Oracle Spatial Extension in AutoCAD Map 3D dead and gone

The Oracle Spatial Extension was a tool that enabled AutoCAD Map 3D to push your DWG directly in Oracle.  Your Block Definitions, Block Attributes, Object Data and Link Templates were all maintained in Oracle and you could round trip back and forth from Oracle to DWG and back again with a READ/WRITE button.

This extension was added in AutoCAD Map 2000- but only for 32bit.
Those days are past, although if you install 32bit version of AutoCAD Map 3D 2015 you might still get it to run.

Yet I doubt you’ve been able to buy a 32bit computer in any store in the past 5 years.

I talk about it in detail in my AUGI post here:   https://www.augi.com/library/highs-and-lows-of-moving-dwg-into-a-database

Luckily there is FDO (Feature Data Objects).  This is a generic data connection tool found in products such as AutoCAD Map 3D, InfraWorks, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server AND MapGuide.

You can connect to more than just Oracle such as SDF, SHP, SQL Server Spatial, ArcSDE, and almost anything that Safe Software’s FME can connect to with the FDO Provider for FME (http://www.safe.com/solutions/for-applications/autodesk/autodesk-autocad-map-3d/fme-fdo-provider/)

Now there are a few organizations out there that still store their data in OSE (ask them and they don’t want to move since the DWG round tripping to Oracle and back is so seamless).  But, now we are in the 64bit world, we may have to move forward.

In this document that I wrote for Autodesk a number of years ago, I talk about moving from Oracle OSE to FDO using AutoCAD Map 3D.  The information is still relevant for all those OSE users:

Moving from OSE to FDO with AutoCAD Map 3D

Although the document moves OSE data to Oracle, there is no reason you can’t move OSE data from Oracle to any FDO data source.  I have recently used this technique to move OSE data in Oracle to SQL Server Spatial 2012.

GIS Data Needs a Database for a Home

There are many GIS formats out there, current SAFE Software translates over 250 GIS/CAD/Spatial formats.  The one thing in common is that the data can be accessed much easier if it was in a database.

The issue is maintaining the data once it’s there.  I really like the Oracle Spatial Extension that is part of AutoCAD Map 3D.  This has been around for over 10 years and works great.  It stores the AutoCAD blocks and its attributes, the Object Data and Link Template (all data in the DWG file) as columns in an Oracle table.  You can then render that data in other GIS that can read Oracle spatial data (such as MapGuide) exactly like it was in the DWG.  In fact, since the Oracle keeps the DWG file verbatim, you can read and write to Oracle and never lose the AutoCAD features you are used to.

This MapGuide rendered data including Polylines, Blocks and Symbols is maintained in AutoCAD Map and stored in Oracle.

Now, there is newer technology called FDO (feature data objects) that all the Autodesk (and other Open Source GISs) data is built on.  I really love FDO but the bridge between the DWG (object data, blocks, link templates) and the data sources (such as SQL Server 2008 spatial and Oracle spatial) is not complete for round-tripping.  I would love to see the mapping seen in the old Oracle Spatial Extension for AutoCAD Map moved over into the FDO world.

Now that would help GIS data find a home!