How do I convert Autocad drawings to editable Visio files?

[groo518]

I'm a longtime Visio Technical 5.0 user. One of the features of 5.0 we use
every day is the Autocad drawing conversion. When importing, you can either
import each layer into a "Displayed Layer" or a "Editable Layer." We import
into an Editable Layer on most occasions.

I downloaded the Visio 2003 trial, and attempted to import an Autocad
drawing, and the entire thing was imported as a picture, rather than
individual pieces.

I was interested in upgrading to the newest version of Visio, but need this
ability. Is there any way to do this, or any plans to add this functionality
back into Viso?

Thanks

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

If you right click on the image, you should have an option to Convert the
diagram. This then allows you to pick layers for conversion.

 

[groo518]

Mark,

Thanks for the reply. That is what I was looking for.

I did run into another problem however. Here is the what I'm doing:

I have an Autocad drawing with the image of a printed circuit board
(PCB) in it. I import the Autocad drawing into Visio, and then "Join"
all of the pieces. Then I apply a color fill to the "Joined" object.

When I do this process using Visio Technical 5.0c, everything works
as I want. When I do this using Visio Professional 2003 Trial, I run
into problems.

See the image at http://www.unsuave.com/~groo/PCBconvert.pdf

The top image shows what I get using Visio Techical 5.0c. The bottom
image shows what I get when using Visio 2003. For some reason,
the individual pieces don't join correctly, and so the color fill goes
crazy.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Thanks for the picture. That does not look good. It appears that some of
the line segments from the AutoCAD drawing have been created in reverse
order. If the same DWG file is giving different results in Visio 5.0 and
Visio 2003, then I would expect the problem to be in the Visio converter.

This is likely a difficult issue to track down, but you could try inspecting
the line segments before you Join looking for lines with the Begin and End
points in the reversed positions. If you want to e-mail me the DWG file
(remove "online" from my address), I can investigate further.

--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation

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