About Opening Designs From 3DEXPERIENCE

Opening a design copies it from the 3DEXPERIENCE database to your computer and opens or inserts it in another design open in AutoCAD depending on your choice.

Your preference settings and global preferences set by the Integration Administrator control the open process. You can open a design to download a file updated by another user or to modify the design in AutoCAD. The following topics are discussed:

This page discusses:

See Also
Opening Designs From 3DEXPERIENCE in AutoCAD
Inserting Designs From 3DEXPERIENCE platform in an Active Design
Opening or Inserting Particular Iteration of a Design
Opening or Inserting Designs from Workspace/Projects
Searching for Designs

In the AutoCAD toolbar, you can use the following menu to open a design:

Action Menu Description
3DEXPERIENCE > Open Open the designs from 3DEXPERIENCE in AutoCAD.
3DEXPERIENCE> > Insert > XRef Insert a design from 3DEXPERIENCE in the currently active design in AutoCAD as an external reference.
3DEXPERIENCE > Insert > Block Insert a design from 3DEXPERIENCE in the currently active design in AutoCAD as a block.

About Opening Designs With Attachments

Attachments are AutoCAD files that are embedded or linked to a AutoCAD design. When you open a part, assembly, or drawing that has a linked attachment in Connector for AutoCAD, then the attachment is also opened along with the model.

Attribute Synchronize

Attribute synchronization ensures that the attributes in the design file on your computer match the attributes of the associated ENOVIA object.

Attribute Synchronization is done each time you open a design in AutoCAD. If you are not connected to ENOVIA while opening a design, the 3DEXPERIENCE Attribute Synchronization message is displayed. Click Login to 3DEXPERIENCE to launch the 3DEXPERIENCE Login dialog box or click Continue Load to load the design without synchronizing attributes.

For example, the Description attribute in ENOVIA is mapped to the Comments attribute on CAD file and a User A modifies the Description attribute of a design Drawing A in ENOVIA. When you search and open Drawing A from ENOVIA while being connected, then the attributes are copied from ENOVIA to the AutoCAD file. You can open a design using the following menu:

  • 3DEXPERIENCE > Open
  • 3DEXPERIENCE > Insert > XRef
  • 3DEXPERIENCE > Insert > Block
  • Local file open in AutoCAD

The attributes are copied only if ENOVIA to CAD attribute mapping is defined for the GCO assigned to your role and the attribute on the ENOVIA object is different from what is defined on the CAD file.

Your Integration Administrator specifies which attributes and properties can be synchronized. See X-CAD Design Management Administration Guide for details on mapping attributes, and enforcing attribute synchronization

Note: You can also synchronize attributes when you save a design to ENOVIA.

Opening Multiple Designs

Using 3DEXPERIENCE Open or 3DEXPERIENCE Insert dialog box you can search, select, and open or insert multiple designs from ENOVIA in AutoCAD.

The Global Preferences set by the Integration Administrator or the options selected in 3DEXPERIENCE Options dialog box are applied for all the selected designs. Selected designs are opened to the working directory and are loaded to the active session.

Note: Preferences that are enforced by the Integration Administrator cannot be modified.

While opening multiple designs simultaneously, a conflict may occur if your business process is not enforcing the "Latest Version" rule. When a version conflict occurs, the version conflict is resolved automatically and the latest version is downloaded and opened.

Read Only Behavior

This section lists the behavior changes in the Open feature when MCADInteg-FileReadOnlyBehavior is set as TRUE in the global configuration object by your Administrator.

The behavior changes are,

  • The file will be read-only if the design is not locked by the user and checked out.
  • If the design is locked by the user, the file stays writable.
  • If you open or insert a design, attributes are synchronized even if you open the file from ENOVIA that is unlocked.

Read Only Behavior While Opening Designs from Local Disk

This section describes the behavior of the integration depending on the lock status when you try to open a design from your local disk.

When you try to open a design that is not locked by you then a message is displayed asking you to acquire lock on this design while opening from local disk.

  • Click Yes to lock the root document and make the document writable. All other designs remain in the original state. Attributes are copied from ENOVIA to CAD, only for the locked designs as they are editable.

  • Click No to keep the document status as read only. Attributes are not copied from ENOVIA to CAD for such read-only designs.

Opening Files in a Provided Folder

When you 3DEXPERIENCE Open a CAD file, it is downloaded in a customized directory. The path of the directory differs with every user.

Your administrator must set the below AutoCAD GCO flags as system variables using MQL:

  • The IEF-Pref-IEF-UserDirectoryAlias-Mode flag should be set to CURRENT.
  • The IEF-Pref-MCADInteg-CheckOutDirectory flag should be set to %LOCALAPPDATA% or any other local valid system variable.
    Notes:
    • In case your admin sets an invalid local variable, a message appears.
    • The Checkout Directory field must be activated in the Checkout tab.
  • The flag DownloadDirLocalVariable should be set to true in the AutoCADSettings.ini file

When you create, open, bulk download, or insert a CAD file, these files are downloaded to the provided path instead of default path C:/temp.