Importing GIS Maps

[Anonymous]

I work for a natural gas pipeline company and I prepare as-builts for jobs that we are given from the gas company. I've been using a trial of AutoCAD for work and I really like it! I especially like using drawings that are already to scale, instead of drawing my own manually in Microsoft Visio. 

I have a question: How do I pull a basemap off of the GIS into a drawing?

I know it can be done because I'm using a dwg that I received from an engineering firm that the gas company contracted to design one of our projects. The entire map is 100% accurate-- I have been able to end up at the same place on the drawing as where I stood when I took the measurement on the field as far as 2000 feet! 

Unfortunately not all of the drawings for our job are designed to scale and the drawings we receive from the gas company are NTS so I would like to know how to import the maps myself. I played around with AutoCAD Map 3D a little bit but I wasn't able to figure anything out with all the map servers and stuff. How do I get started? 

I'm really new to AutoCAD (still on my 30 day trial) and Engineering in general (Computer Science Major), but I'm really excited about this! Please, let me know if my questions need to be clarified or if more information is needed. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Brian R.

[hence_the_name]

Hi Brian,

could you be more specific? What do you mean by "basemap"?

So - you have drawings wich are georeferenced? You also have got AC Map?

Now you want to add further data (maps)? What kind of maps or more specific - data? Data formats, sources,...?

What do you mean by this:

"Unfortunately not all of the drawings for our job are designed to scale and the drawings we receive from the gas company are NTS so I would like to know how to import the maps myself." "NTS"?

Have you got a example?

Regards, Rob

[antoniovinci]

Brian,

if NTS means kinda "Native Terrain Scale", those maps are definitely good, and you should use them "as is".

When you project something in Autocad Map, you MUST always stay at 1:1 scale, just because every object (raster or vector) is completely georeferenced on the ground.

In order to load external resources into Map, powerful options are the commands _MAPIMPORT (for vectors) and _MAPIINSERT (for rasters).

Before working, my advice is: do the tutorials embedded in Map, and watch at Map videos on the Tube.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your quick responses both of you! I thought NTS meant "Not To Scale"-- I'm not sure though.. 

Let me explain a scenario then that might better describe what I want to accomplish. 

Let's say our company has been hired to install pipe to a road. It then becomes my job to create and submit a drawing that shows exactly where the pipe that we installed is located. I don't have any drawings or maps -- just a blank drawing. Without anything to go by, I have to trace/draw every curb, road, address, parcel line, etc into a drawing, then I have to trace where we put the pipe in the drawing. 

But honestly I don't have time to trace out every curb, road, address, and parcel line-- so is there somewhere I can find a pre-existing drawing out there that has all the curbs, roads, etc.? Is there a  It would be a lot easier if I could do that, then I would just have to add one layer to my drawing: the pipe we installed, instead of all the curbs, roads, buildings, etc.

_MAPIMPORT would be the solution if I already had the "map" on my computer, but I don't. So my question would then be: Where do I get a map?

I attached a file. This is what I mean when I say "map". It has curbs, road names, buildings, parcel lines, sidewalks, curbs, etc. Is there somewhere I can find something like this for any location (such as an entirely different city)?

EDIT: sorry the attachment is too big, I'll have to just give you screenshots. The first screenshot let's you see how large the entire drawing is and the second screenshot let's you see how much detail is in the drawing. 

[antoniovinci]

brianhrussell wrote:

I don't have any drawings or maps -- just a blank drawing 

---

Well, that ain't a bad beginning, sir...

First, you outta load some vector shapefiles of the area, just to border it: where are you working on?

Second, get some aerial imagery, e.g. thru the Geomap command.

[Anonymous]

Ok good, I think this is headed in the right direction!
Let's say I need a map for the general area (2000 ft x 2000 ft) of 4400 Roan Trail, Virginia Beach, VA. How do I get those vector shapefiles?

[hence_the_name]

Hi Brian,


there are two different questions you have raised:

1) technically - how can I add / use existing data?
2) less technically - where do I get data?


Question 1)
With Map you can use CAD data such as drawing files or files from other CAD systems such as Microstation. You can either copy the drawing data into your drawing (via command: insert) or you can attach it as XREF. Data will then only be displayed with your drawing but will not be part of your drawing.  That's plain AutoCAD functionality.

You can also add or import several GIS data formats or consume Geospatial web servcies such as WMS / WFS (AutoCAD Map / Civil only). When you add GIS data (such as ESRI SHP or WMS/WFS) via "FDO" (further information in Map help) the data is only displayed in your drawing but not saved with it. If you pass the drawing on to someone else they will not see the data. But you can also "import" GIS data - then the data will become part of your drawing (command: mapimport).

Question 2)
Don't know really - get in contact with local council (planning department?) and ask whether they provide data and at which cost. They migth be able to give you further information on who has relevant data (such as utilities). Other state or federal agencies might provide data as well. The company which hired you might be able to provide GIS/CAD data as well.


By the way - when your company has installed new pipes - don't you send a surveyor to the construction side afterwards? He would come back with field data you can import in Map/Civil and half of your work will be done already.


Good luck,

Rob

[hence_the_name]

Virginia Beach?

council - they have a GIS Center offering spatial data:

http://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/communications-info-tech/maps/pages/default.aspx

http://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/communications-info-tech/maps/Pages/Order-GIS-Datasets.a...

just found that one using Google:

http://data.geocomm.com/catalog/US/61079/1768/index.html

US - tiger data set? Isn't that a free data set?

good luck

[Anonymous]

Brian, I work for a company that has a Map3D plugin called Netmaps.

Netmaps allows users to automatically import georeferenced static maps from a number of commercial free sites including google, bing, here etc.

Its very easy to use is very helpful when designing (via AUD) or posting asbuilt changes to a completed job (Topobase)

Im not sure how this forum works but if you are interested in seeing it I could send more details 

Andy

[Anonymous]

Robert, thank you very much for this breakdown of information. The answer to Question 2, then, is what I need to know the answer to. I read your response and did some looking around. I think that the digital data from the city is what I need. I wish there was a way I could get a sample before paying so I can be sure it is what I want. I have contacted the person I originally got the file from and am going to ask him where he got his data from. 

---

"By the way - when your company has installed new pipes - don't you send a surveyor to the construction side afterwards? He would come back with field data you can import in Map/Civil and half of your work will be done already."

---

Interesting you should ask, I never thought of surveying as a seperate job. I do our "surveying" as well as prepare all the drawings. I don't know if it would be considered legitimate surveying though because I just use a measuring wheel and AutoDesk 360 to take notes-- nothing fancy like those things on the tripods. I sure would enjoy it if we had another person to do our surveying.

*click click click click click*

 

Also, what do you mean by data I can import? Wouldn't he just come back with a bunch of notes that I would manually copy over? Is there an AutoCAD way to record data? 

[Anonymous]

Andy, can you send me a link to that plugin? I couldn't find it after a few searches.
I tried something similar the other day called ArcGIS from Esri which was really cool, but I wasn't able to get as much detail on the streets that I wanted. Also the maps on my plugin was just an image (pixels), I want actual AutoCAD lines (vectors) that I can click on and snap measuring dimension lines to.

[Anonymous]

Hi Brian,

My mistake. Netmaps downloads raster images and registers them as images you can draw over. 

No vectors, sorry.

Its kind of like the GEOMAP streaming function but it saves the tiles so can be used offline and is less consuming of internet bandwidth.

Also it can use a number of map services like, google, bing, here, mapquest for both mapping and geocoding

See the attachment for a screen shot

[antoniovinci]

Brian,

please check the attachment out.

It's an orthoimage of 400 mt. radius area around Roan Trail, with a couple of OSM layers.

As we say in Italy: "better than nothing"...

[Anonymous]

Hi Brian,

I have been entrusted the exact same task as you, and I too am from a non Engineering background (Biotechnology), on my 30 day trial for AutoCad. Since your last post, were you able to get further insight on where to go about finding an accurate base map to draw layers upon?

Also which software have you been using for drawing pipelines? I have been figuring out AutoCAD LT, and also downloaded AutoCAD Utility Design which supposedly is for drawing Electric and Gas pipelines.

Please let me know, anyone else can also jump in. 

Thanks.