GIS is playing an increasingly important role in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) companies by supporting all phases of infrastucture management. In the recent years it has become evident in the industry that the GIS groups within AEC companies have been elevated to a position of not only mandating digital standards but are also responsible for the management of the massive amount of digital design data that is created by their Engineering and Geomatics departments.
So how does the GIS department easily and efficiently move data between the different groups and software, not only to create a GIS database but also to address the creation of BIM?
Autodesk has provided us with the suits and although suits were to address BIM, let’s take a small peek at the interoperability between Map3D’s SDF file and Civil3D parcels as it realties to the traditional GIS data management.
In a recent Map class I was teaching a topic on connection to a SDF file and the tools on how to split and merge features. However it is evident that C3D provides a far superior tool to creating, merging and splitting parcels than those tools available in Map3D. That is the topic of this paper, how to create and edit parcels in Civil 3D and push it back to the SDF file.
So here is the scenario. The GIS department manages all the data for the parcel property. The parcels may have up to a dozen (ten if you want to be metric) feature data. Our Geomatics department is tasked with subdividing a parcel and once completed it needs to be pushed back up to the original SDF file.
Figure on the left is the original parcel layout and the one on the right is the subdivided parcel.
Map3D SDF to Civil 3D parcels and back again to Map3D SDF, essentially a roundhouse effect.
Bring the data in make changes and push it out again.
Phase 1 extracting the parcel from the SDF file and subdividing using Civil 3
- In this first step you need to import the parcels from the master SDF file. To do that, in the insert tab, select Map Import command.
- Select the master parcel sdf file
- In the import dialog, in the data column select the browse button and select the create object data button. This will import the feature properties from the SDF file as object data.
- In the import dialog also make sure you check the Import polygons as closed polylines. Define the area that you want imported and select the OK button. This will import polylines with object data.
- Now that you have polylines you can use Civil 3D to create and subdivide parcels.
- Alternatively you could create a FDO connection
to the sdf file, check out the feature, Extract the geometry from feature and
explode the feature to create a polyline and finally erase the feature from the
drawing and check in all features to update the SDF. However this is a longer
process.
- Alternatively you could create a FDO connection
- In C3D export the parcels to a new SDF file, note none of these parcels have the feature data from the original SDF map feature.
Phase 2, appending the civil 3D parcels to original SDF file.
- Start a new drawing.
- Create an FDO to the master SDF file.
- As you will need to update the master SDF file with the changes, the first step is to check out the feature parcels that were subdivided in step 5 above. Erase these parcels and select check in all features. The master SDF file has now been updated with the revised parcels removed. In the next step we will attempt to update the master SDF file with the newly created parcels.
- Import the civil 3D parcel SDF file created in step 6 above. This step will create MPolygon objects in your drawing
- Select the command create from geometry and select one parcel at a time and hit enter.
- Map 3D will create a map feature and push it to the master SDF file.
So the round house did not work as planned, the tracks did not line up perfectly. Currently it is the only solution I could come up with. I have been in contact with Autodesk technical. But at the end of the day my wish list is
- Ability to create a parcel from a checked out polygon feature and retain the feature properties even if it is only as object data.
- When subdividing a civil 3D parcel all subdivided parcels should carry forward the feature properties or object data.
- And finally, if there is a final in a software wish list. The ability in civil 3D, depending on the workflow, to either check in the C3D parcel feature or the command New Feature from geometry to allow you to push the C3D parcel back to the SDF file.
For now, the issue I have encountered, and will hopefully address in part 2, is how to, one, easily append in bulk, all the newly created parcels to the master SDF file and, two, how to retain the original feature data properties.
Note,
this paper is not meant to be a detail tutorial but merely a workflow outline.
If there is a demand for a step by step tutorial format, I will rework it into
part 2.