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Solidworks to DWG dimension export problem

Question asked by Karl Sneider on May 31, 2011
Latest reply on Jul 26, 2012 by Vincent Pai

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When I export a dimensioned Solidworks 2010 drawing to dwg and open it in AutoCAD 2010 mechanical the dimension unit format appears correct until something is moved. When any dimension is moved it converts the dimension unit format from decimal (two or three place or tolerances etc.) to fractional. When I look in the AutoCAD dimension styles all of the imported Solidworks formats were converted to fractional but they appear correct until moved. Is there any way to keep this from happening? I realize this may be more of an AutoCAD question but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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Jeremiah Feist May 31, 2011 4:52 PM
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I don't have AutoCAD on my workstation, but the first place I would look would be the AutoCAD template file it uses to make a new file. I would also check in DWGeditor (or 2D editor depending on your SW version) templates and see what the dim style is set to.
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- Karl Sneider @ Jeremiah Feist on May 31, 2011 4:59 PM
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  I have the acad.dwt template file dimension style set to the correct style but it didn't change anything, I am not using DWGeditor but I might give that a try. Thanks.
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  - Jeremiah Feist @ Karl Sneider on Jun 1, 2011 3:29 PM
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    I suggested DWGeditor because I suspected SW may be using it (or part of it) to generate the DWG on saveas.
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    - Karl Sneider @ Jeremiah Feist on Jun 1, 2011 3:39 PM
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      Sounds reasonable, I need to install the DWGeditor and look into it. I guess I didn't install it because I already had Acad on my machine. Part of it may be installed with SolidWorks to do the conversion as you suggested. Thanks.
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    - Karl Sneider @ Jeremiah Feist on Jun 1, 2011 4:13 PM
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      It looks like DWGeditor was changed to SolidWorks 2D editor in SW2010 SP3.0. I'm running 2010 SP4.0 with expired service subscription now so I can't download and install it. SolidWorks now offers the 2d dwg editor DraftSight for free download but that shouldn't help my situation unless I can make the proper changes in there before opening in AutoCAD.
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    - Karl Sneider @ Jeremiah Feist on Jun 1, 2011 4:51 PM
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      Well, I installed DraftSight and opened a freshly converted dwg and it behaved the same as AutoCAD, so it looks like it's a problem in the way SolidWorks exports the dwg and dimension styles.
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Desiree Villeneuve May 31, 2011 4:56 PM
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If I'm not mistaken, this is indeed related to the styles that are set in the program that is viewing the files. I know in DraftSight, you could change the units and the style and then it would act normally. A bit of work, can you leave the Dims alone? Or do you have to make modifications?
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- Karl Sneider @ Desiree Villeneuve on May 31, 2011 5:07 PM
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  You are right it is set by the styles viewing the program, but why are my styles changed to fractional when they come in? I can go in and change all of the imported styles but that is a slow tedious process. It's even more annoying when they initially appear correct until moved. Most of the time they are left alone but if anyone wants to do a minor edit, all of the dimensions are converted to the wrong units. Thanks for the reply.
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  - Mark Reed @ Karl Sneider on Sep 7, 2011 11:40 AM
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    We are having the same problem. Customers don't like having to redimension. So far we have found that it is related to the custom "Overall Drafting Standard" setting in solidworks document properties. It appears when you save as dwg, it converts the dimensions back to "Ansi" so when you go to edit something in the dwg it changes it to it's ANSI settings. We use a custom style derived from ANSI so I think that is the problem. If you dimension the drawing in ANSI you should not have the problem.
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    - Karl Sneider @ Mark Reed on Sep 7, 2011 2:29 PM
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      I also use a custom style derived from ANSI and tried using the unaltered ANSI standard, makes no difference, still have the same problem of the units converting to fractional when the dimension is streched or moved (updated in other words). When the dimensions styles are imported into Acad or DraftSight, they're brought in as custom styles, SLDDIMSTYLE0, SLDDIMSTYLE1, etc. and for some reason all these stlyes come in as fractional no matter what they were in SolidWorks. The only work-around I have currently is to modify the imported styles to the proper styles (tedious and time consuming) or explode the dimensions before they are updated to "lock-in" their appearance.
      
      Thanks for responding to this old ongoing issue. The good news is I now have SolidWorks 2011 SP3.0 and they seem to have fixed the unit issue, but the dimension line gaps and extensions are converted much smaller (have to zoom way in to see them). I guess I can't have everything.
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Vincent Pai Jul 26, 2012 1:20 AM
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I recently had the same issue of the dimensions changing in a DWG file when moved in AutoCAD (Solidworks 2011 -> AutoCAD 2013). I played around for a bit, and found a very quick way to fix it. After opening the DWG file, do not move the drawings. Rather, go to Annotate -> Dimensions -> Update. Then select the entire drawing, and then right-click. The dimensions may change font, but the dimensions will still stay the same (will not change to fractions or disappear). From there, the objects can be moved however you like. Hope that helps!
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Solidworks to DWG dimension export problem

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