Understanding the AutoCAD links

BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise 2017 Configuration Guide

You are here:

Understanding the AutoCAD links

Meridian Enterprise provides multiple links for AutoCAD and its vertical market editions as listed in the following table.

AutoCAD links
Link	Filenames	Description	Documentation
Standard	AmAcad*.arx	Basic integration for standard AutoCAD, AutoCAD P&ID, and Plant 3D. Can also be used with the Meridian Asset Management Module.	The following topics in this chapter. Configuring the AutoCAD P&ID link BlueCieloMeridian Asset Management Module Administrator's Guide
AutoCAD Electrical	IcAcadElectricalExt.dll, IcAcElDocAccess2008.dll	Can be used together with the standard AutoCAD link in AutoCAD Electrical	The note in this topic.

Title block data synchronization is the primary configurable feature of the AutoCAD link. The link can synchronize attribute values in drawing title blocks with Meridian document properties. It is able to do this for AutoCAD and its different editions (Mechanical, Architectural, and so on) without requiring AutoCAD to be installed. For more information on AutoCAD attributes, see the AutoCAD documentation.

Meridian can synchronize property values automatically at key events in a document’s life cycle and manually using commands in the Meridian client applications and provided by add-ins installed in the linked applications. The synchronization events are determined by the document’s type, as described in Configuring title block updates. You configure the AutoCAD link by specifying:

Which blocks in drawings contain attributes to synchronize
Which attributes in each block to synchronize
Which Meridian property to map to (synchronize with) each attribute
Which direction to synchronize each attribute, from AutoCAD to Meridian or from Meridian to AutoCAD

Title block synchronization can work with one title block per drawing file and also when one drawing file contains multiple title blocks (layouts or sheets).

Lastly, the AutoCAD link can synchronize AutoCAD file (also known as Summary) properties and AutoCAD sheet set properties with Meridian document properties.

Note

For the AutoCAD vertical market editions (AutoCAD Civil 3D, AutoCAD P&ID) that create project files, consider using shared workspace folders as described in Configuring shared workspaces.

IcAcadElectricalExt.dll

Registering custom interface extensions

*.wpd

Meridian Enterprise

You configure the AutoCAD link by editing a text file in Configurator as described in the following topics.

Configuring AutoCAD document property synchronization

Configuring sheet set property synchronization

Disabling the AutoCAD link programmatically

Configuring automatic release from workflow

Formatting attribute date values

Synchronizing multiple blocks per drawing

Configuring the Application Integration properties pane