Trimble Business Center

I tried importing a dwg that contained what appears to be a xref block and noticed I was missing data in TBC. I went back to the original dwg with Civil3D, exploded the block, and reimported into TBC and I was able to get all of the data.

Is this a bug? Do I need to make exploding blocks part of my workflow in Civil3D?

I think that where XREFs are concerned, when you start embedding XREF material in a block in a drawing, unless you have all the XREF files TBC will not find the references so yes I would explode XREF Blocks in AutoCAD so that the source data is in the DWG that you import into TBC. Bear in mind that TBC can only find what is in the single drawing that is being imported - it does not look for XREF files and try to find data that is embedded in those files while bringing in a drawing - same with all XREF data - either you need to import the entire set of files that are referenced to a master DWG that you are importing - and even then stuff that is referenced and buried in Blocks will likely get lost unless you have first exploded the blocks (which should I believe give yo a copy of the referenced data in the current DWG. You can also create a New DWG by using Write Block and that will pick up reference data and output it to the new DWG file that is being created by the Write Block command - then the XREFs I think are no longer important.

I am not an AutoCAD or Civil 3D Wizard so Mike Carris may be a better bet to answer this more specifically - he is our resident Civil 3D Expert (used to work for Autodesk).

Alan

That has been a problem for a long time, not just stuff from blocks that are missing also other things. Our workflow with dwg:s is like this

1. Import the file in draftsight 

2. Explode all blocks and resave it as a new dwg.

3. import in a new TBC project and do the cleanup.

4. Compare the data in TBC with the original file (or a pdf)

5. Export as a dwg from TBC.

6. Import in your project. 

It takes some time but the result is much better. And we dont get the problems with stuff being left in the project because you have exploded the blocks and then erased the file. 

Have a nice day.  

I'm kind of dealing with this same issue right now. An entire design from an engineer is in multiple block references. Will it eventually bring in the Pipe network so I can export it out as an XML for use? I've been trying to just browse this drawing in civil and its next to impossible. (lagging)

Patrick

Have you tried changing Proxygraphics setting in Civil?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJvNq9qbbN4&t=771s

Yes. Ever since Mike Carris should me this trick I have made it part of my workflow. 

Civil3D does have an option to bind, insert and explode in their exporter but I have found their exporter to be very volatile.Pretty unfortunate.