Craigers,

Xref pathing can be done three ways:

No saved path - If the xref is in your support path it will be found, if not, it won't.

Relative path - Say your drawings are in Q:\projectnumber\a\dwg and the xrefs are in Q:\projectnumber\a\dwg\xref, if the xrefs had a relative path of xref\ saved, then if you sent the drawings to someone, as long as they had the xrefs in a folder named xref under the drawing folder, the rest of the path doesn't matter because the part of the path relative to the drawing location is right.

Full path - The drawing looks for the xrefs in Q:\projectnumber\a\dwg\xref only(more or less)

Regardless of how the path is or isn't saved though, if all of the drawings are in a single folder, they will resolve.

[David Hall]

even if hard pathed, if you need to etransmit, you can strip out the path when building your transmittal

[PHX cadie]

Not to steal his thread, but I think Craig has gone home for the nite, so......
What is the advantage (if any) of a hard pathed xref?

[craigr]

No, I haven't gone home for the night yet...

I just have to keep working & don't have the time to try your suggestions yet.

I was able to xref one dwg into the other & disovered that when you xref a dwg, only the items in PSpace show up.

One of my Engineers was able to view the XRef'd dwgs as normal.

I hope to come in bright in early in the morning and 'play' some more.

Thanks for all of the suggestions & any more that get posted.

craigr

[Krushert]

Okay here goes my two cents.

1.)  We xref our title blocks as mention before, you only make the change once and let ACAD do the rest when you open the Dwg or reload.

2.)  If we are working with multiple floor project we xref the column grid & columns into every floor plan.  We also put annotation elevations tags and full building section tags in this “base” drawing.  Again for the same reason as mention above in item 1.  When you have  7 floor plans for a 12 story building, it saves time and improves accuracy.

3.)  If we are working on a Apartment unit plan and typical we have 3 to 5 different types of apartments, every floor will have a different combination of these apartments.  We xref the apartment in and mirror and rotate and copy as required.  Again if a interior “Deeccorrraattor”  (sorry I cough spat there) makes a change to the toilet type or cabinet change it updates in the “host drawings”.

Now what hasn’t been mention here is the whole “Reference Type”.  You have a choice “overlay” vs. “attachment”.  Basically you can have an xref inside an xref inside and xref and so on.  Basically nested xrefs.   When you check attachment modem the first xref will show up in the last xref.  If you select “Overlay” the Xref will go only one level and stop.  You can have all sort of combinations.  I only mention this because the folks here at my office had a really hard time grasping this concept and with great fear of crashing ACAD.  When I first tried to suggest to use overlay you would of thought that the earth was going to open me up and swallow me.  I finally convince them by having an Dwg A xref into Dwg B then xref’ing Dwg B’s components into Dwg A.  No problems.

The only thing that sucks about xref is the whole visretain variable.  I will leave that to someone else.