I get this one pretty regularly - I imported a CAD File (DWG or DXF) and it says it imported, and it shows up in the Project Explorer but I cannot see my data? How do I find it?
Often CAD files have spurious data at sometimes really random locations and agreed it is hard to find. AutoCAD seems to have various tools that create these Random Data locations in their files, and I guess Autodesk understands their own data (even though it is allegedly a standard) better than anyone else.
Anyhow, finding the data quickly - I use this trick a lot - the video shows you how.
After Import, you should check the Coordinate values displayed in the Lower Right Corner of the TBC Screen. There you will likely see a large negative coordinate or a large separation between e.g. 0,0 and the coordinates of your project.
What I do is open Selection Explorer. In there you can see the DWG file that you imported and it made a selection set of all the CAD data extracted from the file.
Click on the file in the Selection Explorer. In the lower pane it will list all of the CAD objects that just got imported. If you select e.g. a Line object and then Right Click and Edit - it will open the editor for Linestrings. In there you will be able to see the Start Coordinate for the Object. Highlight the coordinate and copy it to the clipboard.
Now open the View Menu and select Zoom Precise. For the From coordinate - paste the copied coordinate into the field.
For the To Coordinate do the same thing again, but now edit the N and E values by increasing the values by 10m/ft in each case. Select OK. You will now be zoomed in on the right area of the project. Zoom Out using the scroll wheel of the mouse so you can see the site limits.
Now use CTRL A to select all data. Now hold CTRL and select the Site Area data - this will deselect it. Select any random stuff that you may want to also eliminate. Now press CTRL D to delete the “bad stuff”.
Now Zoom Extents and you will find that you can now zoom Extents to the Site Limits.
The video shows you how.
This video shows a couple more tricks that do similar work