How to export use defined property ?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I am a beginner of civil 3D. I encountered some difficulties when I used the property set definitions.

I have set the properties and applied to the object，Now I want to export these properties to a files (eg. excel or txt format) or display as a table in civil 3D drawing. How do I to achieve? I would be very grateful if anyone can help me!

(Note: the property setting path: style Manager - Property Set Definition，you can input "PROPERTYDATA" in the command bar to activate it.  It's not "user-defined property classifications" in settings bar.)

[MikeEvansUK]

Before I start a little history..

Property sets seemed to have been in AutoCAD for at least 3 - 4 versions now. They have something to do with AutoCAD Architectural and I suspect were introduced to allow functionality in there. As Civil3d is built on the Aec programs (Map & Architecture etc) we can also harness this.

As we have now realised we can harness this ability in Civil3d to pass information from Civil3d to Navisworks & IFC, the ability to fully use the data is still not here yet (as far as I am aware). You can create and pass this information in Architecture  see (http://paulaubin.com/_downloads/2010_AU/Book_Samples/Advanced_Implementation_Guide/AIG_Ch07.pdf) but I would expect that Architecture would not be able to interact with Civil3d objects at all.

Without the use of the API I don't think you will be able to pass information from Civil3d to a table or to excel. You may be able to use the IFC to generate this information in another application (such as Revit, so long as you can figure out how to use the data once inside <And Good luck on that one>)

I would expect that in the next couple of years we should see the ability to fully harness the property data in AutoCAD Tables, Civil3d Tables, reports, ODBC and labels but for now you will just have to wait.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If anyone else knows a way forward please share because I for one would love to know.

Mike

[Anonymous]

Just one addition to Property Set Data in Civil 3D. It is possible to use property data in Civil 3D labels, initially by some hacking methods and now from the latest Civil 3D 2017 v1 Enhancements, released in September (7-8 days ago), properly from the UI (new tab in label composer - Property data). I found that in the article of Jeff Bartels, Civil Immersion.  As I understand this is the only place where you can use it. It is not possible for a while to use that functionality for the tables, exports, ...

But, there is one additional fact. From API, function for reading the property data does not function for a while. It does not return the values of property data. We have to wait until Autodesk corrects that bug/error.

Drazen

[Anonymous]

Dear Mike,

Thank you very much for sharing the valuable experiences of Civil 3D.
Although Civil 3D unable to achieve at present, but I think your suggestion is very helpful to me.

Best regards,
赖永辉 yonghui.Lai
Civil & Infrastructure
D +86 755 2583 2389
yonghui.lai@aecom.com

[Anonymous]

Hi Drazen,

Thanks for your help, I will try to install the latest version.

Best regards,
赖永辉 yonghui.Lai
Civil & Infrastructure
D +86 755 2583 2389
yonghui.lai@aecom.com

[Anonymous]

Dear Mike, 

If you know what  COM API can be used to export these property set information to Excel or CSV?

I have tried with the following code:

m_oAeccPipeApp = (IAeccPipeApplication)m_oAcadApp.GetInterfaceObject(m_sAeccPipeProgId);
m_oAeccPipeDoc = (IAeccPipeDocument)m_oAeccPipeApp.ActiveDocument;

IAeccPipeNetworks pipeNetworks = m_oAeccPipeDoc.PipeNetworks;

foreach (AeccPipeNetwork pipeNetwork in pipeNetworks)
{    
    AeccPipes pipes = pipeNetwork.Pipes;
    foreach (AeccPipe pipe in pipes)
    {
        AcadDictionary dic = pipe.GetExtensionDictionary();
        AcadDictionary item =(AcadDictionary)dic.Item("AEC_PROPERTY_SETS");

        object type, value;
        item.GetXData("", out type, out value);
    }

}

I found the type and value variant were always null when debugging.

Could you glad to tell me how to achieve it?

[Anonymous]

if you want to see how to put your DPS into a label Click Here