forum.datacad.com

Hi DataCad cognoscenti,

I'm trying to import a site plan, and the surveyor sent me a 'dumbed down' version that shows the contours when viewed in AutoCad TrueView (but only after he dumbed down the file, but I digress... grrrr). Anyway, when I import the dumbed file, the contours disappear, and the layers with "contour" names have nothing on them.
Using Trueview, I can see the contours are really floating like a cloud above the plan (see images below) but they don't import. I'm thinking many of you know a lot more about this than I do, and perhaps someone knows how to deal with this. Or advise me to give up hope (hope being the most insidious of all evils, and the one left in Pandora's box) and turn to drink.

Richard Mauser RA
RAM Architects
Rochester NY

Although the civil may have "dumbed down" the file the contours are most likely "proxy" objects created through an Acad civil package. You'll either need to have them explode the proxies and then send you the file, or you may try having someone else with Acad (or BricsCAD possibly) open the file and explode them.

Thank you Alan,

Your reply got me googling and, is typical for me, I had a Dorothy Wizard of Oz moment - the answer was right under my feet. The way to do it is to adjust the settings in Trueview's convert command. For posterity, here is what I did:
In Trueview, click on the big D and select DWG convert; 1) select the conversion setup you want; 2) click on the 'Conversions Setup' button; 3) in the pop up window, pick the one you want and click the 'Modify' button to open another pop up window; 4) Pick the file format from the drop-down box, and check whatever else you want on the right. Then 'OK' to get out. Oddly, it doesn't stick with the 2013 format I selected, but the exploding stuck. Go figure.

I'm glad I was able to help jog your memory, and thanks for the steps to do it through Trueview!