Transcript

00:01My name is Phil Sanchez and I'm joined by my colleague Jeff Reinhart.

00:03We're both members of Esri software development team based in Redlands and we work on the CAD GIS integration team.

00:08So today we're here to talk about CAD GIS integration. So, first just start off, go over our agenda for today.

00:16I'm going to talk about the overview of ArcGIS CAD support. Talk about how you can use CAD datasets in ArcMap.

00:23And then we're going to shift over to loading CAD features into the geodatabase. So Jeff's going to do a…

00:27…demonstration showing how to do that using some geoprocessing tools.

00:32We'll talk about how to export GIS features to drawings.

00:35And then the last section we'll talk about actually using GIS data in CAD.

00:41Quick show of hands. How many of you are familiar with the ArcGIS for AutoCAD product?

00:45A few of you. Okay, so we're going to cover that as well, along with ArcGIS Desktop.

00:50Alright, just a quick overview of the remaining sessions for this week for those of you that are interested in CAD GIS…

00:56…workflows. We're doing a new format, 20-minute technical sessions tomorrow in room 24A.

01:03So for those of you that…If any of these topics seem like good information for you to check out, please join us tomorrow.

01:12First thing we start in the morning with a demo theater and then pretty much the whole day we're going to be in room 24A.

01:17So this is a new format. They're really focused on a particular workflow. We're going to do demonstrations.

01:22Probably get in a little bit more detail than what we show here on a particular item, so again, feel free to join us tomorrow.

01:30Alright, so reason why we're here. We're here to talk about CAD drawings and CAD data.

01:35So most of you already know what CAD drawings are. For those of you that are new to CAD drawings, essentially…

01:40…they're file-based methods for storing spatial information that contains geometry, text, and symbology.

01:51So a CAD drawing, a lot of information is represented as symbology and so another aspect of CAD…

01:58…drawings, they're organized into drawing layers and levels.

02:00So a well organized drawing's going to have a lot of different levels.

02:04Maybe some of you have some drawings that everything's on layer zero. Well, if that's the case, we can maybe still…

02:09…try to help you out today, but you really do want those CAD drawings to be on well-organized layers.

02:16Another thing too along with just CAD properties are inherent with the drawings, you CAD users can attach…

02:22…additional information. So that makes the CAD drawing more effective use in ArcGIS.

02:29So how do we use it in ArcGIS? In the geospatial context, CAD drawings are a large source of GIS data.

02:37Maybe the largest source of GIS data. In fact a lot of demos that you see with geodatabase feature layers…

02:43…chances are the data probably came from CAD drawings. So what you professionals are out there doing…

02:49…or your colleagues and all these various industries - surveying, cadastre, infrastructure with civil engineering and…

02:56…the design professions provide a lot of content that's used in ArcGIS and GIS in general.

03:04So, as a company, Esri has long provided support for CAD data. This goes back previous to ArcGIS with ArcView…

03:11…with ArcInfo Workstation. So for over the last two decades, we've supported CAD data at various levels.

03:19So a couple of items here that I want to make sure to get the point across here is that this is out-of-the-box support, so you…

03:26…don't need to have an extension to work with CAD datasets in ArcGIS Desktop.

03:31Another important thing is that conversion is not required, so you're able to just quickly start working with CAD data…

03:38…just by adding it to a map.

03:40In terms of file format support, we currently support AutoCAD DWG format up to 2012 which is using the…

03:48…AutoCAD 2010 format and for MicroStation DGN files up to version V8.

03:53So that's where we're currently at. Of course when AutoCAD and MicroStation come out with new formats, we'll…

03:57…update our code base and get those updates out there for you to work with these latest formats either through…

04:04…a major release or a service pack. So that's…it's a constant process for us and we're aware of those release cycles.

04:11Also, too, one important note regarding geoprocessing tools, all the CAD-related geoprocessing tools…

04:17…are available at all license levels, so whether you have ArcView, ArcEditor, or ArcInfo licenses, you have access…

04:22…to all these tools that we're going to show today. Of course we're going to show different tools, geoprocessing…

04:26…tools that may require higher licenses, but in terms of CAD, that's what you get.

04:31You get all access to all those tools.

04:34Alright, so what we've seen over the years in terms of patterns of ArcGIS users that integrate CAD data…

04:42…we see that a lot of people just need to add CAD datasets to their map…

04:46…as a complement to their existing map layers or to use them as a reference.

04:51So that's a very easy thing to do and I'm going to show you in a few moments here.

04:55The next level is actually taking those CAD datasets and loading them into a geodatabase.

05:01So that's a case where you may need to just take some as-built information, some updates that you get out in the field…

05:06…add them to the geodatabase to increase the information that's stored in there.

05:11And the last part, it's a smaller percentage, but we recognize that it's still a key part here, is to deliver GIS data in…

05:16…a CAD format. So that's exporting geodatabase features to CAD.

05:21On the flip side, a lot of CAD users may need to view GIS data in CAD, so we have some ways to do that…

05:28…to provide CAD users with some spatial information coming from ArcGIS as well as edit GIS data in CAD.

05:34And then lastly, provide drawings, so CAD users providing you guys drawings to use in ArcGIS.

05:40So those are the scenarios that we've seen since we've been working with these tools.

05:45And so today we want to talk about all these different types of workflows and hopefully that will help out, you know…

05:50…explain how our tools work in that context.

05:54Alright, so let's go down a level. Let's talk about CAD datasets.

05:57Some of you this may be review for you if you already work with CAD data in ArcGIS, but for every CAD drawing…

06:03…file that you have, it's going to be represented as a CAD dataset in ArcGIS. And that CAD dataset's going to have feature…

06:10…classes and they're going to be organized similar to how you would organize, or see organization of geodatabase…

06:15…features or shapefiles into feature classes based on geometry type.

06:21In addition, all CAD drawings have properties, so you know they're always on a certain layer, they have a certain line…

06:26…style, et cetera, so that's information that you get in the feature class as well.

06:31In addition, you can also access user-defined data, so that can also help with querying CAD features in ArcMap.

06:38The bottom two pertain to location. Of course you know, we know that all CAD drawings are drawn in a real-world…

06:47…location and you never have to transform them, ever.

06:50Okay, maybe not, so…but that's okay. You know, a lot of times local coordinate systems are used by AutoCAD…

06:57…users or MicroStation users to design objects, buildings, structures and what we do in ArcGIS is provide tools that…

07:05…allow you to reposition those datasets so they can align up with your map layers.

07:10And that's important for, you know, spatial overlays, just for mapping.

07:14Essentially you want your CAD data to be in the right location, things that you work with.

07:18So you can define a coordinate system to your drawing, as well as you can define a world file.

07:24A world file is going to control that georeferencing, that transformation.

07:29One important note is that not all CAD drawings require that, so that's something to keep in mind.

07:35Alright, this is a kind of zoomed-in view if you're looking at a CAD dataset in Catalog what you're going to see is several…

07:41…feature classes representing different types of geometry.

07:45So all the different types of geometry that are in the drawings are going to be organized based on these feature classes.

07:51So I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with this structure. Of course you could have a PRJ file that's a companion file…

07:57…that helps define that coordinate system, but let me go ahead instead of talking about this, I'm going to go ahead…

08:02…and switch to a demonstration and show you how easy it is to work with CAD data.

08:06So let me go ahead and switch to ArcMap.

08:09Alright, so this is ArcMap 10 Service Pack 2, so most of you probably are at this version here.

08:17And if you're at 9.3.1, the same workflow applies, just with a few minor things we'll make a note of.

08:22So this is the—actually the E-s-r-i campus, the Esri campus. These are some building footprints with the topographic…

08:29…basemap behind it. What you see here are some buildings with some interior spaces.

08:35And what I want to do here is add an additional dataset. I just got some updated floor plan information…

08:41…I'm going to add to my map. So first thing I want to do here is search for my CAD data.

08:51So I can go ahead and click on, or enter CAD and for those of you that haven't used search yet, let me go…

08:55…ahead and show you how to create an index.

08:58So basically you open up at 10.0, this is a 10.0 functionality tool here that you can add folders to search.

09:06So what I've done here, I have a few CAD drawings and there it's already indexed.

09:10So just by simply typing CAD I can just find some data. As you can see here, I have Esri Building Features…

09:17…I have some different feature classes, but I want to be more specific.

09:21I want to type DWG, that's a file extension that I want to work with, it's an AutoCAD file, so I get a few different…

09:27…types of content compared to that last search.

09:30What I want to do here is drag Esri Building Features, I'm going to add it to my TOC.

09:37Alright, well, it's supposed to be right here. Now of course, some of you may have experienced this at one time…

09:42…so let's take a look. Let's go ahead and let's zoom to the drawing.

09:47So I'm…go ahead and expand that, zoom the layer, and of course, this is in a different location that's not…

09:53…in my particular building footprint. That's okay. What I'll do now is I'm going to go back to that building W area…

09:58…and the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add the Georeferencing toolbar. It's already added to this map.

10:04This toolbar…at 9.2 we introduced the ability to georeference CAD datasets.

10:09This was existing prior to 9.2 and it was designed for raster layers.

10:14So at 9.2 we've added the ability to georeference CAD data with it.

10:19For those of you that are familiar with the Spatial Adjustment tool in the Editor, it's really similar.

10:22All the workflows are very close. So as you see here, my target layer is set to Esri Building Features.

10:31You'll see every feature class. Now this georeference applies to the entire dataset, not just one feature class.

10:37If you had multiple drawings, you'd want to make sure that you're choosing the right one.

10:41That's always an important thing, especially when you're demoing this. So let me go ahead and first bring this…

10:46…drawing closer to my focus area so we have a nice command called Fit To Display.

10:51I'm going to go ahead and click on that, and now I've actually moved that drawing from the Pacific Ocean…

10:56…into Redlands, California. So that's the first step here.

10:58So I'm going to go ahead and scale this thing down, actually something that I can work with a little bit better.

11:03So in terms of a best practice, what we're showing here is what we recommend as the best practice.

11:09If your CAD dataset is pretty far away, let's say in you know, near zero-zero, the origin, but right here we're in…

11:16…state plane coordinates. The best thing to do is fit to display, scale it down and then lastly, to create an…

11:21…accurate transformation I would click on this Add Control Points tool.

11:27I'll go ahead and snap to the corner and create my first control point and then do one more.

11:36Okay, so now I have two points that define this transformation. That's all that you need to create for CAD transformations.

11:42They're two-point similarity transformations, meaning that you can never skew it, rubbersheet it.

11:47The aspect ratio is always going to be maintained.

11:49So if we take a quick look at the link table, you'll notice I have some deltas here.

11:54This is my from coordinates, my to coordinates. I could edit these values right here in the link table.

11:59I'm satisfied with this transformation, so the next step to do is click on Update Georeferencing.

12:05So I'll click on that and you'll notice that I get a Save As dialog box.

12:09What we're doing here is that we're enabling the ability to create a world file after your transformation has been committed.

12:16So right here you'll notice, this is called, the file name is Esri Building Features.wld.

12:23You'll notice that it matches the drawing name and it's in the CAD workspace.

12:27That's the folder where the drawing resides.

12:31So world files are only going to be recognized by ArcGIS when they have the same prefix name and they reside…

12:36…in the CAD workspace. So something important to remember there.

12:39I'm going to go ahead and click on Save here. What that's going to do it's going to commit my transformation…

12:43…and now I'm set.

12:45So next thing I want to do here, let me go ahead and go back to the slides.

12:57So I talked about search and add. Did my demo a little bit out of order there, but that's okay.

13:01Let's just take a look at a few other things that's part of the workflow.

13:04So now that I've georeferenced the data, what I can do now is filter my CAD features.

13:08So this means that I want to isolate the data I want to work with because there are times when you may not need to…

13:13…work with the entire drawing. There could be a lot of content in that drawing.

13:17You really only need to work with maybe a subset of it.

13:19So the easiest way to filter your data is just to work with a particular feature class.

13:24So you can just choose a feature class that you want to work with and you don't have to add all the additional five feature classes.

13:32You can use drawing layer visibility to control the display and definition query.

13:37So, many of you are probably familiar with some of these topics here.

13:41In terms of display control we have a layer properties interface that allows you to control layers just like you would in…

13:48…AutoCAD or MicroStation. What ArcGIS does is recognizes the settings that are saved in the drawing.

13:54So if you have layers that are turned on in CAD, they're going to be turned on in ArcGIS.

13:59If they're turned off, you know, they're going to be turned off. But you can control that.

14:02You can disable all of them and just pick a few. You can actually restore the original appearance.

14:07So let's say you've made a lot of changes to your dataset in terms of the layer display, you can restore back.

14:12And then you can also apply it to the dataset, so you don't have to do it per feature class.

14:15You can make a change here and click on that Apply To Dataset button and then all the drawing layer visibility changes…

14:21…are applied to the entire dataset. Really helpful. Probably saves you like about 10 to15 clicks.

14:27Okay, so the next thing to do is to query features and this is what we're talking about in terms of definition queries.

14:33The Query Builder tool is really useful for CAD data because you can leverage the properties that are in the drawing.

14:39So in this case here, I'm showing that, an example of selecting features that are going to be on layer building with color five…

14:46…and line type continuous. So a lot of you are familiar with those types of properties and you can leverage that…

14:51…in ArcMap to create a query.

14:53This query can be saved in the map document.

14:56You can save it to a layer file, an LYR file, you can even save it to an expression file.

15:00So if you have a lot of CAD drawings that follow the same standard, these can be applied to multiple CAD datasets.

15:06So that's kind of a nice thing assuming that you have CAD drawings that have all the same CAD standard.

15:14Alright, so the next thing here is just to talk about, or cover the properties that you get just by default.

15:19Again, so you're going to hear me say, you know, color, level, line type.

15:23Again, those are feature attributes that are represented in the feature classes.

15:29You can even access the tags and attributes of those features, and again, they support display…

15:35…in addition to geoprocessing input and conversion.

15:39Alright, so this is diving a little bit more deeper into features, feature attributes.

15:44We support DGN tags and DWG block attributes.

15:47So for those of you that have datasets, CAD datasets, that contain tags or contain block attributes, that's a nice…

15:55…thing to have because you can query on those just like you would with any other feature attribute.

15:59So for every tag, or every block attribute, you're going to see a field in the table, and then their attribute…

16:06…values will be field values.

16:08Again, really useful if you have them. Definitely leverage them where possible.

16:14And, of course, CAD feature rendering is a process of symbolizing the CAD data when you add it to ArcMap.

16:21What we do here, is we take those properties, again same properties we're talking about earlier, color and line type…

16:27…and line weight, and we have a CAD style that we map those to.

16:30So when you add those CAD drawings to ArcMap, you get a very close representation of what you see in CAD.

16:37It's not 100 percent, but it's pretty close. And of course, you always have the ability to change that symbology.

16:42In terms of text styles, they're mapped to TrueType fonts.

16:45So for those of you that have the same TrueType fonts in the system, you're going to see them just like you…

16:51…would in AutoCAD or MicroStation. Any other CAD-specific text style is going to be represented as Arial.

16:58You can go ahead and change that to suit your mapping needs.

17:05Alright, let's go back to the demo. There we go. So back in ArcMap here. So I've georeferenced my CAD dataset.

17:13It's in the right location. So now what I really want to work with are the interior spaces. So let's just zoom in a little bit.

17:19You can see here we have some office spaces. We have some columns, some doors, some blocks.

17:23So first thing I can just turn off, you know, point features, so I remove those from the drawing.

17:29I can turn off my polygon feature class; my multipatch feature class, so now we just have polylines.

17:35I can open that up here, right-click, go to Properties, as I talked about earlier. I can disable all the drawing layers really easily.

17:42In this case I want to work with walls. So I'll pick a wall and a wall move and then I'll go ahead and apply that.

17:50And what I could do also is change the symbology.

17:53So I can go to the layer properties Category section here and you see there's a CAD unique entity values.

18:00These are all the rendering that's happening.

18:03Basically anything that's going to have a unique rendering between the line type, the color and the line weight…

18:08…you're going to see as an additional item.

18:10Of course, you can use your own unique values based on another field in the CAD feature class, or just do a single symbol.

18:16I can just simply go pick a different line type, maybe center, you know, change that color, line weight.

18:22So most of you are familiar with these particular processes.

18:25So, of course that's not really how you want to see floor plans, but just give you an example of, you know…

18:30…you don't really want dashes in your wall, but that's okay.

18:33Phil, can you turn off the labeling if you want to?

18:35Yeah, the annotation? I actually kept that annotation on, but sure, you can turn off the annotation.

18:40You can label features too.

18:42So I can go back…Let's just say if I went back, I wasn't happy with that, just to show you what, in terms of restoring…

18:47…original here, I mean restore original, and you'll see we're back to the original appearance.

18:51So you can change that all you want.

18:53Again, you go back to the Layer Properties Symbology tab and change, you know, revert back to the original.

19:00And the question was, "Can you turn off labeling?"

19:02And those pieces of text that you saw were actually annotation features, but we can label CAD features as well…

19:09…just the way we would label a geodatabase feature layer.

19:13In fact, that's how you can leverage information maybe coming from block attributes, or tags. So that's pretty useful.

19:19Okay, I think I've showed my part. I think it's going to you. So let me just go back and summarize a little bit.

19:28So again, the message here is how you can, you know, you search for your CAD data, again at 10.0 we have the search…

19:34…capabilities, pretty useful. You add the data. You simply add it to the map. You don't convert it.

19:39You may need to convert it later, but you don't have to convert it just to start working with it.

19:43Georeferencing may or may not be required. When your drawing ends up in the Pacific Ocean, you need to georeference it.

19:50And then you can filter that to really isolate what you want to work with.

19:53Last part is rendering.

19:55And then the final step, which I'm not going to talk about, because Jeff's much better at talking about loading CAD…

20:00…data to the geodatabase, but that may be a requirement that's part of your workflow.

20:04So let me go ahead and…

20:07Switch it.

20:08…cover a few additional slides.

20:12Ooh. A start and a stop.

20:15Alright, so loading CAD data into the geodatabase. You can see here we talked about how you would have, let's say some…

20:21…updates coming in from the field. Someone goes out, you know, surveys a site, gets some updated as-built information…

20:27…needs to add that to the geodatabase, that's when you want to load CAD data into your feature classes.

20:32You may need to edit the data. So if it's a one-way street, meaning that someone delivered some CAD data to you…

20:37…maybe it's really old CAD data that there's no way you can ever send it back to anyone to edit it, editing's all up to you…

20:44…that's when you want to convert it. If you want to use advanced geodatabase behavior such as geometric networks or…

20:50…topology, again, you can't do this with CAD data. CAD data's read-only in ArcGIS, so you're going to have to convert it.

20:58And there's a few tools to convert it.

21:00You have, in ArcMap, you can export data; you can copy and paste in an edit session, but for more control…

21:06…that's when you want to use a toolbox.

21:08We have a variety of tools.

21:09There's always a few ways to do something in ArcGIS.

21:12So we have Feature Class To Feature Class; you have a Copy Features and Import CAD Annotation for dealing with text.

21:19And of course, at 10 we introduced a new tool called CAD To Geodatabase.

21:23That's basically a tool that allows you to batch load a lot of CAD drawings into a geodatabase.

21:30What you get, let's say if you had 100 CAD files and you use CAD To Geodatabase, in the end you would get a…

21:35…geodatabase with just five feature classes.

21:38Basically it's going to merge the datasets…or the feature classes during the conversion and also deal with annotation.

21:45Previous to this tool you had to deal with annotation separately. So that's a nice way to do a batch load.

21:50We're dealing with a dataset at that point, so you're going to get the entire drawing, so you may want to add that…

21:55…to a model. Use some tools to query that down and just get what you want to work with.

22:01And then here's some scenarios. So we're going to show this in a little bit, but you always want to leverage the information…

22:07…into drawings. So if you have text inside polygons, that's the classic, you know, ID in the lot.

22:11You always want to try to leverage that from the drawing, or proximities. You know, text in your lines.

22:16That's always useful to get like, let's say a diameter value next to a utility line.

22:23And then also to construct geometries. So taking lines. Sometimes in AutoCAD or MicroStation the data wasn't really…

22:29…snapped completely. So we have tools that allow you to construct polygons.

22:34And we can add some tolerances and in the end you get some feature geometry that's going to be more useful for you.

22:39Of course, traditionally you can just create new geodatabases from CAD. You can append to CAD and then merge.

22:45Now it's time for Jeff, so…

22:47Alright.

22:48Thanks, Jeff.

22:50Alright, thank you, Phil.

22:52Okay, what I want to talk about today is…He's talked about rendering your CAD in ArcGIS, but what I want to…

22:58…talk about is converting your CAD data into your GIS feature class, ArcGIS feature classes.

23:04You know, just to…I've talked to more than a couple of people so far at the islands that they get CAD data…

23:10…they reference it in, and then they retrace, or redigitize. I don't know if anybody's doing that.

23:16That's fine, but there's…If you just convert your CAD data using the geoprocessing tools…

23:20…it saves you all kind of tracing time.

23:22But I'll show you that in a moment. But the first thing I want to do here is go to that campus drawing…

23:25…that Phil has already showed here and he's…went into it a little bit, but basically what we're trying to do here is…

23:34…we've got these offices that we're interested in and what we'd like to do is to take these offices and turn them…

23:39…into polygons and load them into my feature class so I can load them into my data model for my existing offices at Esri.

23:47And if we look at these a little closer, we'll see that we've got the wall layers, which is good.

23:52So there's some CAD standards going on. Hopefully where things are in unique layers.

23:58We've got the CAD text which we mentioned. It's in Mtext and it looks like it's on a unique layer, so that's good news.

24:05We've got these columns, the beams I guess, and in this case I'm probably going to ignore them.

24:11I just want to build the polygons from that. The other thing here if we look at this, we'll look a little closer…

24:17…if you've ever been to Esri, or seen pictures of it, all of our offices have sliding glass doors, patio doors…

24:23…and in the CAD world, looking at this drawing, this is exactly how it looks. This is just spot on.

24:28It's great, but as a GIS analyst I'm looking at this and I'm getting a little fearful because how am I going to generate…

24:33…polygons out of this, right? So that's one of the things where the data model difference.

24:39It's a big thing. In CAD that's exactly accurate; that's right, but in GIS I need to build polygons, so it's a little bit of a problem.

24:46And to look a little closer, I have this complex shape that…this casing that where the patio door slides into, so that's…

24:54…another issue too that we've got all these tiny polygons that we want to filter out as well.

24:58But I wouldn't show you if I didn't have a solution though, right?

25:03Hopefully it works. Okay, so what I want to do here is, I'll go back to the MXD that Phil's already showed you and…

25:11…same thing. If we look down here, here's the rest of our building interior spaces if I turn that on and off.

25:20That's where the offices exist in the rest of the campus, the different buildings, but what we were given is we were…

25:27…giving that CAD drawing, and if I bring it in here now you'll see that it lines up nice.

25:31It's not in the Pacific Ocean anymore, so thanks to Phil it's in the right spot relatively.

25:36So what we want to do is instead of going and tracing that again, you know I wouldn't want to be the person…

25:40…to go ahead and trace so I could build polygons out of that.

25:44What I think we want to do is we want to filter out information out of that CAD file and put it into a feature class.

25:51So what we want to do here is we could go to the geoprocessing framework, or geoprocessing in general…

25:57…we could go to the search menu which Phil already talked about, and we can look up tools.

26:02Feature Class To Feature Class is what I'm interested in to show you guys.

26:07And if we open up that tool. Let that come up. This is the example I've talked…like I said, more than a couple people…

26:17…where they've traced their CAD file. They already have their lines but I need to get it in my geodatabase and I trace it…

26:21…here's a great tool for doing that quickly. I pull in my polyline feature class on my CAD file and there we go.

26:30I put it to a location, but the big thing here is I want to query it out. I hit my SQL expression and the CAD…

26:37…properties that Phil's already talked about are things like layer and color. So in this case, layer equals…

26:42…I get my unique values and then I can pull up my walls.

26:45So what I've done is I've quickly converted that to a feature class, but it's a great way of dissecting the CAD file…

26:51…and pulling out what you're interested in, so.

26:54Now to further along in that, that's all fine and good, but what I really want is I want to take those polygons that I…

27:00…want to generate, I want to create attributes in these polygons they give from the office numbers.

27:05So I have that attribute in my polygon and I want to put it into my existing data model.

27:10So in that case, if we go here, I've actually built some tools that…to do that.

27:15So if I had this model that I built, create interior spaces, I've chained together a bunch of tools and what I've done…

27:21…is I'm taking my input feature class, I've done my SQL query, expression, again in this case I know because…

27:27…there's some CAD standards that I'm aware of, or I've done some research on that…

27:33…that the two wall layers in those doors, we got to pull those doors out because we got to somehow close those off.

27:39And then we put that out to a feature class, and then I use my CAD annotation, and that's what it's going to be, an attribute…

27:44…of the polygon. Well, that's fine and good and that runs, but let's look under the hood a little bit.

27:50Let's look into what I did.

27:52Now I don't want…From the last session too is don't try and write down what I'm doing here.

27:57Just try and understand it. At the end of this session, I'll give you my card. I'll e-mail you this model if you're interested.

28:02It's yours to have, but you'll have to see it first. Maybe you don't like it, so.

28:07So the first thing is the Feature Class To Feature Class tool, I already talked to you guys about that.

28:11That's just doing exactly what we did before.

28:13Taking an input polyline feature class from the CAD file using that expression, that query expression…

28:17…and I'm going to put it to a dataset and I'm going to do that feature class.

28:21The next tool is a Split Line At Vertices.

28:24If we think about it, the problem is, is those sliding glass doors, they were a complex shape if you noticed in AutoCAD.

28:30What I want to do is I want to break up all those shapes so they're just lines.

28:35Because what I want to do is just shoot those through and extend them to close off things.

28:39So it's an important tool here to break that complex shape so that you can use those to extend through.

28:45So that's what I've used that tool for.

28:48And what I want to get across here too is I'm really…Who cares if this used to be CAD files, or CAD data?

28:55This is just feature classes in ArcGIS. I'm just using geoprocessing to do this.

29:02So the next thing I want to do is my Make Feature Layer. Remember when I break apart the sliding glass doors, for example…

29:09…there is those little pockets on the end where the sliding glass doors go into. Those are really small.

29:15If I generate polygons, I'm going to have 400 little tiny polygons that I'm not interested in.

29:20So a way to do that is I filter it out with Make Feature Layer, just another geoprocessing tool, like you would with any…

29:25…feature class, anything less than .5 feet I think it is, get rid of those.

29:31I just want everything but that.

29:38And then the Extend Line. Here's a nice tool at ArcGIS 10, so there's a difference between 9.3.1, but at ArcGIS 10 they…

29:45…introduced the Extend Line and Trim Line tools. They're at an ArcEditor level license, but what they're intended for is…

29:52…they're not intended to replace—to do any topology or anything like that, but what they are is they're quick cleanup tools…

29:58…that we can use especially for our world, right, because we get these CAD files with breaks in them.

30:03We've got a line with a break in it and there's a piece of text and then it continues on.

30:07Like contours, for example. In CAD that's just fine, but in GIS that's killer for us. We hate that.

30:13So what I've done here is I've taken this input feature and I want to extend it out to a length of, in this case, 20 feet.

30:21The other thing I want to show you here is there's this optional parameter of this tool extender extension and…

30:28…I've checked it because what I want to do is extend a virtual extensions, so if you consider I've got two lines that…

30:33…come like this, if I extend one 20 feet it doesn't touch anything so it's not going to close off that area, but if they both…

30:41…extend out, there's a virtual connection, so what that does is it closes off that area.

30:45It closes that shape for you. So that's an important part too. It's all important.

30:51And then the next one is Feature To Polygon. And the people that don't have an ArcInfo level license, you can't do that…

30:58…because it's ArcInfo level license tool, unfortunately. But what it does is it generates polygons from closed lines.

31:06And along with that, it'll take my annotation feature class which is, in this case, a CAD file, so I can take that text…

31:13…and I'll make it an attribute of my polygon that way.

31:16So it's kind of a nice option as well. So I could go ahead and run this tool, but we'd be here a little while, so…

31:22…Madame Benoit, slightly ahead of her time. If I close that I actually have the results already.

31:28And I go in here and it is…So if we go to the campus polygons and turn off the CAD file, you can see that…

31:47…there we go. So we'll just zoom in to that. We're just really interested in this.

31:51You could see that now I've generated all these polygons. If I identified them…there we go. I go here, I've got a polygon…

32:01…closed shape now. I've got my label and my office number is in there as well.

32:06So there's my office number, refname. So that's great, but the problem is, this is not what I'm interested in yet.

32:13This is just all the polygons. There's stairs that were not quite following the CAD center that I expected, but…

32:19…there's all these tiny little polygons that frankly, I don't care about. All I care about is the office ones.

32:26And in my investigation I noticed that this is Phil's new office and it's not really an office, so, bad news buddy, sorry.

32:35Thanks.

32:36It looks like you're in the hallway.

32:38I think I always am.

32:40Anyways, so the next thing is, is that now I've built these polygons, that's great, but there's a lot of junk in there…

32:46…I don't care about still.

32:48So what I can do now is the next model I created to do this work is actually a pretty simple one really.

32:56I do another Make Feature Layer, just a standard geoprocessing tool, and what I want to do is take that input feature…

33:01…class that I just created and I want to pull out from that refname field if you remember, that's where the offices numbers were.

33:09Some of them didn't have…The ones that don't have an office number, they're not offices.

33:13So anyways, so I'm just making a query to say, hey just give me the ones that are full of an office number…

33:19…the other ones I want to ignore. So that's easy and then I want to append.

33:24The interesting thing about append is that that's fine that I'm going to take that feature class and I'm going to append…

33:30…it to my existing feature class here in my data model, but also there's a field mapping component.

33:36Because this is coming from CAD data, it has its own field values and I told you it was refname was a field that…

33:41…contained that office number? Well, in my feature class, it's actually space ID is where it is.

33:48So what you can do, in this case, if you add for input field, you can map. You can pick a field out of the CAD file and make…

33:55…it map to that as long as it's the same data type, it'll punch it in there.

33:58So if you can imagine, if you built this model without that it would be add field, calculate field, delete all these fields…

34:06…so you'd be doing a bunch of field manipulation. This is a nice way of not having to do that.

34:11So why don't we just go ahead and run it. It takes a few moments. Done.

34:25And we go to our building interior spaces now and you can see that now I've actually generated just polygons that are offices.

34:35And we excluded Phil's office, so that's not there anymore.

34:40But now obviously, let's be honest here, what I've done is I've done a demo of pretty perfect data.

34:45Everything closes right. Well, it's not 100 percent perfect.

34:50For example, I've got this hallway became an office number because a piece of text is sitting out there that wasn't…

34:56…closed off so it said, hey, you're part of this polygon, you must be an office. So this hallway.

35:01So that's an easy fix, right? I can go in here. We're going to go…I can go like this. Start my edit session.

35:14Anyways, well I can go in here, start a…I won't do this, but start an edit session, delete it, pull it out and do it there…

35:20…and my data's perfect again. Well, in reality that's not always true.

35:23So oftentimes you have things like this happen where this is actually one office, but because of the length I…

35:30…extended my line, and the piece of text was over here on the right-hand side, it made a polygon and not a polygon.

35:36So these are things that you're going to have to, frankly, edit manually. That's what editing is for.

35:41But what I intended with this model, or these workflows is to try and get you 80 percent of the way, 85, 90 percent…

35:49…of the way. Maybe even higher.

35:50Where you've done a bulk of the work to do this; you might have to do some editing after to clean it up, but it does…

35:56…kind of save you some time. So that's the idea of this. So I guess that's straight talk, right, Phil?

36:02That's straight talk.

36:03Straight talk, okay. Anyways, I guess I'll hand it back to Phil now and you want to talk about some export to CAD?

36:09Sure, and let me just switch back. In that workflow what you saw here is it applies to other types of data.

36:17Parcels, you know, same concept. You have parcel lots, you have ID numbers in there, so that's another example…

36:22…but I think in conceptually just showing how we can automate that process a little bit better. Okay.

36:28Alright, so now we're going to talk about going the other direction and that's exporting geodatabase features to CAD.

36:37Now again this is…I know probably not a lot of you need to do this, but some of you do and it can be important.

36:43It can be important to share your data with your CAD users. You know, if you were collaborating on a project…

36:52…or you just have some contract obligations that you have to deliver, you know, your geodatabase content in a DGN or…

36:58…DWG format, so we have a tool that can do that. It's called the Export To CAD tool. It can be pretty simple.

37:05You can simply drag and drop some layers in there and export.

37:08Pick your format, click OK and you actually get CAD data pretty quickly.

37:13But you can do more with it. You can leverage your geodatabase information to drive that export, so you can definitely get…

37:19…more out of the geodatabase into the drawing by using filled attributes, by using seed and template files.

37:26So in the end, the goal or the objective is to deliver CAD data that's going to adhere to a CAD standard for any…

37:34…organization that you have to work with in that context.

37:38So here's some scenarios. So there may be times when you want to take one feature class and export to one drawing.

37:44You can do it with multiple feature classes to one drawing, but more interesting, you can take one feature class and…

37:50…export it to multiple drawings.

37:52What we call a fan out that you can just drive it with some attributes to get multiple CAD drawings.

37:58And of course, you go multiple to multiple.

38:00So there's different variations of how you can export geodatabase feature classes to CAD.

38:06Here's a screen shot of the dialog box, Export to CAD. Again, it's similar to our reading capability, so we write to…

38:13…DGN V8 formats as well as DWG release 14. Probably not a hot format these days, but all the way up to 2012.

38:22So it's similar to our reading capabilities.

38:25One of the nice features about this tool, it allows you to not just create new data, but you can append to an existing drawing.

38:32So if you have, let's say a master drawing that data keeps getting added to over time, it's a production copy, then…

38:39…you can use that option, Append, to write…to add to it.

38:44Maybe on the GIS side there's been some updates maybe from some different updates out in the field, add it to the…

38:53… geodatabase, you can just use it to append there.

38:55And again, like we mentioned earlier, available at all license levels, so that's a nice feature.

39:01Attribute-driven support, so again, that's using fields. That's what we call a well-organized CAD drawing in the end.

39:08Some key areas you can define and control CAD entity type. So we have a CAD type field that you can specify…

39:15…a particular geometry type in CAD, like polyline or lightweight polyline, arc, circle, et cetera.

39:21So that's an important way to control the data, how it's created.

39:24Elevation—you can generate elevation, you know, contour lines that are going to be specified with a particular value.

39:31Blocks and cells and their attributes can be generated with this tool too. So that can be important to then populate data…

39:37…in the CAD drawing so that CAD users can access that from the geodatabase.

39:42Of course, text styles, or text is going to be supported too, as well.

39:45So you can control positioning, justification, and then document names and paths.

39:49That's how you can actually drive out, you know, you can just by using a document name, a different unique…

39:55…file for the drawing. That's where you can fan that out to multiple drawings.

40:01So lastly, the last part of it is the use of seed files, or template files depending on if you're a MicroStation user…

40:06…they're seed files; AutoCAD, template. These are what are going to be used by CAD operators or designers to define CAD…

40:13…drawings with the standard. And so what the Export To CAD tool allows you to do is point to a seed file and then that's going to…

40:21…have the default symbology, all the layer schema, line styles, block definitions and for MicroStation it's required…

40:28…to have one, but we install those by default with Desktop so you can certainly change to use your…

40:33…own seed file for MicroStation.

40:36Okay, back to Jeff. Jeff has the fun part. He gets to demo.

40:42It's only fun if it works.

40:43That's true.

40:45Okay, the next thing I want to do is talk about export CAD, of course.

40:50Did you ask the question about exporting to CAD earlier?

40:54Just a quick question, who does that? Who takes the GIS data, pushes it out to CAD? Okay.

40:59Oh, wow.

41:00More than usual. Okay, good. Awesome.

41:02Okay, so the next thing I want to do is, I've got some data here from the City of Riverside.

41:06And here's some as-built. The white polygons are the as-built coming from my CAD file, directly read.

41:13And with the pieces of text that are in there identifying what the parcel APN and parcel ID is, but what I want…

41:21…to do is I've gotten some feature classes and my boss wants me to export this out to the CAD file.

41:27And like we were talking about before, let's be good to our CAD people so they're good to us, right?

41:32So what I want to do is not just dump out a CAD file to them, but let's dump them out a CAD file how they would expect it.

41:38So what I could do, is I could run export to CAD right now. Go in here, Tools, look for my…search.

41:53I could open my Export To CAD and I could start inputting these feature layers.

41:56And what's built into Export To CAD is anytime a feature layer, and a feature layer is because it lives inside of ArcMap…

42:03…feature class, it points at a feature class, but when it's in ArcMap it's a feature layer.

42:07If I added these as input to my Export To CAD - trees, streets, what's going to happen is I would export these feature classes…

42:16…to a DWG and it's going to create all…everything from the trees layer on a trees layer in AutoCAD.

42:23So that's just built in by default. If you work from ArcMap, it just gives that that functionality.

42:29So that's the easy way of doing it. But also, if we go look at the actual AutoCAD drawing itself, and we do something…

42:38…like, well, what layers that this…from the existing and what do we have in here, well, we got the as-built centroid and the…

42:45…as-built polygon, or parcel ID in there, so that's great.

42:50The other thing, too, if I look at it a little closer, it's not actually a piece of text here. What this is, is a block reference…

42:56…with tag values. If you look a little closer at this thing here we can see that this is a block.

43:06It's telling me here that it's a block, but also it has APN and parcel ID as tags off that block.

43:14So it's a quick way of filling things in. So what it would be nice if I could create a CAD file, and give them in the same…

43:23…context of what they have it. So they have block definitions in this AutoCAD file.

43:26So I'd like to take advantage of that. So we'll close it. Go back to our MXD. So how do I go about doing that?

43:35Well, what I want to do is I want to export these two feature classes. So if I look at the field values, because Phil's…

43:41…already talked about key name fields for…that export CAD understands, and layer is one of them.

43:48Now if I just ran this from ArcMap, or we would get this, but in this case, I've used the layer feature class so I could run…

43:54…it from ArcCatalog and get the same behavior along with layer color, layer line weight, these are things that mean…

44:00…something when you run Export To CAD because it's going to push those into AutoCAD drawing with the…

44:05…color and the weight of the line that you want to go across.

44:08Along with, which Phil's going to talk about a little bit later on, but these other attributes, there's a specification in CAD…

44:14…where we support attribution inside of AutoCAD that both of us can read and Phil will talk more about that, but that's coming.

44:22So that's fine. What about the centroid? The same thing happens. We've got the same things.

44:27Well in…So entity type is a really cool field because what it does it allows you to define the entity that you're going…

44:32…to go into. In this case, if you think back to the AutoCAD drawing, there's a block definition in there.

44:37So if I export a point that has a type of insert which is what a block is called inside of AutoCAD, it's going to know…

44:44…that that's a block. I have the definition in my AutoCAD file. I push it across and already know it's all, I'm a block.

44:50I'm going to go into there. It's going to go into the layer of here.

44:54The refname, this is the name of the block that I want to use, I could have multiple blocks if I had…along with the…

44:59…tag values, the APN and the parcel ID.

45:02So if I want to do that, I would go back to my search and take my polygon and my centroid. So what I could do here…

45:25…is I could go to a brand-new file or I could use a seed file that Phil talked about that has my block definitions.

45:31But in this case I'd like to go append to that existing drawing that I already have. So I'm going to save it to that.

45:37I have an override option telling me here that hey, it already exists, but that's fine because I want to append to it.

45:43So we're okay with that. So if I run this tool now, it's going to go to the background because we have background…

45:49…processing at 10 as you probably know, so you'll see it come up here.

45:54I should be doing something else right now to, you know, say that background processing is great because I…

45:59…can go ahead and zoom now, so. But I didn't.

46:01It worked too quick.

46:02It worked too quick. So if we go back here now, if we go back into AutoCAD, and load that same drawing…

46:10…let's do it. So then if we do the same thing, type in our layer, we've added two new layers, a proposed parcel…

46:24…and the centroid layer, and also - ta-da - we're able to add just like our AutoCAD users are expecting in their drawing.

46:36So it's a nice little technique to be able use that, but what I'm trying to get at, point here is you can use Export To CAD…

46:41…simply for just dumping geometry across, or putting in unique layers using queries on…in geoprocessing, or inside of…

46:49…ArcMap to pull out just what you need, but you can also do some interesting things with Export To CAD too, to…

46:54…create great CAD data that, you know, make your CAD users a little happier.

46:59That's never bad, is it, Phil?

47:00Not bad.

47:01Okay. Alright. Next.

47:04Next. Alright, so now we're going to shift gears quite a bit. We're going to talk about using GIS data in CAD.

47:13So even though this title is Using CAD Data in ArcGIS, we're actually going to talk about how to access some GIS data in…

47:19…CAD, in particular map services. So a lot of you are probably already using ArcGIS Server to publish your maps and…

47:26…share them within your organization as web services or to the entire Internet.

47:31And so that's a great way to get content out that's going to have information about your particular projects and your maps.

47:41The good news is that CAD can be an additional client to Server just like ArcMap's a client to Server…

47:46…web applications, Flex viewer, et cetera. So we have techniques and some tools that allow you to access that.

47:56In terms of MicroStation, that's done through WMS. That's built in. And with AutoCAD it's a little more tightly integrated.

48:03We have an ArcGIS for AutoCAD product that we talked about earlier that allows you access to Server map services.

48:11So in MicroStation, again, it's built in beginning at V8 XM and higher. You have the ability to connect to WMS.

48:18In terms of how to do that from an author and publishing perspective in Server, it's simply checking that WMS box.

48:26So if whoever's publishing map services does that, that's going to enable MicroStation users, your MicroStation users…

48:33…potentially to access that content.

48:38In terms of AutoCAD, we have a product, a lightweight product called ArcGIS for AutoCAD.

48:43It's a plug-in application. It's free. It's always a nice thing that it's free.

48:47It currently supports AutoCAD 2010 to 2012, so the current versions.

48:52We have an older version that supports 2007, -8, and -9.

48:55What it does, it allows connection to ArcGIS Server map services. So it doesn't require that WMS capability, but if…

49:02…the service does have WMS you can still use it.

49:06In addition to your own map services that you can have AutoCAD users access...

49:10…it also can access ArcGIS Online content. As you saw on Monday's plenary there's a lot of effort getting content out on…

49:17…ArcGIS Online for everyone to access.

49:21So again, AutoCAD and MicroStation are part of that.

49:24An additional part of ArcGIS for AutoCAD is the ability to organize CAD drawings into feature classes and attribute them.

49:31So that's another…like there's two parts of ArcGIS for AutoCAD. I'll show that a little bit later.

49:35But again, the goal here is to make AutoCAD a better client, a better application that works with ArcGIS Desktop and Server.

49:45So here's a few slides, just kind of showing you conceptually what's happening.

49:48You can add basemaps, map services, and of course, CAD drawings. Still a very viable file-based solution for exchanging data.

49:56In terms of accessing map services, you would…we have some…a ribbon interface that allows you connection to…

50:03…the basemaps on ArcGIS Online as well as traditional URL connections to services.

50:09We use AutoCAD's palette user interface to manage these map services, to get information about the coordinate systems…

50:16…and the URL, et cetera, and control visibility.

50:19And you can identify map features as long as the map services are enabled with query. Most of them are.

50:26Alright. Back to Jeff. Now Jeff's going to show WMS in MicroStation and I'm going to follow it up with…

50:31…showing ArcGIS for AutoCAD, how it works with Server.

50:37Alright. Back again.

50:40There we go. Back again. Sorry. Alright, so in this case as he's talked about ArcGIS for AutoCAD, we've shown…

50:47…that product in the past and a lot of people have questions. MicroStation people, how can they participate and be…

50:53…able to get a map service as a part of that functionality?

50:56And this is a way with MicroStation…in this case I have MicroStation V8i SS2 which I think is the latest release…

51:04…of MicroStation. What I'm going to show you is available in MicroStation XM .09, point something, you can…

51:13.03?

51:14Yeah. .09…

51:1508.09.03?

51:16Yeah, is that what it is? Alright. And then alsoV8i is the same thing, but what happens in the later versions is they've…

51:21…wrapped it into the Raster Manager, so it's a little bit nicer to work with. With V8i and beyond.

51:28So in this case we already had a map service published for us. An image service, actually.

51:33And what I have here is I've got some data from Charlotte. It's the airport in Charlotte.

51:38And what I want to do is I want to bring in a map service behind here for a little design that I'd like to do.

51:46So I use my Raster Manager and in this case, I could go a new WMS. So that's a nice little thing here.

51:53So by default it comes with a lot of WMS services that you can hit, but in our case I have one buried in here.

52:02This one right here. And this is the WMS of an image service that I have sitting on a server back in Charlotte right now.

52:09And what I could do here, is I could add that to map.

52:13And then there's configurable variables over here as well. God, I can't say that word. Configurable variables off to…

52:21…the side here and there's different projection information that in this case is coming into NAD83 US survey feet.

52:27I'm happy with that. I could go to WGS84 from where it was published. I can change my image type as well…

52:34…whether it be PNG or JPEG and also the transparency. I want to turn that on and off.

52:43But I won't bother doing it here because I want to show you something else on this.

52:46The other way to get at this is to attach an existing WMS file, or attach an existing connection file.

52:55So I can go here and select this thing and I'm going to accept all the defaults and give it a second.

53:08There we go. A little slower today, but not bad.

53:12So what's going on now is I've got that image in the background now, so it's a nice way of being able to grab the image…

53:18…and maybe do some design with a little awareness of what's going on around me with the imagery.

53:23What's doing the job here is that actually this XWMS file and it's a, pretty much an XML file that's formatted so it can be…

53:31…understood from MicroStation to ArcGIS Server.

53:35If you want to get in more detail of it, in my other session that we talked about, I'll go into a bit more detail of that.

53:40But that's in essence what it does.

53:44So, Phil.

53:46Okay. Alright, thanks, Jeff. So now I'm going to show AutoCAD 2011 with ArcGIS for AutoCAD installed.

53:56And let me…first thing I want to do here is I'm going to net load the application.

53:59So again, you can download ArcGIS for AutoCAD from our resource center or from esri.com if you just do a search…

54:04…ArcGIS for AutoCAD, it'll send you to our product page.

54:08You can download two different setups. There's a 32-bit setup that supports AutoCAD 2010, -11, -12 and…

54:14…a 64-bit setup as well. So depending upon which version of AutoCAD you have, we have setups for you.

54:21So, let me go ahead and type net load. This is the AutoCAD command to net load an application.

54:27It takes me to my ArcGIS for AutoCAD folder. It's a pretty small, lightweight application.

54:32It's a small footprint, about 25 megs. We do install the coordinate systems.

54:37The same folder that you get in Desktop installed under the Desktop 10 folder. And what I want to do here is just select my…

54:45…ArcGIS for AutoCAD DLL to load it.

54:47So what you'll see here is the ArcGIS for AutoCAD splash screen. This is build 250.

54:52Again, we've had a few different versions over the years. This is our current version.

54:56We have a new version coming out this fall called 300 that's going to add additional capabilities such as…

55:02…support for feature services and image services. So that's going to be…really extend our functionality.

55:08For now we're going to show map services because that's what we support at this release, but please check back…

55:14…to esri.com coming this fall for our latest release.

55:18Alright, first thing I'm going to do here, you'll notice when I loaded it, our ribbon changed.

55:21We have an additional ribbon tab here with several different panels here.

55:27Going from left to right we have the area that we would use to add content.

55:33We can manage our map services from here.

55:35Of course feature classes I'll talk about in a few moments.

55:39And we have some tools to refresh your maps, to select features, identify features, and of course, to access…

55:45…our resource center and help system from here.

55:47So first thing I want to do here is I have a drawing. This is actually from our Esri Water Distribution sample that's…

55:53…available on ArcGIS.com in the local government section.

55:56So you can actually download this drawing. You can see all the feature classes and information and the geodatabase…

56:02…that's part of this, so feel free to check that out when you get a chance.

56:05First thing I'm going to do. The easiest way to add a map service to AutoCAD here is just by clicking on this Esri Maps…

56:11…button. It's going to open up a browser.

56:13This is a smaller, I guess, selection of basemaps as compared to what you see in ArcMap or Explorer.

56:18So we're going to add to that in the future as well, but in this case here, what I want to do is add some more…

56:22…get some context about this particular area.

56:25So I'll click on World Street Map and I'll add it to my drawing.

56:28One thing I mentioned, I talked about coordinate systems, how we install those, you have the ability to define a…

56:34…coordinate system in the drawing using ArcGIS for AutoCAD.

56:38So as soon as this gets added to the map what we'll do is I'll do a list of the coordinate systems so you…

56:42…can see where we're at.

56:43Now this drawing already had the coordinate system defined, so if I list it, we can open the AutoCAD text window…

56:48…we notice that we're in State Plane Florida East, Zone 0, 901 feet.

56:54If I didn't have a coordinate system in that drawing and I added this map service, the drawing's going to assume…

56:59…the coordinate system of the map service.

57:00In this case it'll probably be WGS84 auxiliary sphere because that's what most of the basemaps are.

57:06But whatever map service it has, that will be basically, it will assign it to it.

57:12That coordinate system now is defined in the drawing, so if you take that back to Desktop you will actually have that…

57:17…information in there so you don't have to assign a coordinate system.

57:21Talked about that georeferencing workflow earlier where you would transform your data, you would assign your…

57:25…coordinate system. This with having ArcGIS for AutoCAD, it automatically does that for you if you do it in AutoCAD.

57:29We embed that in the drawing. You don't have to have a companion file.

57:33Okay, let me go ahead and zoom in. So I'm going to zoom in to our focus area.

57:39So as you can see here, this is a water distribution network.

57:42We have some main lines, some laterals, some valves, and so forth, but this is a good basemap.

57:49But what I want to do is access data that gives more description about this site.

57:54So what I'm going to do here is open up our map service palette.

57:57You notice that this is that palette I showed earlier. You get information about the service.

58:02I can turn off visibility. I can change the dynamic display which is useful if you're going to pan around.

58:07Every time you pan with dynamic it's going to make a request to the server, so best practice is turn off your…

58:12…dynamic, zoom around and then once you get to the location you want to work with, for instance I'll just uncheck that…

58:18…I'll zoom in closer, you'll notice that I don't get a refresh on the map, but I can go ahead and click on Refresh Maps.

58:23It's on demand refreshing right there.

58:25So you'll notice if you get coordinate system information, again this is web Mercator auxiliary sphere, but the drawing is…

58:33…State Plane Florida 901, so that's going to take precedence and then of course, you have layers.

58:37This is a basemap so you only get a few layers there, but what I'm going to do here is I'm going to delete this one because…

58:42…I want to get…I want to use a better map service for my particular needs here.

58:46So a more traditional way, I can add a map. Open up the Add Map Service dialog box here.

58:51I'm going to enter my, well my URL's already saved. I have ArcGIS Server installed on this laptop, so I'm serving out…

58:57…a few different map services, so I'll just click on Connect and it's going to connect my server and then fetch the list…

59:03…of services that are available.

59:05So I only have a couple here, so I'll pick on this local government basemap service, click on Add and just like the…

59:12…other map service, it will get added and it's reprojected.

59:14Now this one, all the coordinate systems are the same. This is from the same dataset.

59:18Now you notice I get more information; you can see I have some information about some lots and parcels here.

59:25You know, every time I zoom, you notice, or pan around, I get a refresh, so I could identify some map features.

59:30For instance I could just make a selection. Drag a box around. You get all this information here.

59:35Let's say for parcels I could get information…This is coming from the map service which is coming from a geodatabase…

59:40…so you have all access to all that data, and let's say a CAD operator wants to use this information as a reference.

59:47If you're editing, you're creating some new data. So let me do a regen here.

59:51What I could do is just make sure I have the proper layers selected here, so I'll create a new lateral line.

59:59Let me go down to the proper layer. There it is.

1:00:01And of course, you just use standard AutoCAD editing tools.

1:00:03All we're doing, we're adding data to a drawing here.

1:00:05So I can snap to, or let's say I add the line right here, snap it.

1:00:12Actually, that's the wrong one. Let me try that one more time. Click on Polyline. Just start it from here.

1:00:17So it's just, the idea here is that with map services, or basemaps, you can have CAD operators access GIS data…

1:00:24…without any conversion necessary.

1:00:26Conversion is still a very valid exchange process and in some cases it's required, but in this case with a lot of map…

1:00:32…services that are being posted on ArcGIS Server, ArcGIS Online, you have the ability to use those with this product.

1:00:41So that's one example of how you can use services. So let me just quickly go through a few more slides here.

1:00:47I'm going to talk about feature classes, what we call CAD-defined feature classes in ArcGIS for AutoCAD.

1:00:53So this is just a graphic example of what we mean when we talk about these feature classes.

1:01:02Of course a CAD entity is going to have its inherent properties, but with ArcGIS for AutoCAD you can define…

1:01:07…feature classes to assign schema.

1:01:11So not only is it on a layer, mains, but it can have material information, diameter information.

1:01:16In this case we're talking about like a water line.

1:01:18So that's a way that you can attribute data in AutoCAD.

1:01:29We really want to leverage what's existing in the CAD drawing as much as possible and really not disrupt a…

1:01:35…workflow of a CAD editor.

1:01:37So one thing you'll see, is once you have these feature classes, you bring them back to Desktop, you're going to see…

1:01:42…additional feature classes beyond the standard ones.

1:01:45You can define feature classes in ArcGIS for AutoCAD.

1:01:48You can edit attributes using the Properties palette, so these are tools or interfaces that CAD users are familiar with so…

1:01:55…it's just really an extension of what they do on a daily basis.

1:02:00And lastly, the goal here is also to provide interoperability with Desktop, or improved interoperability with ArcGIS Desktop.

1:02:06ArcGIS 9.3 or higher will read these feature classes in the drawing and so that definitely helps the story in terms of…

1:02:13…making CAD integration more effective here.

1:02:15So let me go back to AutoCAD. I'm going to go to a different drawing.

1:02:18Now this one is some county data in Tennessee. Now this one I have with some imagery in the back.

1:02:24What we, just from talking to a lot of users over the years, it seems like imagery is a really useful thing to have in…

1:02:30…terms of CAD designers and engineers. To understand what's around the project site.

1:02:36So this is just a basemap. You can probably get some higher res imagery other than what's available for free online.

1:02:43But what I'll do here is I'm going to just zoom in to an area, this particular commercial lot, and then go back to…

1:02:51…see if we can bring that basemap back. And let's try it again. This happened on yesterday too.

1:03:00I can't see the basemap. But that's okay. What we can do here is click on this Feature Classes palette...

1:03:10Alright, there we go. So we got the Feature Classes palette. So this drawing has some feature classes defined.

1:03:15For instance, if we click on this drop-down, you're going to notice that we have a few different feature classes in there.

1:03:21And for each feature class, such as Parcels for instance, you see there's a filter.

1:03:25This is a pretty basic filter. Just the layer property pointing to the parcels layer.

1:03:31But you notice that down here we have some fields and some schema here that you can use to…that basically is defining…

1:03:37…that feature class.

1:03:39So if I click on, let's say, let's pick a parcel here. You'll notice that when I open up the properties, this is the AutoCAD…

1:03:49…Properties palette, not only do I get information about the standard CAD properties, if we scroll down, you'll notice…

1:03:55…that we have some more information.

1:03:57This section called Parcels is in addition to the properties and that's coming from these feature classes that we embed in…

1:04:05…the drawing. So for instance, as an AutoCAD…inside the AutoCAD environment, I can use some selection tools.

1:04:12I can have my feature class set to Parcels. Just like in ArcMap when you perform a query, select by attributes…

1:04:20…you know I can go back and just add a query here and apply it and what happens is just with that information in the drawing…

1:04:28…you know, I get zoomed right to this particular feature.

1:04:32So again, that's selected. We can find out, you know, what…more information about that particular parcel.

1:04:37So it's showing you that you're not just using AutoCAD properties to locate some data in there; we're actually using some…

1:04:44…information that's coming from the geodatabase.

1:04:47So let me show you how you can create a new feature class. I'm going to zoom back to that area.

1:04:57And just by…Let me go back and add the palette here.

1:05:02So I can create a New Feature Class. I can select New Feature Class; I'm going to call this Footprints.

1:05:07So I'm going to create a feature class to store the building footprints. I can click on Polygon. Click on Add.

1:05:16And now down here I can create a query. So it's a little…I don't have a lot of real estate here on my screen here but…

1:05:22…I'll have to zoom out. I can choose Layer and I click on Add. It brings up a basically a picker.

1:05:30I can choose this drawing layer called Parcels. Click on Add, and then down below here I can…Oops, actually…

1:05:38…that was the wrong layer. Let me go ahead and pick Footprints. There we go.

1:05:46Alright. So now I picked the drawing layer called Footprints and then I can give it, let's say, a field called ID and…

1:05:53…just give it a…let's say call it a short integer and add it.

1:05:58If I wanted to, let's say, add name and say text, I can add that too.

1:06:03And I can give it a default value. So if we knew that it was going to be called let's say, you know, Building 1 that…

1:06:10…means by default any feature that's participating in that feature class now has that attribute called Building 1.

1:06:16What I'll do now is I'll go through and zoom in on these building footprints.

1:06:24I'll select one. Now when I do properties you notice that not…You know this just a new feature class I created.

1:06:30You have that footprints feature class as part of the Properties palette.

1:06:35You'll notice that it has an ID value, it has an ID field, number one, so I can give it a 25 for instance.

1:06:42And then name was Building 1. Of course, you want some unique valid names here, but just showing you that…

1:06:46…you can set a default value for all those features that are going to be just by default, all the features in the…

1:06:51…feature class get that information in there.

1:06:53So that is showing how you can leverage ArcGIS for AutoCAD to organize your data, your AutoCAD drawings into…

1:07:00…feature classes and then either set attributes by default values or as a CAD operator is creating new data you can have…

1:07:07…them simply, you know, request that they add attributes as they're creating data.

1:07:13So it's not, you know, it's a similar workflow to how they're going to edit data.

1:07:17They're just using the Properties palette.

1:07:19As a CAD manager, for instance, we have this tool called Import GIS Schema.

1:07:23So you could take a master drawing and then import the schema.

1:07:28So with all these feature classes that we've defined in a drawing, you can import those schemas to multiple drawings.

1:07:34So if you follow the same CAD standard, other drawings have a layer named Footprints, they will automatically inherit that.

1:07:41So that's a really useful way to distribute a GIS schema within an AutoCAD drawing.

1:07:48And in the end, the goal is to really leverage that information in ArcGIS Desktop.

1:07:52So if I switch back to ArcMap, now I'm going to go ahead and start a new map document.

1:07:58Now you remember when I showed that graphic of what the feature classes…just by default, all the standard…

1:08:03…feature classes that you get?

1:08:05Now when I go over to that data…Let me just browse to it really quick.

1:08:17I'm going to drag this into ArcMap. Now watch what you see. You'll see what's different about this drawing.

1:08:24Now I have all these feature classes, additional feature classes.

1:08:27So if I open up, let's say Footprints. I didn't save the drawing yet, but anyway, you'll see that we have a Parcels feature class.

1:08:35So if I open up the attribute table you get those CAD properties that are inherent with the CAD features, but you'll…

1:08:42…notice now we have information such as, you know, appraisal, object ID, PIN number, property address, et cetera.

1:08:50So of course, what Jeff showed here with export to CAD, you can generate a CAD drawing that has blocks with attributes.

1:08:56That's going to be useful information, but the other way if you consider ArcGIS for AutoCAD what it…

1:09:03…can do with feature classes allows CAD users to populate that information, those features with information…

1:09:09…that a desktop user…let's say you receive that data back, now you have way more information than you would…

1:09:13…potentially without ArcGIS for AutoCAD.

1:09:15So this is our technique for improving interoperability between AutoCAD and ArcGIS. So…

1:09:23Alright. Let's go back and finish up with a few more slides. I think we're doing pretty good on time. Just about.

1:09:32Okay. Alright, so just a…this is a slide, of course not all of you have control of how CAD data is created.

1:09:41Some of it's legacy. Some of it could be 20 years old, but if you do, if you can, you know, give tips to your CAD…

1:09:49…operators, yes. You always want it to be drawn in a real-world coordinate location.

1:09:53Makes life a lot easier, but it's okay. We have tools that address…that resolve those issues if your CAD data is not perfect.

1:10:02Of course, you know, having logical, well-organized layers is always nice. You know, everything on layer zero.

1:10:10You know, that could be a little painful, but let's hope we all get good CAD standard, or good CAD drawings…

1:10:16…that follow good CAD standard.

1:10:19Alright, so we're wrapping up here. Just a few resources. Please check out our resource center.

1:10:24We have a CAD Integration Resource Center at resources.arcgis.com.

1:10:29We're working on improving. Adding more content to it. Getting some solutions out there.

1:10:34We've talked to some of you at the island this week and we know that, you know, we've heard about some of the…

1:10:38…workflows that you've been going through, so we're very appreciative of that info and we'll try to get more…

1:10:44…solutions and more documents out there to support you guys.

1:10:47There's a Working with CAD Data course. If you're interested, it's a one-day course that goes through some of the…

1:10:53…things you saw here today, but in more detail and you go through some exercises with an instructor.

1:10:58We also have a live training seminar. It's a little bit old now, but a lot of it still applies conceptually.

1:11:04And just to talk about the road ahead here. We do have that new version of ArcGIS for AutoCAD 300 coming out…

1:11:11…this fall. Again that's going to provide support for feature services and image services, so if you like what you saw today…

1:11:18…you think that could be helpful for you, please download the application, keep an eye out for our new version coming out.

1:11:24It's definitely going to extend its functionality based on what you saw today.

1:11:29Alright, this is going back to just another reminder for those of you that want to focus on a particular, you know, CAD…

1:11:36…integration workflow, or just really want to hang out tomorrow, room 24A all day long, so we'd love to have you there.

1:11:44We'll be answering questions.

1:11:47Of course we're at the Geodatabase Island all week long, so if there's anything that we didn't cover here that you…

1:11:52…have some questions, and also too, we really like to know what you guys are doing, what your workflows are…

1:11:57…you know, what challenges are you facing. Please let us know. It helps us build better software.

1:12:01It helps us build better help and get samples out there for you. So feel free to come by.

1:12:07We have new online evaluations, so please go to, think it's esri.com/evalsessions…

1:12:12[Unintelligible]

1:12:13Eval sessions. Anyway, please fill those out. Again, thank you for attending. Have a great conference.

1:12:18Have a great rest of the week. Thank you very much.

1:12:21Thank you.

Copyright 2013 Esri
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Using CAD Data in ArcGIS

Phil Sanchez and Jeff Reinhart discuss how your organization can leverage CAD data using Esri’s data integration tools.

  • Recorded: Jul 13th, 2011
  • Runtime: 1:12:23
  • Views: 86987
  • Published: Sep 21st, 2011
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@dgoldb2@luc.edu  Thank you for your question. Jeff Reinhart, one of the presenters, will be contacting you.
KarenJaffarian  (Staff Comment) 1 Year ago
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How do I get ahold of the authors to find out more about their import models?
dgoldb2@luc.edu 1 Year ago
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