Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD

Publishing Drawings with Leader Lines

By using an AutoCAD command, the CAD Specialist can “turn on” leader lines to publish. Leader lines can exist on the asset text layer, or on an alternate layer. Publishing to an alternate layer requires running an additional command. When published, leader lines are included in the background material. Combined with text position, showing leader lines enables you to publish information about small rooms by placing the text outside of the rooms themselves. The way you position the text in CAD affects the output to enterprise graphics.

You can publish AutoCAD leader objects (leader lines) in output to EMF and SVG formats.

Note: Archibus does not publish Leader and Multi-Leader Lines

Publishing leader lines to SVG

SVG will output leaders regardless of the layer they reside on. SVG supports solid arrows in the output.

Publishing leader lines to EMF

If you want to publish leader lines to EMF, you must enable this feature and decide which layer you want to publish the leader lines to. You can publish to the asset text layer, or to a special layer if you run an additional command. This is described in the following procedure.

Step 1: Enable leader line publishing

Enable leader line output by running the following command from the Extension for AutoCAD. This step is required regardless of which layer you are publishing leader lines to.

AFM_ENABLELEADERPUBILSHING

This now becomes your default for publishing.

Note: If, at some point, you want to disable leader line output, run the AFM_DISABLELEADERPUBILSHING command.

Step 2. Publishing leader lines

• To publish leader lines to the asset text layer:

  After running the command in step 1, and drawing the leader lines on the Asset Text layer, you can run the Publish Enterprise Graphics Command to publish your drawings with leader lines.

• To publish leader lines on an alternate layer:

  After running the command in Step 1, run the following command to specify the alternate layer as the leader layer:

  AFM_SETOPTIONALLEADERLAYERS and specify the name of the layer. The entry for the name of the layer is case-sensitive. For example, you enter the “A-LEDR” layer as the layer to draw leaders.

  You can now run the Publish Enterprise Drawings command to publish your drawings with leader lines.

  Note: When publishing to an alternate layer, ensure that you are also publishing the Asset Text layer, so that the asset text is published as well as the leader lines.

  Note: EMF does not support arrows when publishing leader lines.