Performance and industry compatibility are key factors for the Model Derivative extractors. With that in mind, as announced here, the DWG extractor is preparing to roll out a few important changes: moving to SmartPDF for 2D views and reducing number of properties extracted. Please refer to the original call for feedback for additional details. This article will review details about the upcoming changes: (1) different dbIds; (2) different output visual in Viewer; and (3) which properties are no longer extracted.
Existing translations will not be affected, only for newly translated models. For ACC projects, this change will rollout gradually. If any of those changes affect your workflow, or if you are unsure, please reach APS.Help@autodesk.com for additional feedback & support.
1. Different dbIds
When a model is translated, a sequential id is assigned to each element. Although not guaranteed, when the exact same model is translated twice, the dbIds remains the same. With this move to SmartPDF, an entity in the DWG will have different dbIds. If your workflow depends on those values, changes will be required. As an example, the following image shows the same element with different dbId, for current and next behavior.
2. Visualization of drawing boundaries
DWG files translated with the next extractor will have a white background indicanting the drawing area, and a gray background indicanting outbound area. The following images demonstrate this new behavior:
3. Eliminated properties
The most significant change is reducing the number of properties extracted for each element in the DWG model. During the first years of Forge (now Autodesk Platform Services) we learned that many properties are never used, consuming precious extractor resourcesresources, and causing excessive extraction time. Most non-semantical properties will no longer be extracted. As an example, the following tables shows what it looks like today (current) and what is expected to be (next) for typical LINE.
| Current | |||||||
| displayName | displayValue | displayCategory | attributeName | type | units | hidden | precision |
| parent | 8 | __parent__ | parent | 11 | 1 | 0 | |
| viewable_in | Model | __viewable_in__ | viewable_in | 20 | 1 | 0 | |
| viewable_in | Model-3D | __viewable_in__ | viewable_in | 20 | 1 | 0 | |
| elementId | 29B | elementId | 20 | 1 | 0 | ||
| type | AcDbLine | type | 20 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Handle | 29b | General | Handle | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Name | Line | General | Name | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Color | ByLayer | General | Color | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Layer | 0 | General | Layer | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Linetype | ByLayer | General | Linetype | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Linetype scale | 1 | General | Linetype scale | 3 | false | 0 | |
| Plot style | ByColor | General | Plot style | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Lineweight | ByLayer | General | Lineweight | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Transparency | ByLayer | General | Transparency | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Thickness | 0 | General | Thickness | 3 | mm | false | 0 |
| Material | ByLayer | 3D Visualization | Material | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Length | 338.0314756820202 | Geometry | Length | 3 | mm | false | 0 |
| Angle | 274.6012071318744 | Geometry | Angle | 3 | deg | false | 0 |
| New | |||||||
| displayName | displayValue | displayCategory | attributeName | type | units | hidden | precision |
| parent | 4 | __parent__ | parent | 11 | 1 | 0 | |
| viewable_in | Model | __viewable_in__ | viewable_in | 20 | 1 | 0 | |
| viewable_in | Model | __viewable_in__ | viewable_in | 20 | 1 | 0 | |
| elementId | 29B | elementId | 20 | 1 | 0 | ||
| type | AcDbLine | type | 20 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Handle | 29b | General | Handle | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Layer | 0 | General | Layer | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Name | Line | General | Name | 20 | false | 0 | |
| Linetype | ByLayer | General | Linetype | 20 | false | 0 | |