Jeff Morris | Sr. Applications Expert

By now it is quite clear that Infraworks 360 is an ideal tool for preliminary and conceptual design. It has a strong partnership with Civil 3D, which can import the preliminary design to further design development. These two programs are known as “the Dynamic Duo” for a good reason.
While the “Dynamic Duo” together are very powerful, there is another very interesting and useful function Infraworks 360 can perform, which is to visualize GIS data.
If the Model Builder (within Infraworks 360) is not being used to create the initial model in Infraworks, one has to connect to a variety of data “manually”, via the Data Sources Palette. One can connect to a variety of GIS Data Sources, such as SHP, SDF and SQLite. One can also connect to direct or on-line data sources by designating the connection type and supplying the proper service and login credentials. Also note that one can “manually” connect to Bing Maps.

The actual configuration of the database and mapping its fields to Infraworks attributes is beyond this range of a blog post, however the important takeaway is knowing that any such GIS data field can be used for tool tips, attributes within palettes, stylizing, etc.
With this ability to connect to GIS data sources, Infraworks can become an interesting tool to display and showcase a variety of GIS databases. With the unique graphic capabilities of Infraworks and the creative use of proposals tools, powerful and compelling data can be easily utilized.
It is important to remember that while Infraworks is an excellent data aggregator, visual, preliminary design tool, it is not intended to be used as an editing tool. Even though one can change the location of the objects and modify the attributes on its palette, these values may not be reflected in the original GIS database, since the original field mapping to Infraworks attributes is usually one-way. In addition, other standard attributes within Infraworks, such as Creation Date and Termination Date, are usually not part of the original GIS database.
Therefore it is recommended that Infraworks is regarded as a GIS display tool, not an editing tool. AutoCAD Map 3D is a recommended editing tool and can connect to the same GIS Data sources as Infraworks, and changes made within the Map 3D environment can (if configured properly) go directly into the connected GIS Data Source.

With this kind of approach, Infraworks and Map 3D together can be as much as a “Dynamic Duo” as the much more touted Infraworks and Civil 3D “partnership”, and it gives Infraworks another interesting use, incorporating GIS data to provide visually stunning and data-rich presentations.