Learn how to manipulate the import settings in CAD software, and discover how to adjust colors, layers and levels, import units, and positioning. This valuable tutorial provides insights on how to create customized settings to achieve the desired outcome in your CAD projects.
Key Insights
- Colors assigned in AutoCAD can be preserved or inverted when imported, providing flexibility in the visual presentation of your project.
- Import settings allow you to control the layers and levels being imported, with options to import all layers, visible layers only, or selectively import specific layers.
- Import units can be auto-detected or manually set, and positioning can be set to auto-center or manually placed, offering precise control over how your CAD files are imported.
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In this video, we're going to review some of the import settings. So let's just make a dummy view. Let's go to the View tab, Drafting View, and let's just call it Temp.
We're just going to test a few import settings. We'll keep the scale at 3 inches equals 1 foot 0 inch. Click OK, and we'll go back to the Insert tab and select Import CAD.
Let's just use that detail-soffit.dwg file again. Previously, we set the colors to black and white. If we set colors to Preserve and click Open, note that it preserves the colors that were assigned in AutoCAD.
If we set the colors to Invert, it inverts the colors that were assigned in AutoCAD. Let's go ahead and delete that. Let's go back to Import CAD.
The next setting in Import CAD Formats is Layers and Levels, and you can either set it to All, which will import all the layers in that file, or Visible, which will only import the visible layers. Anything frozen or hidden will be omitted.
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You can also select Specify. If you test that with detail-soffit, click Specify, and then Open, you'll notice it gives me a list of all the layers in that file, and then I can selectively omit certain layers. You uncheck anything you want to omit and leave the items you want to import checked.
Click Open and note what's been omitted. Okay, let's delete that and go back to Import CAD.
The next setting is Import Units. In most cases, you can use Auto-Detect, and that assumes that the units have been assigned in CAD or whatever software you're importing from. If the units haven't been assigned, you can specify the units directly.
One unit equals one foot if set to Feet; one unit equals one inch if set to Inch, and so on. You can set it to Meter, Decimeter, Centimeter, Millimeter, and so forth. The last setting is Positioning.
You can either use Auto—Center to Center, which is what we've been using, or manually place options. Manual—Base Point or Manual—Center typically gives you the best results. Let's choose Manual—Center and click Open.
You'll notice the positioning is waiting for me to place it, and my cursor is at the center of this file. So then I just left-click, and now it imports. Manual—Origin uses the origin of the file.
You can see with this particular file, the origin is at the top right. Just be careful with this one to make sure you know where the origin is relative to your line work. Now let's go ahead and delete this temporary detail view.
We just go into the Project Browser under Drafting Views and find Temp. Let's right-click that, select Delete, and we've removed that view. In the next video, we're going to look at exploding imported CAD files.