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I have a recurring problem in Civil 3D 2011. From time-to-time, I have to attach to an image file (ie - survey plan) and draft on top of it. In the case of the current work I'm doing, I am making revisions to an existing drawing set. That said, we need to keep the original work, so I've saved the drawings to a new folder with a new name (indicating the date of my revisions). I have set "relative pathways" on the images I've inserted, and the drawing (technically) should go fishing for the images starting at the new save location. When I open the drawings however, the images are missing, and all I see is a link indicating where the images "should be".

In ArcMap, this type of problem is easy to fix. Does anyone know how to fix this?

I know this is a GIS community, but I figure some of you must use CAD too.

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  • Sorry .... I should add that if anyone knows a similar community of CAD users I could ask, that would be appreciated too. I have this up on my AutoDesk subscription site as well, but I've not received an answer yet.
    – Dano
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 15:37
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    civil 3d is a gis program, this forum will do.
    – Brad Nesom
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 15:47
  • AutoCAD calls it a "BIM solution". I'd say BIM is GIS related.
    – Kirk Kuykendall
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 16:26
  • It also conatins Map 3d (built inside). which will re-project, import, export, clean, transform, buffer, query,... the list goes on. yeah it's a GIS.
    – Brad Nesom
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 16:36
  • @ Brad -- True enough. Allow me to rephase. It would have been more accurate to have said that there are many GIS professionals who don't use CAD. Civil 3D, without a doubt, is a GIS program. I guess many of you actually do use it on here, which is also good to know.
    – Dano
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 16:54

2 Answers 2

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Keep the images in the same "relative" folder with your drawing. If you save as you would need to copy the image to the new "relative" folder if you want to use relative paths.

Relative pathways as far as I understand does not "fish" for locations.
It will look in the set image path, or the "relative path".
(which means the same folder location of the drawing).

To change the path you can use external references palette and edit the path to the correct one.

The other option is to have 1 folder location for all the images (ussually not recommended) and hard path that into your autocad profile. Or keep the images in the same "relative" folder with your drawing. If you saveas (the dwg) you would need to copy the image to the new "relative" folder if you want to use relative paths

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  • @ Brad - Thanks. I'm checking the link you posted now. I just don't understand!! All I did is save to a new folder. Why would this break this link to my insertions? Even the company logo is gone. The part that confuses me most is that this issue is not "consistent". It only happens "sometimes". At any rate, thank you.
    – Dano
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 15:53
  • This is frustrating!! I followed the instructions posted by Brad, and when prompted to select the image, my command line says "not a valid reference". This would not happen in ArcMap!! Even more confusing .... the latest drawing I opened was "only" missing the logo. The survey image was in place. In the last drawing, "all" images were missing!! I don't understand the inconsistencies. If I've made some sort of mistake I should be having the same problem in every drawing.
    – Dano
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 16:09
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    sometimes people insert logo images as an ole or copy/paste). There area a lot of varialbles to what you are trying to do. I have to admit that there are some things that are hard to understand. But the inconsistencies you describe are not with the software. They would be with the many different ways, formats and locations that images can be inserted as. slow down and look for the positives. negatives can always be found in anything.
    – Brad Nesom
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 16:28
  • I always attach to the images, unless they're georeferenced. In this case, I aquire them via the "mapconnect" command, allowing me to work in coordinate space. These images are sitting in a folder, and I simply attached them & adjusted the scaling. Nothing has changed, except that I saved under a new drawing name, and I did so in a new folder within the project directory. I appreciate the words of encouragement by the way.
    – Dano
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 16:45
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    The other option is to have 1 folder location for all the images (ussually not recommended) and hard path that into your autocad profile. Or keep the images in the same "relative" folder with your drawing. If you saveas you would need to copy the image to the new "relative" folder if you want to use relative paths.
    – Brad Nesom
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 16:57
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Another option to change/repair xrefs is to use the Reference Manager. This is a standalone program that is installed as part of AutoDesk. It allows you to repair paths to external references .Think of it as the equivalent of the ArcCatalog repair functionality.

You said "... saved under a new drawing name, and I did so in a new folder within the project directory..." If this new folder has a different relative path to the images the xref will break. Check your folder nesting level. Also double check that the xref is using relative paths and not a full file path. too for the DOS dots in the path name.

The conventions for specifying a relative folder path are as follows:

\ Look in the root folder of the host drawing's drive path From the root folder, follow the specified path .\path From the folder of the host drawing, follow the specified path ..\path From the folder of the host drawing, move up one folder level and follow the specified path ....\path From the folder of the host drawing, move up two folder levels and follow the specified path

Note If a drawing that contains referenced files is moved or saved to a different path, to a different local hard drive, or to a different network server, you must edit any relative paths to accommodate the host drawing's new location or you must relocate the referenced files.

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  • Thanks. that's a great suggestion too. The only problem with the other solution is that I'll be creating redundencies. I'll have folders with large file sizes duplicated all over the place. I shall look into this as well. I am very happy nonetheless. I found a solution here for something that's been a problem for months-on-end. You guys rock!!!
    – Dano
    Commented Apr 13, 2011 at 20:34

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