IMAGINiT Geospatial Solutions Blog

Blog Update: New URL and RSS

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Warren Medernach) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:24:39 EDT

We have upgraded our blogging system. The new site allows for comments, trackbacks, a better archival system, and category searching.

Blog address: http://blogs.rand.com/geospatial/

RSS feed: http://blogs.rand.com/geospatial/atom.xml

What is an RSS feed? Click here.

Adding an RSS feed to Autodesk software: Click here.

AutoCAD Map 2010 - Joined tables display problem

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Warren Medernach) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:12:22 EDT

I just came across something interesting that seems to be a 'glitch' in the Data Table display with joined tables.

I was setting up a small dataset to demonstrate how a condo scenario might be handled with respect to a many to one relationship of many tenants to a single building footprint. I started by creating an SDF datasource to store building footprints with an extra 'ownerid' field that could be linked to an Access database that contains some owner information.

Everything worked fine, and I can see the many to one relationship graphically when selecting records from the Data Table in AutoCAD Map:

But some thing weird happened when I re-ordered the columns by selecting a column header in the Data Table. Can you see the difference?

If you look close, it appears that 'Jari Kurri' and 'Mark Messier' have mysteriously taken ownership of some extra condo's?

Don't panic though, it seems this 'un-hostile condo take-over' is actually just the result of a display/refresh glitch within the Data Table. If you Refresh the Layer, the names are displayed appropriately.

Until next time,
Take care!

Warren M

AutoCAD Map 3D 2009 - Update 3

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Warren Medernach) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:18:27 EDT

Autodesk recently released an update (re Service Pack) for AutoCAD Map 3D 2009.

The update can be downloaded here, and the readme can be viewed here.

Odd thing about this update is that under the section titled:

Issues Addressed for AutoCAD Map 3D 2009 Update 3

It states:

AutoCAD Map 3D 2009 Update 3 does not include any specific fixes to product commands and features.

Huh? What does it update then?

I suppose this just means that it updates some of the core files, and nothing to specific commands. A colleague of mine, Mike Thomas, also informed me that this could be an update to the core AutoCAD underneath Map. Ok, that makes more sense now.

Until next time,
Take care,

Warren M

AutoCAD Map - Save Map as Drawing

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Warren Medernach) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:48:18 EDT

So. You've spent countless hours connecting to and stylizing your masterpiece map. The Display Ranges are set just right, the lineweights and colors have been chosen with care, the themed data source colors are vibrant and meaningful. And the results? Spectacular!

But wait, now 'Contractor Bob', or 'Mary' from down the hall wants a copy of the map in digital form so they can perform some further work or analysis on the data.

You're at the crossroads, and there are a couple factors which will determine what data they want, and how you get it to them:

Contractor Bob and/or Mary might be unfamiliar with all this new fangled Map and FDO technology and simply want a 'DWG' file with 'CAD' objects, OR, they might be using just AutoCAD, and not AutoCAD Map.
Your map datasources might be a non-file based source like SQL Server Spatial, or Oracle.

<Sigh>All that hard work for what, do I have to redo it as 'CAD' objects... that's going to take hours!

STOP!

Before you start re-creating this drawing for the 'CADdies' in your world, were you aware that there is a one button push command to save that beautiful looking map to a CAD drawing? Well, if you weren't aware before reading this, now you are.

"So how do I do this" you ask?

Simple. On the Display Manager tab, look under the Tools button and you will find a command to Save Current Map to DWG...

Start the command, specify a file location for the new DWG file, and voila, it's done.

The result? A great looking DWG file, with all of the Features now converted to CAD objects.

*** CAVEATS ***
While this is a simple, quick method for generating a DWG from Features, you should be aware of some of the idiosyncrasies of this process.

Layers:
- The resulting layer names in the drawing are a concatenation of the 'Schema name and Display Layer name.
Polygons:
- The result of Feature Polygons will be a polyline boundary and a hatch object with colors assigned to the object, so, the colors are NOT ByLayer.
- IF, the boundary of a Polygon Feature was stylized with a dashed/dotted type of line, the result is a HORRIBLE series of line and dot segments.
Lines:
- Linear Features come across as polylines, again having the color assigned to the object.
Points:
- Point Features might vary depending on how they were stylized in the source map.
  - If the points were left with default stylization, (square, circle, etc.) the result will be polyline boundaries and hatches of the symbols.
  - If the points were stylized with blocks, the blocks will be retained.

Until next time,
Take Care.

Warren M

MapGuide Enterprise - Data Migration Tool

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Warren Medernach) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:48:04 EDT

Those of you who have been using, or at least watching the development of, the latest MapGuide technology might recall a Migration Tool that was available back in the MGE 2007 release cycle. This tool was able to help migrate mwf files from MapGuide 6.5, and create the appropriate resources for a MGE site.

It wasn't a perfect solution, and still required you to do some manual adjustments, but it was a great starting point for migrating sites from the older MapGuide technology!

The problem was that as the MGE versions continued to be updated on the yearly release cycle, this Migration Tool was left in the dust and was not being updated to follow the advances in MGE.

GREAT NEWS! This tool has been recently updated and will be available for MGE 2010.

The Migration Tool and all of it's supporting documents can be found here.

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M