How Can I Automatically Hatch Areas With Data From An Excel Sheet?

[akazoulid]

Me and my team were assigned to record the usage,age ,condition etc. of the buildings in a specified area. We assigned a number to each building (77 in total) and wrote down all the data to an excel sheet.

Now we have to create 9 different maps of that area where we color in the buildings according to the data. For example, building number 1 has 7 floors so er want it to be orange and building number 2 has 8 floors so we want it to be red etc.

Since we have the excel sheet would it be possible to automate the process of colouring in all the buildings and how would we go about doing so?

I attached a screenshot of a block in case it helps.

[Pointdump]

Hi @akazoulid,
Welcome to the Autodesk Forums.
How to do this in Vanilla AutoCAD I don't know. But this is exactly the sort of thing Map 3D does.
Dave

[akazoulid]

Autocad Map 3D seems promising for what I need. Do you have any guide I can use to understand the process?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

thematic mapping is the term you can use to search ... like >>>click<<<

- alfred -

[leeminardi]

You might be able to control the building color by assigning it to a layer of the color you want.  Use the vlookup function in Excel to set the criteria for determining the color (layer) and then the concatenate command  to build the AutoCAD command.  It would help to see some sample data from your Excel spreadsheet.

[akazoulid]

I have turned every building into its own block so would it be possible to use that insetad of making a seperate layer for each building?

I attached a screenshot of my excel sheet. Since it's in Greek the translation of the collums are "Building Number", "Ground Fllor Use", 'Floor Use", "Building Age" and "Number Of Floors".

[leeminardi]

If you are looking to have Excel create a script that adds blocks to an AutoCAD drawing and the color (layer) is based on some criteria that is determined in Excel that can be easily done.  The Excel file would need to include the block name and the location information for the block (x,y).  If you are looking to have a routine run that lets you select all the blocks in an existing drawing and then use some set of rule to determine the specific color for each block that would require a vlisp program.

[ChicagoLooper]

I agree with @Pointdump.  Use shapefile (or SDF) in Map3D.  This is a 'data' issue and Map3D has the homefield advantage over vanilla AutoCAD. With shapefile, your 'data' will live with the buildings, not in a spreadsheet. 

If the building is bought by a new owner which will have new occupants, you can easily change the first floor usage. If a building is renovated and expanded, you can easily increase the footprint. If an error in number of floors was recorded, the correct number can be entered to edit the data. The good part is your data (the databse file or dbf) and the vector entities (the geometry or shp) go together, so your color coding will automaticaly change when you modify any new data. All of this can occur while inside Map3D.

You can even perform queries, such as make buildings taller than 6 stories red and buildings 5 or less stories blue. Or you could make all buildings taller than 6 stories that are also older than 52 years old red and all other buildings,  regardleas of their age, blue. 

Doing all this in vanilla AutoCAD is entirely possible, but why would you? It's not efficient. It's the wrong tool for the job.