Up-convert a legacy panel

Bring a panel created in an older ConstructiVision release onto the current storage format — additively, reversibly, in one click.

Panel data lives inside the panel’s drawing. Older releases stored it in the original (legacy) record format; the current release reads and writes a newer compact format that is the primary, fully-tested one. Both formats keep working — every dialog and every draw reads whichever the drawing carries — so up-converting is a standardization step, not a rescue. Up-Convert Panel writes a complete copy of the panel’s data in the current format alongside the legacy record, and from then on the panel reads the current-format copy.

When to use it

  • A panel from an older project that you are actively editing again.

  • Standardizing a project’s panels onto the current format before a long production run.

  • Not needed day to day — legacy panels open, edit, and draw without conversion.

Run the up-convert

  1. Open the panel drawing and make sure its data is loaded — the reliable way is Edit Main Panel → OK, so the panel redraws from its stored data.

  2. Click Up-Convert Panel (toolbar) or type CV-UPCONVERT.

  3. If the panel data is not in memory, the command loads it from the drawing first. If it still can’t — say the panel has never been drawn in this session — it stops without writing anything and tells you to open / redraw the panel and re-run. This guard exists so a conversion can never capture an empty model as zeroed geometry.

  4. Each data section (panel body, openings, doors, plates, weld connections, pick and brace points, …) is written in the current format. You are then asked whether to also set the legacy record aside as a named backup — “Also park the FLAT panel_list …? [Yes/No] <No>”. In plain terms: No (the default) keeps the legacy record in place untouched; Yes renames it to a backup slot inside the drawing. Either answer is safe — the current-format copy is read first from now on regardless.

  5. Read the report at the command line. A clean conversion ends with panel now decodes COMPACT on next open and a per-section count of active rows.

What to check after

  • The row counts match the panel. The report’s per-section counts are the panel’s real features — a panel with three weld connections and one door should show exactly that. A count of zero for a feature the panel visibly has means the conversion didn’t capture it — see below.

  • The panel redraws unchanged. Run Edit Main Panel → OK and confirm the drawing looks exactly as before the conversion.

  • Save the drawing. The conversion lives inside the drawing and persists only when the drawing is saved. The save also keeps the pre-conversion drawing as a revision backup (Track revisions) — an extra safety net on top of the command’s own reversibility.

If something goes wrong

  • Any section fails → nothing is switched. When even one section reports an error, the legacy record is kept as the authoritative one — the panel keeps reading its original data, uncorrupted. Fix what the command-line message names, then re-run; the command is safe to repeat.

  • One-command undo — CV-UPCONVERT-UNDO restores the backed-up legacy record and sets the converted copy aside, so the panel reads its original data again on the next open (then Edit Main Panel → OK to redraw). It needs the named backup, so it is only available if you answered Yes at the park prompt.

  • If you answered No the legacy record never moved, but there is no one-command switch back to it — the current-format copy is still read first. The two records carry the same data, so this rarely matters; if you truly need the pre-conversion drawing back, the revision backups written on every save (Track revisions) are the recovery path.

Notes

  • One panel at a time. The command converts the current panel drawing; there is no batch up-convert — run it per panel as you touch older panels.

  • Additive, never destructive. The conversion deletes nothing: the legacy record is kept in place or renamed to a backup slot, never removed.

  • New panels don’t need it. Panels created in the current release are already stored in the current format.