AutoCAD Xref's via URL's

[PeteSmith]

Hi - hopefully we have a few AutoCAD guru's in the Hexus crowd. Basically i would like to know which versions of AutoCAD support xref's as URL's. We have been struggling for a while now to find a solution, we store our .dwg's on a documentum based webshare, unfortunately in doing so we break the association between the drawings and the master dwg. I have read that with AutoCAD 2010 you can put URL's in place instead of a local path, is this functionality new to 2010, or was it in place in previous versions. Unfortunately some of our remote users still use ACAD 2006 so the only options are local/network path, FTP and Buzzsaw - which don't really work with our setup.

[0iD]

As far as I'm aware this is new functionality. We use the Vault on a remote server to avoid this sort of problem.
But 2006 (which was my favourite rev of ACAD Mechanical), cant' cope with the vault anyway, 2008 on I believe.

[PeteSmith]

I will dig further to see if you can use URL's in 2009, hard to believe they have only just implemented such a simple feature.

Unfortunately i don't think Vault would really work with our setup. Thanks for your reply.

[0iD]

Last firm i worked for implimented vault thro it's EMEA & American operations, though there was a homogenous CAD platform. For once a sensible corporate policy. Get's worse if you use Inventor too, nighmarish.

What about using eTransmit to send stuff to the 2006 users. Whilst not ideal, it 'should' package all relevant xRefs.

[PeteSmith]

eTransmit does work, but again it's not really a viable solution, due the size of these projects the number of people that collaborate on these designs make etransmit a cumbersome and slow process. It is however ideal for presenting to a client, but no so much for updating wip drawings.

[0iD]

Sounds like a nightmare for revision/version control.

[PeteSmith]

Sounds like a nightmare for revision/version control.

Our eCollaboration solution takes care of that. Turns out previous versions of ACAD do accept URL's as XREF's, still not got a solid solution but i'm getting closer.