Remove DWG Duplicates with DiscardDuplicate

Deleting Duplicate drawings in ARES Commander

DiscardDuplicate is one of the new commands of ARES Commander. With this new feature, you can clean your dwg drawings and delete duplicates with advanced options.

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When we make drawings in CAD It is possible that at any time we have duplicate entities.

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Just like in this case where there is apparently 1 circle.

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However, when we make a window selection of this “circle”

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we can see in the properties palette that there are 4.

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ARES Commander 2015 easily eliminates the entities that are duplicated.

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To select these entities we come here to the dropdown icon, where we find DELETE.

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Choose the command: Discard Duplicates.

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Where it says ‘ignore entity properties’ select ‘Layer’.

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and then choose the option ‘remove duplicate polylines vertices and segments’.

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Select OK.

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When we now make a windows selection of this circle, we see that there is only one left.

Another Example

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In another example, we apparently have 1 circle and 1 Hatch.

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When we select all entities, we see in the properties palette that there are 2 circles and 1 hatch.

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So, back to the command ‘Discard Duplicates”.

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We select ‘Layer’ and ‘LineColor’.

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We choose ‘Remove duplicate entities’ and click OK.

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Now we make a new windows selection.

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We then see that it is a single circle and 1 Hatch.

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This new example is different.

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We have a circle and above it, an arc.

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They could be considered identical.

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However, when selected, we see in the properties palette that we have an arc and a circle.

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We can go to “Discard duplicates” to use some of the options listed in the dialog box.

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For example, we can combine these entities so they become a single one.

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In this case deselect ‘remove ..’ and click OK.

Selecting a window

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Now we can see that we have a single circle.

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In this example, we have 2 rectangles.

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Perform a window selection to check that there are 2.

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By clicking, we confirm that it is a rectangle, which is a closed polyline,

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and this one just another rectangle.

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With the command ‘discard duplicates’ we can remove the segment that is common to these two rectangles.

Combining overlapping segments

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For example, this segment.

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We make a window selection.

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We chose “Discard Duplicates”.

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For that reason we ask ARES Commander to ignore the entity properties ‘Layer’ and ‘LineColor’.
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We keep this option so that the segments which are overlapping become one.

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Select the first option. In this case, it’s the segment.

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Select OK.

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When we move this rectangle, we see that the segment which was common to both has been removed.

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There are more changes than can be achieved using the command “Discard duplicates”

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from Ares Commander 2015.

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One is to merge entities that are collinear.

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Here, for example, we have 2 segments.

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We can transform them into one.

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To do this simply select the two elements.

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As you can see here there are 2 lines.

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Run the “discard duplicate” command and select “Combine collinear entities aligned end to end”

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Select OK.

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Now they are one.

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The same can apply to this also.

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We select …

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We see that they are two arcs

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Select “Discard Duplicates”and choose the same option.

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In this example we have a dimension associativity.

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Selecting these entities we find that there are two overlapping rectangles

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but this dimension is associated with one of these rectangles.

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We click and move one of its vertices to see how it affects the dimension.

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We see that it has no effect.

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However, if we change the other vertex

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the dimension changes, because it is associated with the yellow rectangle.

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So in this case, we want to remove the duplicate entity, which is the rectangle,

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without affecting the associated dimension.

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We make a window selection and go to the command “Discard duplicates”.

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We choose ‘Layer’ and ‘LineColor’ and “remove duplicate entities…”,

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but in this case we select” do not modify associative entities’

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and click OK.

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By doing so, we ensure that if we make a modification

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it is with entities that do not have other associative entities.

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We give priority to the yellow rectangle.

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Thank you for listening,

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and don’t miss our FREE trial of ARES Commander 2015, on our website, www.graebert.com

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