Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published July 2009

Dismantling AEC_WALL Objects from AutoCAD Architecture

If you have vanilla AutoCAD and you get a file created using AutoCAD Architecture, you will probably encounter difficulty in editing the walls. Upon further investigation, you may discover the wall objects are called AEC_WALL. You will get ‘unexpected results’ when you go to edit their hatch pattern or wall geometry.

To that end, here are the steps I would use to effectively ‘dismantle’ their unique AEC_WALL identity. It essentially involves a series of Explode commands, but it's important to know what's underneath.

Disclaimer: This review is not intended to rile the passions of those using AutoCAD Architecture and who need the drawing returned in the original condition. The intent is to present a solution to those who need to edit AA drawings that were provided to them, but will not be required to return the drawing to the original source.

Instructions to Dismantle AEC_Walls

1. Click on the wall in question, then open Properties. You may see that it is a Block Reference inserted on Layer 0.

   

   If that's the condition you have, Explode that block reference. If you click on the wall after exploding and you see another block reference (with a different name), Explode that block reference.

   

2. Click on the wall again, open Properties and identify that you now have objects named AEC_WALL. There is a good chance that all the AEC_WALL objects are on a specific layer.

3. Launch Qselect and set the following conditions, then click OK:

   Apply To:	Entire Drawing
   Object Type:	Block Reference
   Properties:	Layer
   Operator:	=Equals
   Value:	[the layer shown in the Properties window for the AEC_WALL]

4. With all of the AEC_WALL objects selected, launch the Explode command to explode the selected objects.

   Open Properties and click on one of the walls. There may now be several wall objects; all recognized as a Block Reference, on the same Layer, and all with a unique Name starting with *U.

5. Launch Qselect again, and set the following conditions, then click OK:

   Apply To:	Entire Drawing
   Object Type:	Block Reference
   Properties:	Layer
   Operator:	=Equals
   Value:	[the layer shown in the Properties window]

   

6. With all the uniquely named Block References selected, launch the Explode command to explode them down to lines, and possibly hatches.

7. Run the Purge command and you will probably have several Blocks you can purge, nearly all of them with the unique *U prefix.

Note: By way of comparison, an AutoCAD Architecture drawing with AEC_WALLS, when dismantled per the above procedure, went from 6.6Mb to 2.4Mb !!

Update: Within hours of the posting of this month's Corner, I received a very gracious email from Ben Douglas of Robertson & Associates Engineering, Ltd in Calgary, regarding a fabulous routine to expedite the above procedure. If you're dealing with an assortment of AEC_* objects, give the command –EXPORTTOAUTOCAD a try!! (The hyphen must precede the command name.) The integrity of the original drawing is retained and the command creates a new drawing file (you can name it what you want) after dismantling the AEC_* objects. Absolutely fabulous. Thank you, Ben!

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