Pre-work for Autodesk University 2014 – Life of a Building Footprint

After arriving in Las Vegas today for the beginning of Autodesk University 2014, I have been reviewing my presentation.
https://events.au.autodesk.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5030

This class touches on the following products:

1. AutoCAD Map 3D
2. Autodesk Raster Design
3. Autodesk InfraWorks 360
4. SketchUp
5. Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server
6. MapGuide Maestro
7. Google Earth
8. mapguide-rest project
9. Cesium

All this in 90 minutes.

It’s a lot to cover, but it is some of the tools we need to publish data to the web.

There should be a lot more GIS-y things at AU, but AutoCAD Map 3D and Infrastructure Map Server have not had many big functionality increases over the past few years, so they don’t get much press.  They still are used by thousands of users everyday, but the tools you use every day are not considered “sexy”.

Hopefully there will be some big leaps in the products soon  –  like integration with Cesium – or seamless round tripping from DWG to FDO and back (using block rotations, object data, etc) – this was done extremely well with an old Oracle Spatial Extension but doesn’t work with 64bit now.

Fingers crossed.

 

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DWG to FDO: Moving Blocks to SDF (with Attributes)

I have had a lot of questions lately on how to move complex DWG files with Rotated Blocks with Attributes to FDO.

(Feature Data Objects include storage such as Oracle Spatial, SQL Server Spatial, SHP, SDF, mySQL, etc.)

Moving from DWG to Universal Spatial Storage (USS) is key for any organization wanting to share data or maintain a “Truth” to their assets.

I have created a video that shows how to take Blocks with 3 Attributes and export them to a SDF file – which can then be put in the SQL Server or Oracle etc.

I use the existing block as a symbol with FDO, so please keep your individual DWG block libraries on your system.  For example, I have a folder with all my utility blocks – each block exploded in an individual DWG file.

FME Supports DWG Object Data AND MPolygons!

Finally!  SAFE  Software, has released the BETA of FME Translator that will convert AutoCAD Map 3D’s Object Data AND its associated MPOLYGONS.  MPolygons enable AutoCAD Map to create Islands, Holes and Multipolygon within the AutoCAD environment.  Object Data is the internal custom attributes you can add to each object (i.e. Pipe Diameter and install data on PLINE).

Now you can use FME to convert the DWG that has Object Data and MPOLYGONs into anything.  In my case, Oracle Spatial!

Great News!