Coordinate System Management Tools

[chrish]

I'm working in AutoCAD Map 2000 release 4
I have to deal with lots of user defined projection files and would like to organize/edit them more efficiently.
Does any newer version of AutoCAD Map or third party software have a better category manager than 2000/4?
Specifically,
Can you move projections from one category to another?
Is there any way to store projection files on a central server and point workstations to that location rather than storing these files on each individual hard drive?
What are MRT, LAS, LOS, & CSD files and is there a way to manually edit them (wordpad)?

Thanks, Chris

[Anonymous]

Chris,
I am wondering if your use of the term 'projections' really means Coordinate Systems? Read on...

1. I have to deal with lots of user defined projection files and would like to organize/edit them more efficiently.
- There is no way to organize the projections, only coordinate systems. The Projection list is not all that long, ~55, so we don't use categories. There are about 2000 Coordinate systems, which is why we need categories. The Category Manager will allow new CS categories and you can move CS's from one category to another.
2. Does any newer version of AutoCAD Map or third party software have a better category manager than 2000/4?
- Not that I know of. I am not sure if there is an API for this either. Tell me the problems with the existing Category Manager. It seems you would like to be able to organize Projections? (As opposed to Coordiante systems)
3. Can you move projections from one category to another?
- Projections are not organized by category anyway. See #2 above.
4. Is there any way to store projection files on a central server and point workstations to that location rather than storing these files on each individual hard drive?
- No, coordinate systems are always installed on the users local machine in the common files location because they need to be registered. You can use the CSUpdate.exe utility over the network to keep other users up to date with CS changes.
5. What are MRT, LAS, LOS, & CSD files and is there a way to manually edit them (wordpad)?
- Please don't edit any of these files in any way. it will break your coordinate system functionality. (I don't think it is possible anyway because they are not ASCII). The MRT, LAS, LOS, etc are used for datum shifts, MRT is for Multiple Regression Transformations and the LAS/LOS are for the NAD transformations. The CSD files are the actual list of categories, coordinate systems, datums, and ellipsoids.

Please post any specific recomendations that you might have. Who knows, maybe they will get fixed to your liking. Hope this helps...

Martin

[chrish]

Martin, Ahh, you are correct, my erroneous use of the word projection instead of Coordinate System has confused my query.
Regardless, I have spent the last week manually organizing my Coordinate Systems. Basically my issue is that the Category manager allows you to add and delete Categories, move Coordinate Systems in and out of them, but falls short of allowing you to move categories (i.e. into alphabetical order). I spent a long time adding new categories at the end of the list, then deleting the ones at the start. We had to add 50 categories to the list and intermix them with AutoCAD defined categories. Whew! Being able to sort categories would be a nice function for the Category Manager.
Also It would be nice if the CSD files could be centerally located. We use the CSUpdate.exe, but it only adds information to the list, sometimes we need to erase bad user defined coordinate systems, but have to chase them down on 30 machines.
I have been simply copying a good copy of a Category.CSD and Coordsys.CSD into each user's 8 folder. This seems to eliminate the Coordinate Systems we don't want floating around. Will copying the files like this have repercussions?
Thanks for the info, chris

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback. I like your ideas. You seem to be very active in the coordinate system business:-) To be sure, we never delete a custom CS and I don't know of a good way to do this, other than a network install (very slow). We don't recommend copying files in general, but I do it for testing purposes. Be advised that this is not something we support, but if you are very careful, it should be OK (you didn't hear this from me;-)).
Martn