Clip A Data Connection

[Anonymous]

C3D/Map3D 2019.3 Win10

I have a drawing in which I dataconnected to shapefiles of our water distribution system, as well as streets and their names, for the entire city. It now slows down the machine drastically. I want to be able to clip a windowed area wherever the current project is in order to be able to work with the file. Is this possible?

I could MAPIMPORT the shapefiles and delete everything outside of the current project area, but I have stylized labels for certain features that might be difficult to duplicate.

[Gary_Braun]

Right-click on the layer in Display Manager and select Query to filter data... Then use Locate on Map to define your window. Not too sure how much performance improvement you will see though because I've done it on large datasets and still had very slow performance. I seldom use shapefiles though, so where and how your data is stored may make a difference.

[Anonymous]

We use ArcGIS for our GIS mapping and that is where the shapefiles came from. I would rather use a live connection, but we use up an ESRI license when we connect directly to the GIS database.

I keep hearing about the new connectivity coming between Arc and C3D/M3D, but haven't seen anything yet. Maybe that'll help.

Thanks for the input.

[Gary_Braun]

I'm not the expert on their new esri connectivity, but from what I've seen in Map/Civil 2020 it appears to be nothing more than an ArcGIS Online connector and not really something I'm likely to ever use.

[ChicagoLooper · Accepted solution]

You can easily limit the data you bring in. Your performance will improve relative to your performance prior to clipping the data. This is how you can do it:

1.  Below are parcels for an entire county. There are in excess of 239,000 parcels. Wow! I want to limit the parcels displayed in modelspace  to my specific area which contains only 425 parcels--that's a big, I mean HUGE, drop in number of parcels to be displayed. The parcels that will remain will be less than 1% of the total parcels. 
2. I drew a polygon using rectangle command. There's no rocket science, I simply eyeballed the size making sure I captured my area of interest. I don't want to display parcels 'outside' the red square. 
3.  In Task Pane, right click the parcel layer=>choose Query to Filter Data and you'll get the dialog window below. Make selections like this: Locate on Map dropdown=>Touching Any Part Of>Polygon=>OK 
4. Next, on command choose SELECT option, not Create. Your cursor will look like a square. 
5. With your square cursor, click directly on the red square. 
6. Based on my parameters in step 3, any parcel completely inside the square, any 'parcel line' intersecting the square and any parcel line touching the square has been captured with my query and the rest are filtered out. 
7. If I change my mind and wish view all the parcels in the county like before the query, I can return to the query dialog window (repeat step 3) and delete the query displayed in blue font. Highlight query=>delete key=>OK. 

Notes: Any styling on the data will not be affected. This query does not delete any data or parcels that are located outside the red square, it simply affects the way parcels are displayed in modelspace. The original shapefile has NOT been edited. The key to this procedure is the 'Locate on Map' function or the icon I selected in step 3. If the query is deleted as in step 7, so is the filtering effect making the data UN-filtered so all parcels can return to modelspace. 

[Anonymous]

@ChicagoLooperthank you! I will give this a try.

[Anonymous]

@ChicagoLooperthat improves performance drastically. I'm in Madison, WI, with thousands and thousands of parcels, and I have the 900+ mile water distribution system connected, too. so it is a very doggy drawing. Filtering was just what I needed.

It's still fairly slow after I filtered all out except maybe a mile square or so (bigger than I need). Map wants to refresh the map any time I do anything, like move the polygon used to filter. It's kind of like REGENAUTO, which I always turn off. Is there a way to force it to stop refreshing unless I want it to?

When I tried, I moved the selected polygon to see if the filter would move with it. This could be really useful in isolating project areas out of that mass of data. But it didn't work. This is your experience/understanding as well? That it isn't the polygon itself, but its location when selected?

thanks again.

[ChicagoLooper]

Glad it worked for you.

Yes, what you've described is how it's suppose to work. Since you clicked directly on your area-of-interest-square with your square-shaped cursor (remember your cursor turns into a square) you have effectively 'defined' the query. Moving the AutoCAD drawn polygon doesn't mean you have also redefined the query--the query itself is maintained regardless of where you move your polygon. In fact, you don't even have to have a predetermined polygon because you can draw one on the fly by choosing CREATE instead of SELECT. (I like to draw beforehand so I don't go willy-nilly on my capture and accidentally miss my area-of-interest.)

May I also suggest, in addition to the query, to check and uncheck the parcel layer on your Task Pane. Checking and unchecking in Task Pane is like freezing and thawing in the Layer Props Palette so your panning and zooming will be unencumbered. Check/uncheck doesn't affect the query either. Can you get away with reducing your one mile square to 3/4 mile or 1/2 mile? Paring down and cutting the fat will improve performance even further.

[parkr4st]

Other options.   Right Click in the task pane and export the data to sdf.  sdf files work faster.

Use named views.  Selecting the view in the list will move the map to the view area quickly.  such as NW, NE, SW, SE quadrants of the area or by neighborhoods, zoning areas, etc.  Time spent doing that will speed up your whole process.  do some work flow preplanning to identify good choices for views.

RC in task pane and select  Query to filter data.  filter on any of the available query options. may be like "water district 10".  RC and save to sdf.  That file will contain data from that layer in water district 10.  Put the new layer in the map and work with the sdf to speed up looking at water district 10. 

simplify theming so there is less graphic activity needed to display map.

mapimport and mapexport to pare down attributes in the  file. less in; faster out in the GIGO formula.

use .layer files

Dave

[Anonymous]

@parkr4stthanks!