Using Map within C3D

[MKH-VB]

I am using civil 3d ver 2011.  I have been asked to do a mapping project that will be compatible with ESRI ArcGIS.  THe project consists of mapping of waterlines.  The only data collected will be waterlines, hydrants, valves.  Attributes required would be Size, Depth, Material, NEZ.  What is the best way to do this?  I know that civil 3d has autocad map built in, but but am not sure how to assign the size, depth, etc to the entities.  Can someone point me to the right directon please.  Can't seem to find any help on the "geospatial" part of C3D.  Thanks

Mike

[thepworth]

The Map3D tutorial files install with C3D2011 at:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011\Help\Map 3D Tutorials

Or at least on my machine....

There may be additional data sets available from Autodesk - look for map "skillbuilders"

Also, a book like Alex Penney's "Map3D 2011 - A practical guide" is a decent resource.  I say "decent" because some of the icons for the interface for Map were dropped out by the Civil CUI team - the text commands will work but Civil doesn't have some of the icons within the "geospatial workspaces"

I'll answer more directly when I'm not on the company dime....

[Neilw_05]

I undertook a similar project years ago using Map 2002. Basically you will use blocks for all the symbols such as hydants, valves etc. and link them to a database using an attribute or object data as a key. The database will store all the non-graphical data (you could also store all attributes as Object Data but you will have much better editing and management capabilities with an external database).

The biggest problem was linking the pipes to the database. Map does not provide a way to automate links to linear elements such as lines and polylines since those types of entities cannot store attributes. Thus it is a manual process to select each pipe and assign it an object data value or a direct link to the database. I should note that I experimented with using the attributes generated from link topologies but those attributes are not editable and thus you have no control over the identifiers.

Unless there is now a more efficient way to link the pipes since 2002, I recommend using ArcGis or some other dedicated GIS application for a project like this.

[antoniovinci]

If you'd like to assign Gis attributes to your Autocad objects:

• first create the OD definition with _ADEDEFDATA
• then attach it with _ADEATTACHDATA