You can attach a drawing to the current drawing as a referenced drawing, even if the referenced drawing does not belong to the project. Attached xrefs are linked to a drawing rather than inserted into it. For example, you can create a project drawing that contains little, if any, piping content but has references to many other piping drawings. This drawing is a “master” drawing that shows several individual piping drawings in appropriate relationship to one another.
When you click the drawing to which a referenced drawing is associated, the xref appears as a child node. (If the xref is a drawing that exists in the project, it does not appear as a child node.)
When you attach an xref, follow these guidelines:
- (Plant 3D) Attach all xrefs at a 0,0,0 origin for Plant 3D drawings. Do not use the AutoCAD command refedit with Plant objects (pipes, fittings, and so on).
- Attaching a drawing as an xref does not create additional data cache rows. The xref is a reference only.
- Use the AutoCAD command xref-bind to copy a referenced drawing into a drawing. When you bind an xref, a block and a block reference is created in the drawing and the reference is discarded. Exploding the block reference creates rows in the data cache. Note: (Plant 3D) Only drawings that adhere to these guidelines can be opened or added to a Plant 3D project. The one exception is the guideline to attach all xrefs at a 0,0,0 origin, which is a best practice and not mandatory.