Geolocation in AutoCAD 2012

[barneynibbs]

I am looking for more information on the Geolocation Tool in plain AutoCAD 2012. I do not have AutoCAD Map 3D or Civil or anything else - just plain AutoCAD 2012. How does geolocation work in this version of the software? I have figured out how to enter a lat/lon pair at a specific point, give it the correct orientation towards North, and all that, but what I can't find is a decent explanation of what AutoCAD is doing with this information...if anything.

The broader issue is how to take a set of drawings for multiple buildings spread across a campus and "geolocate" them correctly so when you XREF one into another all of the features are correctly spatially related to each other. I am a "GIS guy" so I understand how to do all of this in GIS and how it should work, so I really just need an understanding of the limitations of the Geolocation Tool in AutoCAD 2012.

Any and all help is much appreciated. I have searched multiple time on the Internet and through these forums for an answer, but have not been able to find anything that really helps me.

Thanks.

Bill Dickinson

Exceptional Software Strategies

Principal GIS Engineer

[pendean]

That's an R2014 built-in ability, not in R2012. Download the trial of R2014 and test. If it meets your needs/requirements you will need to upgrade AutoCAD.

[jggerth1 · Accepted solution]

2013 as well,

So the short answer is it doesn't work in Acad 2012. 

For 2013 & above, geolocation is supposed to enable xreferencing drawing based on their geolocation, including inserting georeferenced rasters.  Accuracy is a question mark.... depending on how precise you are picking for lat-long and the precision and accuracy of the lat long numbers you enter.

Personally, I'd suggest Map3d for anything more significant that a sun study.   since i run Map, I have never needed or wanted to rely on the vanilla implementation 

[pendean]

.... MAP3D 2014 is also available as a trial download (use it for 30-days) for in-house testing.

Caveat (not meant to scare you off, just sharing info): upgrading your license to a vertical like MAP3D means it will always be a MAP3D license. AutoCAD is still there and you can still use it as always, but renewal costs are higher for MAP in the future and you cannot knock your version back down to plain AutoCAD without a lot of pain and agony (if it is granted).

[barneynibbs]

Thanks to everyone for their responses. I am going to try out 2014 and see if it does what we need it to do. My customer does not want to spend the money for Map3D or Civil for several hundred people, so, hopefully, 2014 will do the trick as we could upgrade to that under our current licensing structure.

Bill