View Bound XREF's that are now blocks

[princessmonsta]

Hi, I'm not a Autocad Draftee. I'm a document controller that is trying to ID the situation with 2600 drawings. Some files are so large - 250,000kb, they won't open. They have bound xref's in them. We want to ask the contractor to unbind them and attach them as normal xref's. I need to view if a drawing has bound xref's. I just want to see them as BLOCKS which I now understand they are. How do I do view the blocks that were once xref's? Is there a way to do that?

Edited July 31, 2013 by princessmonsta

[Dadgad]

Welcome to CADTutor.

 

An onerous task.

You are absolutely correct, that they would work a lot better if they contained XREFS.

I don't know a way to determine that, if you enter XREF at the commandline it will open the

XREF dialog, but once an XREF has been bound into a drawing it will no longer show up on this list,

because, you guessed it, it is no longer an XREF it has become a BLOCK REFERENCE.

 

There is a command which will convert an existing BLOCK REFERENCE in a drawing into an XREF.

Perhaps one of the lisp meisters on the forum could create a lisp to batch check through

all the drawings, and make that conversion as they are checked.

 

This sounds like a job for Lee Mac! http://www.lee-mac.com/index.html

 

I am guessing that with 2600 drawings to be dealt with, the scope of the project would not

prohibit a little paid programming to get you the tools you need, which you could then have in your quiver

for the next time this happens, as obviously it will. Who knows, next time it could be a LOT of drawings!

 

Lee is very talented, I would contact him and discuss the possibility of him writing a custom code for you.

His contact information is linked on his home page.

[princessmonsta]

Thanks so much for your reply. I guess I should have clarified. How do I see if an xref has been converted to a block? How do I tell? How do I see the blocks?

[Dadgad]

As I said in my earlier post I don't know a way to determine if an XREF has been converted (bound into) the drawings,

or merely inserted, as they would both then be identified as block references, once in that condition.

Perhaps there is a way, and somebody else will be able to tell you how, hope so.

[feargt]

Do you know if a specific naming convention was used for the Xrefs, that might enable you to check for specific block names in a drawing. Without code you could then look in the autodesk design center (command "adc") select the drawing, then select blocks and on the right you will see all blocks in the drawing with a thumbnail image. If an xref naming convention has been used and adhered to, you can then see if a drawing originally contained an xref.

 

For example an xref called Xref_Titleblock if bound will have a block name called Xref_Titleblock.

 

With adc you dont actually need to open the drawing itself.

[Dadgad]

Do you know if a specific naming convention was used for the Xrefs, that might enable you to check for specific block names in a drawing. Without code you could then look in the autodesk design center (command "adc") select the drawing, then select blocks and on the right you will see all blocks in the drawing with a thumbnail image. If an xref naming convention has been used and adhered to, you can then see if a drawing originally contained an xref.

 

For example an xref called Xref_Titleblock if bound will have a block name called Xref_Titleblock.

 

With adc you dont actually need to open the drawing itself.

 

Well done feargt, I have never used the design center, sounds like I should check it out.

I work with Xrefs all the time, but they are never bound.

[PotGuy]

Thanks so much for your reply. I guess I should have clarified. How do I see if an xref has been converted to a block? How do I tell? How do I see the blocks?

 

Lee also has snippets of code on this Forum, and to my knowledge not one has never worked! (I know, double negative!)

 

Have a search on the Forum, as one of these routines might work.

 

He's a fantastic LISP writer.

[RobDraw]

Thanks so much for your reply. I guess I should have clarified. How do I see if an xref has been converted to a block? How do I tell? How do I see the blocks?

 

You can check to see if the XREFs were bound by opening the XREF manager, type XREF + enter at the command line. If there is a list of files, then the XREFs were not bound. If the XREFs were indeed bound, they should be visible upon opening the files.

[princessmonsta]

That actually doesn't actually work. Doing that returns just the original opened file with no reference to bound XREFs. To view bound XREFs, click on Tools, AutoLISP, Visual LISP, View, Browsing Database, Browse Blocks. That shows them with the $0$. But thanks anyway for responding!

Bind

Converts a specified DWG reference into a block, making it a permanent part of the drawing.

The xref-dependent named objects, such as layer names, of the former xref are added to your drawing. In each xref-dependent named object, the vertical bar (|) is replaced with three new characters: a number (usually 0) between two dollar signs ($). The number is increased if the same name already exists in the current drawing.

[feargt]

Regarding Bind - that is dependant on what bindtype was set to....

 

BINDTYPE (System Variable)

 

 

 

 

Controls how xref names are handled when binding xrefs or editing xrefs in place.

Type: Integer Saved in: Not-saved Initial value: 0

0

Traditional binding behavior ("xref1|one" becomes "xref$0$one")

1

Insert-like behavior ("xref1|one" becomes "one")

 

 

 

 

 

Therefore if "1" was used, then based on the layers in the drawing alone you won't know if an xref was bound or not.

[RobDraw]

Actually, it does work if the XREFs were not bound or inserted.

then the XREFs were not bound. If the XREFs were indeed bound, they should be visible upon opening the files.

 

The information you show is only partially correct. If during the binding process the user chose the "Bind" option as opposed to "Insert". Using the "Insert" option eliminates those special characters.

[nestly]

Convert Blocks Back into Xref

[Dadgad]

Convert Blocks Back into Xref

 

Well done nestly, that is the express tool to which I alluded in my first post.

I still think that it might be a great idea to have somebody incorporate that command into a custom lisp or a script to facilitate

dealing with such large batches of drawings. If there are 2600 from just one vendor, it would be well worth having

such a tool on board. How many different vendors are there on the job?

[feargt]

If the contractor is responsible for delivering the drawings then surely the easist solution here must be to just request all drawings be resubmitted without the xrefs being bound? Or at least get the contractor to state whether all xrefs were bound or not. If the contractor says the Xrefs were bound then just ask them to resubmit the drawings (at their cost).