AutoCAD Conversions

[Glewis]

I have an old version of visio which did not convert AutoCAD drawing to visio drawings very well. Does the latest version work better. Is there anyone who works with both of these on a regular basis and could help me decide whether or not to purchase a newer version of Visio. I can't take a lifetime to get good at AutoCAD.

 

[Randall Arnold]

The results depend on what you are doing and what you expect. If you stick
to basic drawing elements, the results are usually pretty good in my
experience. My problems have involved the conversion of text, tables, and
dimensions-- they tend to get mislocated, arbitrarily resized, etc. Your
mileage may vary.

I turned in a bug report of my encounters during the 2003 beta. Hopefully
they'll be addressed.

Randall Arnold

I have an old version of visio which did not convert AutoCAD drawing to

visio drawings very well. Does the latest version work better. Is there
anyone who works with both of these on a regular basis and could help me
decide whether or not to purchase a newer version of Visio. I can't take a
lifetime to get good at AutoCAD.

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Visio 2003 has a substantially improved AutoCAD converter that generates
much better DWG output than in the past. However, I usually caution each
user to try it for themselves before making judgements. AutoCAD and Visio
are two very rich drawing programs that describe information in completely
different ways. You will always lose something in the translation of data.
Our intent is to strive for visual fidelity.

--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

I have an old version of visio which did not convert AutoCAD drawing to

visio drawings very well. Does the latest version work better. Is there
anyone who works with both of these on a regular basis and could help me
decide whether or not to purchase a newer version of Visio. I can't take a
lifetime to get good at AutoCAD.

 

[Jeroen Dekker]

Mark,

It seems as though the original poster needs to go from AutoCAD to
Visio, not the other way around.

I'd suggest saving the AutoCAD drawings in a format like WMF or EPS
for import into Visio as scalable and editable vector graphics.

Jeroen Dekker

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Visio supports both import and export for DWG files. I explicitly mentioned
export because we did it very poorly before and substantially improved the
experience in Visio 2003. Our import was improved to a much lesser extent -
it suffered from poor UI more than poor translation.

I do not recommend going through an intermediate filter format unless you
are positive that direct DWG import or export is not working for you. Visio
can read the DWG file format and identify the object types in the drawing.
That information is much richer than a simple vector list. You will end up
with a better Visio or AutoCAD drawing by working with DWG directly.

--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Mark,

It seems as though the original poster needs to go from AutoCAD to
Visio, not the other way around.

I'd suggest saving the AutoCAD drawings in a format like WMF or EPS
for import into Visio as scalable and editable vector graphics.

Jeroen Dekker
--
Square One - The Graphics Connection
Visit http://www.square1.nl/index.htm
(e-mail address removed)


"Mark Nelson [MS]" <[email protected]> wrote in message

Visio 2003 has a substantially improved AutoCAD converter that generates
much better DWG output than in the past. However, I usually caution each
user to try it for themselves before making judgements. AutoCAD and Visio
are two very rich drawing programs that describe information in completely
different ways. You will always lose something in the translation of data.
Our intent is to strive for visual fidelity.