Subscription Support has a different technician on the case. This time, my arguments stuck with him as he understood my observations and took a personal interest in finding the problem. It seems that some of the data contained custom objects that caused the utility to load an incorrect DBX. The solution was as simple as renaming the DBX before calling the utilities, and renaming it back when finished running. c: cd\ cd “Program Files\AutoCAD MEP 2010” if exist “AecModeler60.dbx” rename “AecModeler60.dbx” “*.dbxSAVE” CleanupRegapp.exe /c “D:\Destimation” CleanupScales.exe /c “D:\Destimation” if exist “AecModeler60.dbxSAVE” rename “AecModeler60.dbxSAVE” “*.dbx”
At this point I abandon the working WinBatch solution and opt for this more simplified solution, believing simpler is better. To arrive at this point took several guesses as well as gambling on a couple options. It also took not settling on failure. If you put your mind to it, these seemingly big obstacles can often be easily overcome.
Summary
I didn’t get into a great deal of all the details, rather just a discussion on the major points. There’s a lot more to the actual solu-
tion than was described here. For instance, the logs generated by the Cleanup utilities are renamed according to the date they are run, so I can check results from any night. This process also doesn’t clean the drawings of unpurged blocks, etc. This, as well as my process, could have been done with an AutoCAD script file, but Script files are a little more finicky, not to mention the large volume of files couldn’t be processed nightly. Even the ScaleLists now have a variable in AutoCAD that helps a user control and limit them so this piece could be left out if needed. Other things such as excess layers, materials, and blocks can automatically be purged when users open a drawing using some AutoLISP routines. There are a lot of options available and what you should do really is determined by your needs. While this article isn’t long enough to teach DOS batch file writing or WinBatch scripting, I will gladly share with you simplified versions of the files I’m using and attempt to explain them as best I can. Just email me and I’ll gladly forward them your way. CleanupRegapp Utility for AutoCAD 2010/2011 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13723477&lin kID=9240618
CleanupScaleList Utility for AutoCAD 2010/2011 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13723349&lin kID=9240618 CleanupRegapp Utility for AutoCAD 2009/2008 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=11807875&lin kID=9240618 CleanupScales Utility for AutoCAD 2009/2008 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=11062617&lin kID=9240618 Darren Young is the Systems Integration Manager for Southland Industries, a design-build mechanical contractor in Irvine, California. An Autodesk Registered Developer, Darren has been automating CAD systems in the Manufacturing and Construction industries for nearly two decades.
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