Read a Reference Drawing

Read or add reference drawing to a drawing window, either from the drawing archives, or by the file name from the folder. Define the drafting properties of the reference drawing and the visibility of the layers in the dialog box.

We do not recommend using drawing of a model as a reference drawing.

The reference drawing can be a Vertex 2D Drawing, a DWG or a DXF file.

1. Do either of the following:
   • Select Drawing | Tools | Reference Drawings > Reference Drawing.
   • Drawing tree - Select Reference Drawings, and select the context-sensitive Add Reference Drawing.
2. Define data in the Read Reference Drawing dialog box.
   • Select the reference drawing from the archives by selecting Read from the archive.
   • Select the description of the reference drawing.
   • Freeze the reference drawing if you do want to update it when opening the drawing.
   • Select the drafting properties of the reference drawing.
   • Select the visibility of the reference drawing layers.
3. Select OK.
4. Click the position of the reference drawing.

Dialog Box Options

File

You can open the reference drawing from a folder by file name. When you click the button, the Windows Open File dialog box will be displayed.

Vertex G4: You can select the reference drawing from the drawing archives, if you select Search from the archives. You can select the drawing from the archive by clicking the button.

Reference drawing description

You can enter the name of a reference drawing. Name makes it's easier to recognize the reference drawing, when you view the properties of a reference drawing added to the drawing by using the Reference Drawings> Properties function.

Select location

You can point the position of the Reference drawing in the drawing window, if you select Click position of the drawing. Before selecting the reference drawing’s location, you can, for example, mirror or rotate the reference drawing, or change the scale of the reference drawing using auxiliary functions.

Otherwise, the reference drawing is positioned so that the origin points of the drawings meet.

Use reference color

You can add the reference drawing to the drawing window either with reference colors or actual colors. The reference drawing is added by the reference color, if you select Use reference color.

Visible layers

You can select the layer, in which the elements of the reference drawing will be drafted. The Default layers or another layer will be selected by default in the field. If you select the Default layer option, the elements of the reference drawing will remain on the original layers in the drawing.

The default option selected in the field is defined in the setup file user/Setup with the keyword set.refpicleveldefault.on.

Freeze reference drawing

You can freeze the reference drawing by selecting Freeze reference drawing.

• When you open the drawing, in which is Freeze reference drawing, the reference drawing is not updated, even if the original drawing had changed.
• If you move the frozen reference drawing, it is not updated. Moving a Reference Drawing

Visible layers

You can select all layers of the reference drawing as visible All Layers.

If you want only certain layers to be visible, select Selected layers. Select visible layers by clicking Layer selection button. Select the visible layers in the dialog box.

Layers Dialog Box

Discard images

You can dismiss rasters from the reference drawing when adding it by selecting Discard images.

Faster opening of a reference drawing.

The geometry of a reference drawing can be maintained in a drawing, which enables reference drawings to be opened faster. When saving, the geometry of the reference drawing is left in the drawing. The geometry of the reference drawing will not be read again, unless the date of the file changes.

Define the keyword check_refdwg_date= 1 in the user/Setup file.