CAD file treatment Arcmap vs Pro

[SteveCole]

One of the annoying issues in Pro is how it treats CAD files. In Arcmap, when you navigated to add a layer from a CAD file, you had the basic point | line | Polygon | Annotation options:

But Pro seeks to make this more complicated:

Is there an option / setting to get Pro to treat CAD files in the same way that Arcmap did? My read on this is that I have to go through the extra step of using the processing toolbox to merge the various layers together into an entirely new layer in order to get "one" polyline feature class. This seems to be another example of MORE work to do the same thing in Arcmap.

Am I wrong?

[DavidSolari · Accepted solution]

Unless something's changed in the past few versions, the "Point", "Polyline" etc. classes are still in there and work just like the combined classes in ArcMap.

[SteveCole]

Yeah, I believe you're right. The other stuff really adds clutter and confuses the matter but I added the polyline in Arcmap & Pro side by side and don't see a difference. I just now need to instruct my co-workers to actually drill into the CAD file to select the polyline layer instead of just adding the CAD file (which brings in all the various layers in it).

[RTPL_AU]

@SteveCole  Please add this as an Idea. 
I too believe 'just because they can, doesn't mean they should' make things complicated. 

Brownie points if the Idea requests that it be a global option to set in Pro to use "Simple CAD Mode" or "Complex CAD Mode".

This is in some way related to the Idea to use single symbol as default geometry symbology for CAD data:
https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/add-option-to-globally-set-single-symbol-as/idi-p/158...

[tikola]

My approach - drag&drop CAD file to map and you see same layers as in ArcMap screenshot in map contents. Then I will check the layer I want right click for that layer and export data. Now I have just layer I want in file geodatabase and I can forget the whole CAD file and work inside ArcGIS Pro with inhouse formats. I think that is pretty handy way to choose right contents out from CAD.

The main challenge you see with CAD data is that its projection is rarely known in ArcGIS. You can define projection for CAD file directly while it is not opened in ArcGIS Pro but if you convert that to Esri formats in a way I do then you can do all things on the fly no matter is data opened or not and I think that is the easiest way.

So as I see it there is no need at all for the file opening and layer choosing stuff you do now. There are other and maybe easier ways to do the whole thing.

[SteveCole]

Our CAD files are in a known projection's coordinates so as long as the projection in the data frame is specified, we have no issue with them displaying, in the proper location, in their native format. I try as much as possible to not convert CAD files into GIS because it's duplicative & wasteful the vast majority of the time. I used to do this when Autodesk's product update cycle outpaced ESRI's but saving the CAD files in an older CAD version has alleviated that for me.

@RTPL_AU I have added an idea as you suggested here.

[tikola]

Then your approach is different - I always bring data in - do the things I need and if needed take it out to other formats....which I rarely do. But drag&drop works in my perspective perfectly with CAD files in ArcGIS Pro. It looks to user excactly same as your ArcMap file opening.