Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD

Sources of Blocks

Archibus ships with several equipment, furniture, and telecommunications block drawings that you may want to add to your floor plan drawings. These blocks are found in one of the following locations in the sample project. The location depends on your operating system.

This directory holds block drawings used by the HQ sample project, and illustrates how you might organize blocks that are specific to a project.

There are also a few block shipped with the product that are stored in the SmartClient/acad folder.

You can easily access these block drawings by using the Insert Block command and using the command’s Browse button to choose the block drawings located in these folders.

Storing Blocks from Other Sources

In addition to using the block drawings shipped with Archibus, you may want to use block drawings provided by other sources. For example, when you purchase furniture, the furniture manufacturer might provide a library of block drawings depicting the furniture you have purchased. As long as these blocks are in DWG format, you can add them to your floor plan drawings using the Insert / Block command, and use the Browse button to locate them.

However, be aware that Archibus commands, like Populate and Asset Insert, look for blocks only in specific locations. Smart Client looks for blocks in the "symbols" folder defined at the same level in the directory structure as the drawings folder in the drawingsFolderForSmartClient preference set in the \webapps\archibus\WEB-INF\config\afm-projects.xml file.

If the drawing folder preference for Smart Client is set to the default setting, you will want to store these block drawings in the \Archibus\Projects\<ProjectName>\symbols directory. If your default preference for Smart Client drawings uses a different path, create a symbols folder for the blocks using the same path as the preference you set for the drawings folder, such as:

Your System Administrator sets the preference for Smart Client drawings.

Note: When using blocks from other sources, keep in mind that the Archibus Smart Client Extension for AutoCAD cannot convert nested blocks (blocks composed of other blocks) to asset symbols.