Rhino -> AutoCAD - How To Maintain Sub-Layer/Parent Structure?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
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1

Hello,

I am using Rhino 8 and saving a .3dm file as a .dwg to share with an engineering partner.

It opens fine in AutoCAD but the layer structure is not maintained.

Specifically if, in Rhino, I have some layers such as Commercial, Parking, etc. as children of SITE

The hiearchy looks like SITE::Commercial, SITE::Parking, SITE::etc.

However, when opened in AutoCAD with the different export options I can only get the child layers by themselves, Commercial, Parking OR with a dollar sign symbol replacing the double colon ::

So, in AutoCAD they read as SITE$Commercial, SITE$Parking

Am I overlooking something simple?

Honestly, itā€™s been years since Iā€™ve touched AutoCAD so Iā€™m not familiar if thereā€™s a simple process to use the $ syntax to merge the proper layer structure or some other setting I am overlooking.

Rhino Layer Structure Example:
image

How it is in the .dwg in AutoCAD:
image

Thanks for your help!

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You could create group filters:

image

Search/Filter your layers:

image

Note the asterix placement.

Then you can select those layers and drag them into your new group filter (do like a shift+select, CTRL A works too I think):

image

Closest I can come to a solution to sort your layers. I was a bit miffed myself the first time I ever imported layers into AutoCAD. And Iā€™ve since been trying to come up with a scheme thatā€™s cross-compatible.

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Thank you @keithscadservices,

Well this is certainly helpful and I can utilize it in the meantime I am shocked there isnā€™t better interoperability with the layers from Rhino to AutoCAD as all the other properties (Visiblity, Color, etc) transfer just fine.

I would think the parent,child,grandchild hierarchy would be a give in but Iā€™m not a programmer so who knows.

@Gijs are there any open youtracks or requests that you know of to have Rhino to .DWG maintain layer structure?

Thank you all!

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Hi @michaelvollrath,

Given that AutoCAD does not have hierarchical layers, how do you see us improving interoperability?

ā€” Dale

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One thing would be to add an option to re-create the sublayer structure in the Rhino DWG importer when the layer names contain some ā€˜@ā€™.
I think itā€™s on the list.

Btw: why does it have to be an @ sign? Seems to be hardwired in the exporter. Make this configurable? A :: would look better, for example.

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I can make an AutoLISP script fairly easily that would change the layer names. Iā€™ve also created this less-than-elegant solution:
image

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@Eugen The exporter from Rhino to AutoCAD uses a dollar sign $ for delineation between parent/child.

@dale thanks for your response, I could have sworn CAD supported layer hierarchy but obviously it does not, you are right.

Is the $ dollar sign syntactically important? Or is there an opportunity for a user defined delineator such as - or :: or whatever the user would type as the delineation string?

@keithscadservices well a script structuring the layer hierarchy with append text as you show seems like thatā€™s maybe the best option for now because at least then you have hierarchical layers together in ā€œgroupsā€ and they still retain alphabetic sorting.

Iā€™d love to test out the AutoLISP script if youā€™d be willing to write/share.

Thanks!

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Right, thanks! Not too much prettierā€¦ =)

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I do agree, it does not promote great legibility which is why Iā€™m curious what it is doing from a code/syntax perspective