New guy import shapefile problems

[madmax]

Hi. I'm trying Map 3d 2005 for the first time. Launch Map 3d, at the black screen - model tab - attempt to import a shapefile - set the coordinate system & check import polygons as polylines - click ok, some processing occurs - then I'm left with just the black screen again.

Any tips much appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Zoom Extents

Murph

wrote in message news:5044124@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi. I'm trying Map 3d 2005 for the first time. Launch Map 3d, at the black
screen - model tab - attempt to import a shapefile - set the coordinate
system & check import polygons as polylines - click ok, some processing
occurs - then I'm left with just the black screen again.

Any tips much appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Do what Murph said. Map does not automatically zoom you to the location of
your data once the import is complete. You must do that manually. You can
also verify that import was successful by watching your command line. It
should tell you how many entities were imported.

A couple of other quick tips to remember for future reference.
1. Don't bury your shapefiles to deep in your folder/directory structure.
This can cause problems. The closer to the root folder the better.

2. Long File names can also cause issues when attempting to import
Shapefiles.

3. If the standard Map import fails try the Mapimport4 command. This command
accesses the old Map import engine before they switched Safe Software's FME
engine. It will import files that the standard import will not. But a word
of caution, if the import fails, this command has been known to eat parts of
the shapefile. Always make sure you have a back up copy of your shapefile
before you use the Mapimport4 command.

4. There is no such thing as an Annotation/Text Shapefile. There are only
point, polyline, and polygon shapefiles.

--
Tripp Corbin, GISP, MCP
Associate Vice President, GIS/Mapping
ESRI Authorized Instructor
Keck & Wood, Inc.
www.keckwood.com
(678) 417-4000
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[madmax]

Many thanks to you both, shapefiles coming thru loud & clear!

[erm_manuel]

Greetings guys. 

I just had the same encounter and was able to locate the objects following steps you've suggested.

But then, I've tried Command:zoom>extents..and got  blank screen bottom "adjust AutoCAD Map 3D scale" with this

I usually was able to zoom all/extent of objects with Command: ZE

Hope you've got the answer.

Cheers and thanks,

Ed

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> But then, I've tried Command:zoom>extents

If ZOOM EXTENTS shows a screen that does not show objects that does not mean that there are no objects!

It is not clean, the objects are just to small to be visible.

Think about a line with a length of 1 at position 1000000,1000000 and another line with 1 length at position -1000000,-1000000.

Doing ZOOM EXTENTS shows then a window with 2000000 width to show a line with just 1 length, this line would then be about 0.001 pixel on the display ==> not displayed.

So your job is to look for geometry which is far away from each other. What you can do is to zoom out a bit, then select the left half of the screen with crossing selection (look for grips, also look for property window about how many objects are selected), then repeat the same for the right half.

If you have found that objects it's up to you to find out why they are so far away ... like data from different coordinate systems, or different scales, or missing XRef's (which then could result in a point at position 0,0,0), ..

Good luck, - alfred -