Expert: Bill DeShawn - 9/18/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hello, my problem is that an drawing from that converted with convertpstyles changes the rotation of text from dimensions and the position of the text from between the lines to over the lines. The drawing is made with an other cad-program. Only the command convertpstyles takes this effect.

ANSWER: Klaus:
Will it change your dimstyle settings if you use a _. in front of the command?
i.e. _.CONVERTPSTYLES

Also, if you have two sources (or more) of the dimension style and text style (like unexploded blocks or bound XREFs), and the source drawing being IntelliCAD, anything is possible.  I suggest renaming and redefining your text style with a new name (other than STANDARD), and doing the same to the DIMENSION style as well.  I have use IntelliCAD software as well and dimension styles are not identically responding to their variables.

Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for this answer. _.CONVERTPSTYLES takes the same effect. I use the command in the original drawing with no xref and the dimension is not a block. There are only one source but more than one Dimension style. After CONVERTPSTYLES or _.CONVERTPSTYLES command i cant see any difference in the Dimension style. Some information: it is a rotated dimension and has the german signs for architecture in metric dimensions. I also open this drawing in Bricscad 8.2 and also the converting has the same effect.

Answer
IntelliCAD is IntellicAD.  AutoCAD is AutoCAD.  They are very similar, but not identical.  Therefore, with complex objects like dimensions, which are very similar to dynamic blocks, really (because of how they react to user input), the things they do when we work with them will be different from one CAD program to the other.  My advice is to not work back and forth between AutoCAD and BricsCAD, but to decide on one or the other for any particular drawing.  If dimensioning is the only problem working between the two programs, do the drawing without dimensions and dimension at the end with one program or the other.  I keep my AutoCAD and IntelliCAD work separate.  I found that to be the best policy.  Some IntelliCAD consortium members have changed their advertising stategy from calling it an AutoCAD clone, to calling it an economical AutoCAD replacement or alternative.  This is a fair description of what they have.  I have noticed that I have had to change some of the dimension variables a bit when I work with IntelliCAD, too.  I have also notices that some system variables are "not yet supported" in IntelliCAD.  This might have something to do with what you're experiencing as well.  I have had particular problems with ordinate dimensions going haywire in IntelliCAD when you attempt to stretch them.  Therefore I don't use that dimensioning method very often.  I'm afraid there is no easy answer to this problem.  However, I would contact support from BricsCAD people about this problem, to see what they might say about it.  I think they broke off from the IntelliCAD consortium to persue their own path using the same CAD engine, thinking they can do a better job (2nd hand info).  Perhaps their support department might be able to provide useful advice on solving this problem

I hope this information has helped.

Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn