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Is there a way to select by object data?

19 REPLIES 19
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Message 1 of 20
albionpjl
3588 Views, 19 Replies

Is there a way to select by object data?

We have a perenial problem with our old GIS software where files corrupt and drawing objects are lost.

 

There are few export options available, but export to shape is one of them. This means that I can export a damaged file and then import it into CAD with the layers intact and the tagged numbers (similar to object data or a block attribute in CAD) imported as object data. In order to make a new uncorrupted version for the GIS program.

 

Is there a way to select objects by object data?

If a file is corrupted, the only real way to repair it at the moment is to go back to the original cad drawing and reimport and then retag every single tagged attribute on what can be thousands of drawing objects, and by then we may no longer have the handdrawn data to even do that.

The next workaround is if I creat new dwgs from the cad drawing, Each one containing the objects with the same object data, and each saved with a file name that matches that object data, and then reimport into the GIS. (it can use the filename as a tag). This creates a new GIS file with the surviving information that should not lose any more data and we may be able to patch the 'holes' afterwards.

 

The problem is selecting all the polylines in the cad drawing that have that same tagged number in the object data. Select similar just goes on object type and layer. This would be easier if I could select by object data and get everything with the same tag in one go.

 

A way to batch create the new dwgs from that selected data would be nice too.

 

I know that this probably isn't as clear as it could be. It's hard to describe so I hope you understand what I mean.

 

C3d 2013

19 REPLIES 19
Message 2 of 20
Alfred.NESWADBA
in reply to: albionpjl

Hi,

 

create a new drawing, use command _ADEDRAWINGS to get the "defect" drawing as a source drawing attached.

Next step is to query the data from the source drawing using command _ADEQUERY, that gives you in some cases the option to get defect drawings repaired ...PLUS... you can use here object-data as filter to define what shold be queried into the current drawing.

 

HTH, - alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 3 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: Alfred.NESWADBA

Thanks for replying.

I tried what you described, but fail at _ADEDRAWINGS

 

The dialogue box to attach a drawing does not allow me to select any drive but C, and my data is all on other drives. My C drive is for OS only. Do I have to move the data to C to use this command?

 

Message 4 of 20
Alfred.NESWADBA
in reply to: albionpjl

Hi,

 

>> The dialogue box to attach a drawing does not allow me to select any drive but C

Within this dialog you can define ALIASES and so you can access your network paths.

Sample: if you have a project called WATER on G:\PRJ_047 then you can define an alias called "WATER" that points to your network path "G:\PRJ_047".

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 5 of 20
AllenJessup
in reply to: albionpjl

Sometimes a picture or 2 can help.

 

bd.PNG

 

al.jpg

 

Allen Jessup



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 6 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: AllenJessup

I can't get _ADEDRAWINGS to work. I set up the alias, selected the drawing but it doesn't appear in the window, and it says that it's not active. Attempting to activate it gives an error that it 'cannot change active status'.

 

 I have attached the screenshot.

 

 

edit - I'm a twit, had it open in another window. Trying again.

Message 7 of 20

Hi,

 

>> Sometimes a picture or 2 can help.

Thank you and yes, it will be a help for the TO

.... for that dialogs I guess that my German Map3D (or Civil3D) screenshots would not be very descriptive 😉

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 8 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: Alfred.NESWADBA

Well I got the dwg activated but it still doesn't show in the window (and yes I tried zoom extents).

I ran _ADEQUERY and it ran with no error messages but showed nothing. Shouldn't I be able to see SOMETHING in the window?

 

I have attached what I can see.

Message 9 of 20
Alfred.NESWADBA
in reply to: albionpjl

Hi,

 

>> I ran _ADEQUERY and it ran with no error messages but showed nothing

Have you done a ZOOM EXTENTS after you queried the data?

In the command line AutoCAD Map3D does report (by default) how many entities were queried, have you got a number?

 

Maybe (hopefully) it's a help to look through some videos >>>here<<<.

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 10 of 20
AllenJessup
in reply to: albionpjl

EDIT

-------------------------------------

Sorry respond too quickly. You're past this step. But doing the zoom extents from the rt click menu will assure you're in the correct area

------------------------------------

Rt Click on the drawing. First do a Zoom Extents then a QuickView. This only creates a view not entities. The workflow is to query only the entities with the object data you want in to the drawing.

 

qv.jpg

 

Allen Jessup



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 11 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: AllenJessup

Which dialogue box is that? I tried toolspace but it doesn't match that. I can't find a quick view option. Zoom extents shows nothing. I even tried delete and select all and it selected nothing.

The dwg doesn't seem to be coming into the new drawing.

Message 12 of 20
Alfred.NESWADBA
in reply to: albionpjl

Hi,

 

one additional thing: if you look to the screenshots from Allen, the query-dialog has three options to query data&colon;

- Preview

- Draw

- Report

==> please select "Draw" otherwise (if you let "Preview" activated) the first _REGEN will remove the preview and so the visibility of the queried entities.

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 13 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: Alfred.NESWADBA

_adedrawings does not seem to be actually putting a copy of the dwg into the new drawing. I can't right click on it because there is nothing to right click on.

 

Which workspace do I need to be in to see the things in those videos?

 

Message 14 of 20
AllenJessup
in reply to: albionpjl

That's the TaskPane. Type MAPWSPACE and set to On to open it. Sorry we must be confusing you. Alfred always works with the command line. I mix in the toolpallet also.

 

A quick and dirty way of attaching a drawing is to drag it from explorer in to the Taskpane. But only do this for drawings you're not going it need attached after the query. I've know Map to loose the path after the drawing is closed.

 

 



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 15 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: AllenJessup

OK thanks, got the task pane up.

 

PArt of the problem is that I have this customised to remove the ribbon and only show things I use on a day to day basis. That does not include the task pane.

 I couldn't find any info in cad help on how to show the task pane again if you turn it off.

OK quickview shows the dwg, but when I execute the query, it's finding 0 entities, although I know that there are entities with that specific number in the object data drawing field.

It also doesn't let me open that active dwg in a separate window to check that the number is correct. I checked in the GIS and picked a number that should produce a nice ling ditch with several segments, but still 0 entities.

Message 16 of 20
AllenJessup
in reply to: albionpjl


albionpjl wrote:

 

Which workspace do I need to be in to see the things in those videos?

 


I couldn't get the video to open. But based on 2012 help you're probably looking at the Ribbon. I think THIS may be more helpful.

Capture.PNG

 

Allen Jessup

 



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 17 of 20
AllenJessup
in reply to: albionpjl

Is it possible for you to share a small area of your drawing for us to see what kind of data you're trying to query based on?

 

Allen Jessup



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 18 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: AllenJessup

Here you go.

Ring ditch, some grave cuts, a few postholes and some ditches, and a bit of medieval furrow.

 

It seems though, that this method might actually be slower than making a dwg without the drawing numbers and retagging in the GIS. SIgh.

I have to work on something else now but will check in again later.

 

Thanks for all the help. This bit of dwg is from a GIS drawing that has just had the first accident which may lead to it corrupting later on. (Someone hit the delete button on something and that is a surefire way to corrupt files.)

Message 19 of 20
AllenJessup
in reply to: albionpjl

OK. This is how I set up the Query for all objects with a "Drawing" value of 4900. This only worked when I selected the table NBCPL2. So in the "Define Query of Attached Drawing" select Data. In the Data Condition dialog select Object Data, table NBCPL2 and object data fields Drawing. Set the value for the number you want to query. See attached image.

 

There are a couple of paths you could take after you start querying your data. You could save each drawing and insert them all to the final one later or wblock the entities out to new drawings and combine them. If your layer setup lets you, you could freeze the layers of the entities you've already worked on and keep bringing in more.

 

Allen Jessup



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 20 of 20
albionpjl
in reply to: AllenJessup

Wayhay! Success. Thank you very much. AND I found how to get the task pane up from the old drop down menu as well. (it's off the view button).

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