Subscription Advantage Packs

If you are a subscription member there a new extension you can download. The subscription extensions now called Subscription Advantage Packs (SAP) are available on the subscription site.  The SAP for AutoCAD Map3D 2010 contains tools to use LIDAR or point clouds data. If anyone ever wanted to use large LIDAR files or point clouds you now can with the SAP. So what can you do with this data? Well depending on the data a lot.  First here is how you can start using it.

First on the Display Manager, click on the Tools Icon, select Create Point Cloud Index. The “Index” needs to be created for all new LiDAR (las) files.

 

When you select to create the point cloud index the Point Cloud Manager palette opens. Here is where you browse to the LiDAR files and add them to a list or you can even group multiple files together.

Once the files are listed in the Point Group Manager highlight the file or group and click on the Generate Index. This creates a file with an ISD extension. You have the option prior to generating the index as to the file location and name by selecting in the output column and browsing to a folder and renaming the file. The default is the same folder and file name as the las file. Generating the index takes a few minutes depending on the file size and number of points in the file. A process indicator is displayed in the the  Point Cloud Manager as it is generated.  Once the index is created you can click the Add to Map button to add the point cloud to your map.  Note you only need to create the index for the las file once, you can use the isd file to load the point cloud in any drawing. Once you created an index of a las file you can reload the point cloud by using the Data icon and selecting Add Point Cloud Date.

Once the point cloud is loaded into the map it is listed as a map layer in the Display Manager.

Once you have a point cloud loaded you can highlight it and the context sensitive tab on the ribbon will display for the point cloud.

 

The ribbon tab allows you control how the point cloud is display along with a few other tools to work with the point cloud. The Point Display control will allow you to control the number of points (density) displayed. Move the slider to increase/decease the amount of points. The Filter Point Cloud control allows you to filter the point cloud based on the data assigned to the points or by spatial (location on your map). Note: Not all LiDAR files will have data assigned to it. The Style panel of the tab will allow you to set the style of the point cloud based on the classification, elevation, Intensity or RGB assigned to the points. The create panel will allow you to create a surface from the point cloud. You have two formats for the surface file, GeoTiff or ESRI ASC. The Export panel will allow you to export the point cloud to SDF format to be used later in the map or as an ASCII (text) format or even to a LAS format. Exporting it to ASCII will only export the XYZ of the points it will not export any other data and exporting to SDF will create a LARGE SDF file, so beware.

Along with the advantage pack there is some sample files (las) and tutorials on the subscription site that you can also download that provides some assistance on using the new feature.

The AutoCAD Subscription Advantage Pack

There is also an Subscription Advantage Pack for standard AutoCAD as well that can also be ran with Map3D. This advantage pack contains some useful tools for standard AutoCAD objects that for once the Map3D product team has not forgotten about the AutoCAD Map3D users that still use Map3D as AutoCAD or that we still use drawing objects in our maps.

Once installed it adds a new ribbon tab to the ribbon labeled Subscription.

The first panel of the tab allows you to isolate objects and unisolate them. The next panel will allow you to select an object then create another object of the same type. The Select panel has the much needed and wished for Select Similar command. It does have a settings options allow you to filter the selection.

The last panel contains the Draw Order tools for setting the draw order for annotations and hatches. Keep in mind these are the standard AutoCAD objects, they do not work with Map3D annotations or the feature labels and hatches. Oh yes, if you are an old school user and have not embraced the ribbon interface yet, there is a toolbar for these as well, the AutoCAD SAP for the AutoCAD Map3D SAP you need to create your own toolbar or use the ribbon. 

Points to Blocks

With the survey tab of the map task pane we can bring points into a map and style them with our blocks to get the look that we may need, or when we import a point type shape file or any other format we can assign a block to the points on the import. (provide block name matches the attributes) But what if you have existing drawings that you have been using for the past few years that have AutoCAD points or they are standard AutoCAD drawing, or from some one else. ? What is the easy and quick way to insert blocks at those points? Well if those points are on there respective layers the Display Manger maybe the quick and easy way. Here is how.

Looking at my sample waterline map we have points that represent wells, both active and abandoned that reside on their own layers. 

First we start by creating a few new “Map Layers” in the display manager. To do this switch to the Display Manager tab, and select ” Add Drawing Data > Drawing Layer”. 

Select one of drawing layers the points reside.

Then click OK, we want to create the map layers separately so when we assign a block to the points we can control what blocks goes to what points. repeat to create all the new map layers as needed.

 

Once we have the map layers created we style them with a symbol by right clicking on the map layer and select “Add Style > Symbol”.

The symbol used is a default symbol of a square with and X inside it. To change it to the block we want we select the “Symbol Style” element in the display manager under the map layer and select properties.

In the property palette for that element we chose the block to use for that map layer.

You can also set the scale of the block to your scale, leaving the scale at the default of (* 20 (VIEWSCALE)) will scale the block 20 times the view scale. The default scale will scale the block up/down as you zoom in and out of the drawing and regenerate. Change the name of the element to represent the blocks. Repeat the steps for the remaining map layers.

To go a another step further in the display manager we can change the symbol shown in the display manger and for a legend if you decide to create one later on.   Do this by selecting the map layer in the display manager and go to it’s properties in the property palette.

 

In the property palette, change the Thumbnail Preview to Block and select your block.

Repeat for your remaining map layer.

Now your points display as your blocks.

If you need to share the map to standard AutoCAD users you can use the tool icon and Save Current Map to DWG.

The Sample Folder or A Few LISP Files to Use

When was the last time you looked at the files in the Sample folder that gets created in the Program Files/ AutoCAD Map3D 20xx ? If you have not looked in years then let me point out a few lisp files (.lsp) that are there and may be of some use to you. Some of them are just samples and meant to be samples of what you can do with lisp programing and Map3D, however there are a few that you may want to use once in a while.

The first one I like is the makegrid.lsp.  What this does is create a grid from rectangular polylines with numbers/text inside each rectangle. It allows you to select the base point for the grid, the number of rows and columns and the size of each. With the number inside the rectangles it allows you to add a prefix and the number of digits for the number. So what do I use it for? A number of different uses but one is for creating a grid for a mapbook. Other times I may use it to create a grid if I’m creating a new line type or AutoCAD shape. Having a grid of 1×1 makes it easy to know when and where my pen up or pen down will be writing out the file.

The next one I like and use every once in a while is the copy_OD.lsp. This allows you to copy object data from one object to another. If you ever exploded a multi-segment pline to individual lines you found out the OD attached doesn’t get copied. This sample allows you to copy that OD to each line segment afterwards.

The listpt.lsp writes out the vertices of a polyline to the command line. If you use it notice it has the points inside parenthesizes  ( ), this is an “Autolisp list” but you can still it if you need to check the vertices of a polyline.

Need to see what direction an object  is going or where the start point is? Then the dirarrow.lsp is what you need to use. This sample will show a directional arrow pointing in the direction the object (Lines, Plines, Arcs) is headed. The sample uses the grdraw function which draws the directional arrow on the screen and not in the dwg file, A regen or redraw action removes the arrows from the screen.

If you are not familiar with using a lisp file with these you can drop and drag them from windows explorer into the AutoCAD editor window and the command to use them is printed to the command line. Done of them have a fancy dialog box or any help files on using them remember they are just samples but you might find some use for them. Or if you like to get into learning lisp they make  a good starting point. 

The Results are in, and the Winners are.

The results from the poll are in and the winners of the DotSoft MapWork tools are; David Parker, Randy McCan, Bevan Shervey, Andrew Puller, and Graham Avard. Thanks to everyone that took the poll and here are the major results that I’ll share with my loyal readers.

Some commented on having to register to leave comments. This was to keep spam out of the comments however Akismet seems to be catching the spam so I have removed the requirement to register to leave a comment.

Next topic that a few commented on was searching for topics. I knew this is a problem and am working on an index page to list the topics in some sort of order, however let me say the version of wordpress the weblog is run on is the free version and I’m limited on running any custom code to create any easy search tools or index on topics. So it looks like I need to make better use of tags.

Another item most everyone commented on is the frequency of posts. I have no problem with post one tip a week as long as I have some ideas on what to post about. I get most of the ideas for topics from the discussion groups or other forums but after a while they all end up being the same or simple one line comments not worth blogging about. SOooo give me some topics or ideas and I will write about those.

Last is the addition of videos on the site. One reader commented they can not access sites with videos at work. If and when I start placing videos on the site they will be in addition to the screen captures and the steps to follow for the tip or how-do. The latest test posting with videos were not successful at the time. So it may be a few months before I start using videos on here.

Again thanks for taking the poll and leave some comments.

Raster, Raster, Who has a Raster

From time to time I see users asking what is the best method to insert a raster file into Map3D or Civil 3D. There are a 4 known methods to insert a raster file into a drawing. First the standard AutoCAD insert, then there is the Map image insert command, and now with FDO there is the data connect method. Last we can use the Object Link and Embedding (OLE) method.  So what method do I suggest? My standard reply is what format and type is the raster and what do you want to do with the raster afterwards?

First lets review on what a raster file is and how they advanced over the years. A raster file contains cells or grids called pixels. The number of pixels is determined by the resolution of the raster.   A simple 300 x 300 resolution raster has 300 pixels on the X axis or horizontal and 300 on the Y axis or vertical for a total of 90,000 pixels. Each pixel has values or attributes assigned to it. One of the attribute is the location or pixel number in the file. It may be as simple as 1,1 for column 1 row 1, or 1 for the first location in the file.  Another attribute is the display value for that pixel. In the beginning the value was either 1 or 0 for on or off.  This is know as a bi-tonal raster. As technology progressed so did the values and attributes of the pixels, where today we have a color attribute and even elevation attributes along with a host of other attributes assigned to a pixel.  Just like vector objects in a dwg have attributes known as object properties like Layer, Color and custom properties such as object data, pixels have data attached to them.

Wow lets back up, did I say elevation, as in 3D? Yes I did. The technology has advance from the old DOS bmp days to create 3D raster. ESRI has been doing it for a few years now with their 3D analysis add-on for the ArcGIS programs. Some DEM files are nothing more that raster files with an elevation assigned to pixels. Same for the newer TIFF and Jpeg formats. Now when we throw multi-spectral images, know as remote sensing into this pot we not only have another a different ballgame but also a whole different ball field to play on. Multi-spectral images are made up of multiple files with each file being from a different spectrum of the light range.

The kicker to all this is not only can the pixels in a raster contain various attributes but the file extensions can all be the same. A TIFF is a TIFF. Example,  a picture we take with our Kodak Easy Share camera can have the same file extension as a image taken from a satellite orbiting the earth miles away. It is not until we open the image or raster file in the application or software that the attributes are exposed, then only part of them depending on the application used to open the file.

Using Windows Photo Galley works good to edit those family pictures from the Kodak to remove red eye, adjust the colors and print a 8 x10  photograph, but using the same application to work with a raster file that contains an elevation attributes to display as 3D will not work. It also works the other way around. Using a high end application designed for working with multi-spectral images to crop and print the Kodak Easy Share file is not only over kill but the results may not be what you expect and performance will suffer with the program stumbling over the simple attributes. To use a metaphor example of this lets say we have an acre of grass to mow with our little Briggs & Stratton powered mover. We know that if we use a high octane gasoline in an internal combustion engine the performance is increased. However if we use gasoline with 106 octane in the mower we may not get a very well cut yard. Either the engine is running too fast to get a good even cut of the grass or by the time we get half way done the engine locks up and we end up with the job half way complete. We need to use the right tool with the right material to complete the job successfully. 

So if you are still reading here are my suggestions on how to add that raster file to you drawing/map.

OLE - Only use it if you working in AutoCAD LT
AutoCAD Insert – For adding your company logo to a title block or to add simple images (including renderings) as a detail to your project, where placement and scale may not be of importance.
AutoCAD Map3D Image Insert – Simple aerial images that are geo-referenced and you need them to align with your line work.
AutoCAD Map Data Connect (FDO) – Raster files that contain elevations, Multi-spectral images or high end aerials images.

Now how do you tell if the raster file is a simple aerial or a high end aerial? Most likely if you downloaded it from the Internet and it’s over 3 years old it is a good chance it’s a simple aerial unless you get the meta-data with it and it states otherwise.

Win a seat of DotSoft’s MapTools

Want a free seat of the MapTools from Dotsoft? Five lucky readers to this blog will win one seat of the Maptools add-in for AutoCAD Map3d. To be eligible take the survey about the Map3D weblog.  The survey is not just a chance to win but also your answers will help determine the posting on the blog.  I will draw the winners on the 15th of Aug from everyone that provides a current email address and name.  All information collected will remain confidential and used only to notify the winners. A big thanks to DotSoft for providing the free seats. Click Here to take survey .

Need More Map Tools?

Have you ever wonder even with all the great functions and tools available with AutoCAD Map3D there is still one or two tools that are lacking? Have you noticed that the last few releases the new functions have been geared towards FDO functions and nothing towards the enhancements to Object Data objects or any of the other basic map tools that made AutoCAD Map stand out from simple AutoCAD? Well fear no more. DotSoft LLC is to the rescue, with their new MapTools. 

Now let me say something first before I get to far into the MapTools functions. When I started this weblog a few years back I told myself the blog was for tips, tricks and how-do for AutoCAD Map3D (and a little Civil 3D) and not a site to sell readers/followers anything. However seeing that there are still some users out there, my customers included, that are not ready for the move to FDO right yet I feel blogging about these tools is fair enough, besides it’s my blog I can do what I want.

If you are not familiar with the Dotsoft  they are the good folks that brought us the fine add-on called ToolPac. If you are or were a ToolPac user then you know the MapTools will be just as valuable once you start using them, there is at least one tool in the set that I’m sure some one will like.

I will point out some of the tools and follow up on later posts of how they work. First there is the Grid Editor for Object Data tables. You can select one or many object that have object data attached and view all the object data values in a grid view to all the object you selected. No more trying to select all and getting the “varies” in the property palette. Not only can you view the data but also edit it there in the grid editor. Second tool for object data is the Property Exchange tool. This tool allows you to populate the object’s property from the object data attached to it. Example you have an elevation field in the object data, the property exchange will take the object data  value and move you objects to those elevations. This works good for layers also. Not only can you populate the object properties from the object data, you can also go the other way and populate the object data from the object properties.

Have you ever needed to work in two different coordinate system at the same time in the same map? Well MapTools has an alternate coordinate system tool that allows you to this. It allows allows you to label points as LL even if you are working in a map that has a state plane coordinate system assigned to it. There is even a nice tracking tool that displays the alternate coordinates as you move you crosshairs.   Then there are the polyline tools, check for closing and reverse the segments are a couple of those commands there but the big one a lot of users have been asking for is the break ploylines and not lose the object data attached to the polylines, well MapTools has this.

So there you go with a few extra tools that are available for AutoCAD Map3D. Now the ones I mention are not all there is but the ones that  I ran testing the MapTools as DotSoft was developing them. So if you are interested give them a look at on their site and let Terry know and/or leave a reply here if you are interested or want some thing else in the bundle.  Stay tuned to the blog and you may get a free seat of the MapTools, details to follow in a few days.

Where is the Standard AutoCAD Ribbon?

One thing that’s is missing from AutoCAD Map3D 2010 is the Ribbon interface for standard AutoCAD functions. Sure we have the Map Classic Workspace still, but do you see the new parametric tools under any of the menus? How about the Constraint tools or the the tools that let you drive the design by the dimensions? Looks like the developers on the Geospatial team forgot that most  Map users or the GIS guy still have to do some drafting now and then.  I remember in my days of being  the “Map” guy at a electric utility co. that once or twice a month I would have to draft up some new piece of equipment or something. Either a concrete pad for a UG transformer or doing simple one line drawings for the substations. The new features in AutoCAD 2010 would of make it a lot easier back then. So why was a quick and easy access to those tools left out of Map3D 2010?  Who knows? To fix it is an easy little task that you can take on. All you need to do is create a new workspace and add the correct ribbon panels to the ribbon. Here’s how I did it. Start by opening up the Customize User Interface, entering CUI on the command line will do that part. Now if you hear all the horror stories about the CUI and workspaces from others rest assure it has improved since it was introduced in 2006.

Now that you have the CUI open go ahead and resize it to where you can see both sides, the left and right panes. In the left pane highlight Workspaces and right click then select New Workspace. Provide a name for the new workspace, I used “Standard AutoCAD 2D” for mine.

Now over on the right pane of the CUI it should be listed under the Workspace Contents. Click on the Customize Workspace button.

Now all we need to do is go back to the left pane and select the Ribbon Tabs we want in the workspace. Expand the Ribbon and Tab tree then start checking the tabs to place on the ribbon, as you check them on the left pane they will appear in the right pane under your new workspace.

The tabs you choose is up to you the ones I selected are in line with Standard AutoCAD. Once you select the tabs click on the Done button then the apply button at the bottom.

Now you should have all the tools in standard AutoCAD with in quick reach by switching to that workspace. You can also create another workspace for 3D AutoCAD commands if you do 3D designs and rendering.

Map3D 2010 "What’s new?"

The new version is on it’s way to a desk near you. So lets look what is new. First it has all the features of AutoCAD 2010, that includes the new freeform modeling tools and the parametric tools. Using them in a Map/GIS environment is another story but if you want to “design” 3D models you can.

The first thing you may notice is Map3D 2010 is ribbon based with two new workspaces. A tool base ribbon and a task based ribbon.

Now if you have not used the ribbons in any other application or used them in AutoCAD before it takes a little extra work to get used to them over menu driven interfaces. The big change to these in 2010 version is a new context-sensitive ribbon.

With the context-sensitivity ribbons a new tab will display depending on the object(s) you may have selected. It makes it easier with most of the tools/commands right there instead of trying to hunt down the location on the ribbon.

Next item you may notice is the Survey tab on the task pane.

 

The Survey Extension from 2009 is now part of the task pane and allows you to import survey points from a number of different ASCII point data files and supports LandXML data. You will be able to import points and create different point groups from the data based on the attributes. 

The next new feature is creating an overlay with feature data. Prior to this if we needed to do an overlay it had to be with standard AutoCAD objects then  create a topology, which always took some drawing cleanup to complete a correct topology. Now users can do 7 different types of overlays with data from FDO sources.

With the new overlay feature and the existing buffer feature Map3D users can do just about any type of analysis they need to on a regular day to day operation.

Speaking of day to day operations, the next new feature may be of use. The new Windows Work Flow Framework may be an answer to all those repetitive tasks.

Any one that tried to use the Macro-recorder in 2009 found out that it did not work with FDO features, this not only works on FDO but use the Window Workflow Foundation to include tasks or activities that can be done outside AutoCAD. So far there is little documentation on using it but the nerds that like to get under the hood and tinker should be able to get some nice little activities created with it.

Another new feature is one that a lot of CAD users have been wishing for since the data connect days. A simple way to view the attributes from the connected features with out opening the data tables.  It’s included in the property palette now. That’s right, instead of getting just “Mapbulkfeature” in the property palette when you have a feature selected you get all the attributes with that feature.

Not only is it viewable you can edit the values also. Select multiple features and change the attributes value at one time is now a possible task.

Those are a few of the new features that a lot of users can take to the boss and say it was worth the upgrade. A few others improvements are the bulk copy has been enhanced and improved on, a few new options with the COGO tools, a couple new data providers, a better raster reprojection, support for 64 bit systems and Citrix XenApp 5.0. The last new feature I will post about it the Geographic location tool. In 2009 version you most likely seen the GeoMarker or what some call the “wagon wheel” or “pizza” when you assigned a coordinate system to your map. That is a standard AutoCAD feature the allows non-map users to get a geographical location  from a number of places like Google Earth or just by entering a Lat/Lon, well now we can use that location to insert the drawings into our map with out having to move or scale it. In other words if you get a drawing of a building from an standard AutoCAD user and they provided the geo location in the drawing then when we bring that building into our map it falls right into place instead of at 0,0,0.

Raster Images problems?

Are you having trouble printing with images files inserted into you maps? There are a few things that may help that are not documented very well. First there’s two system variables you may want to change. The first one is “RASTERPERCENT” (Sets the maximum percentage of available virtual memory that is allowed for plotting a raster image.) That’s all the Help file tells you about it. The second one is “RASTERTHRESHOLD” and the only help info is; “Specifies a raster threshold in megabytes. If the plotted raster image exceeds this threshold, the availability of system memory is checked. The plot is aborted if the image is too big for the available memory.” Now that last statement sounds like what a lot of users are reporting, the plot cancels out when they have a large image in the drawing. So just how can these two variables be fined tuned? Up the value for both of them , I heard replies from others that setting them to 90 and 100 respectively works wonders. However keep in mind they set or reserve a percentage of your virtual memory for images locking up that memory for other objects. You may want to try 30-40 for the settings then if you need to go up from there until you get the plot right.  The values are stored in the registry so once set they are retained until you set them to a different value.

Another area to check is in the plotter property settings for the plotter you are sending the drawing to. Most plotter/printers have the Raster Graphics settings that you allow you to set the resolution down a little to get the plot size down to a manageable size by moving the slider to the left.

In the settings for my HP PSC 1200 printer if I move the slider to the left a few clicks it makes the plot size smaller thereby not requiring that much memory, yet the quality of the plot is not effected to a noticeable degree once it is plotted on a sheet. Each plotter’s model and brand will be a little different with the drivers used having a part in this as well, so there’s no way to have a one size fits all here. All you need to do is experiment with all of these settings and do a little trial and error.