Why is the program switched from .DC5 files to .AEC
it's been a hassle to try to deal with this 2 file formats when we switched to datacad v11, I'm just wondering if that's going to change again!
most of our drawings were primarily done in datacad v10, thousands of drawings. is there a better way to switche the DC5 files to AEC?
Please any advise will help
:D
What I have done is to select all .DC5 files in a particular job folder using the right-click drag (Ctrl+A should also work) and then opening them. Once they are all open, I close Datacad with a "Yes" to the save all prompt. It takes a few minutes so I start one right before my break or lunch and it doesn't eat into production time.
May all your dimensions be the sum of their total.
THe reason that DataCAD changed the drawing database and file type is so they could change it to a 64bit database; aka double-precision. Also, they made many other changes that will be able to support new features; some of which are already in v11, and others that will be in future updates and upgrades.
They remained very loyal to the DC5 format for a very long time (v5 came out in 1990 or so?) -- which is a pretty unusually long time! AutoDesk changes the DWG format at every new version, and sometimes with some of the "sub" versions.
As far as moving your older drawings to AEC, there is really no reason to do it -- unless you need to use one, or part of one. V11 copies and then converts the copy automatically to an AEC, so that is pretty easy. (It leaves the original DC5 untouched!) If you still need to work on a DC5, then leave v10 installed on the machine and just use it, instead of v11. If you open a DC5 in v11 and do work on it, then there is no easy way to get the changes back into a DC5; other than using a DWG to be the go-between.
