Importing Excel Data

With all of the new features that come out, sometimes it’s hard to catch what you may have missed in the past. In this video I’ll cover how copy and paste data from Excel into AutoCAD to get a table that prints nicely. Other methods such as printing to PDF or using an OLE image can come out blurry and not print well on the plans. this method alleviates this problem and provides a way to show the data using an AutoCAD table.

That works great for single use, but what if you want a link between Excel and AutoCAD. Well That’s where Data Links come in handy. The video below goes through the steps.

Now that I can possibly make some revenue through videos on YouTube, you might see some more content presented in this fashion.

Cosmic Shelf

This weekend I attended StartUp Weekend SLO, held at Cal Poly, SLO. It was a great event where you pitch business ideas and then create teams for the most popular ideas. The teams then create a business based on those ideas. Some ideas pivot, or change into other ideas, some die and some stay until the end.

The team I joined was Cosmic Bookshelf. The concept is a way to interact with your virtual books in a bookshelf. I joined because it seemed the most not a web only application. My expertise was having read some blog post on the Kinect by Kean Walmsley at Through the Interface on using the Kinect as a input tool. The interaction with the bookshelf was to be with the Kinect.

It was a great experience and I learned a whole bunch. I learned how to work with the Kinect as well as putting some JavaScript into action. I haven’t done any JavaScript work before, and I was surprised how easy it was to pick up. Reading the first part of a book and my previous experience helped out. At the end of the weekend the startup was presented to the other attendees and judges. The presentation is below.

After all of the presentations, the judges tallied up their scores. The startup I worked on won honorable mention for innovative use of technology, well we tied with another startup called MisHeard.me. It was a great event and I’d definitely do it again.

Subassembly Composer Links

I’m presenting this Wednesday (January 18) at the  North Bay Civil Users Group (Northern California) on Subassembly Composer. If you are in the area stop by and say hi.

Here are some links for information regarding Subassembly Composer.

SAC Wiki Help

Autodesk University Classes:

Music for Your Brain: Advanced Lessons in the Subassembly Composer

Create Subassemblies That Think Outside the Box with Subassembly Composer for AutoCAD® Civil 3D®

You Tube Video by Dana Probert

Autodesk Subassembly Composer Support Pack for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 & 2012

Have any other links? Please leave them in the comments.

Vicinity Maps

Using Map makes it easy to create vicinity maps. Not quite sure how everyone else is doing it, but this is the way that I’m doing it now on when there is GIS data available.

The first step is to download the street data from where the County where the project is located. For the County of Los Angeles it is available as a Shape File. Next change the workspace to Map’s. It’s got a code name of Planning and Analysis, so it makes it obvious that it contains the Map commands.

I import the shape file into a drawing, but one could also use FDO. I then save the file with a catchy name like LAConfidential.dwg. That way I can follow Autodesk’s lead of giving it a code name so it’s contents are obvious.

When I need to create a vicinity map I attach the LAConfidential drawing using the Map Task Pane and the Map Explorer tab. To open the Task Pane type MAPWSPACE at the command line.  I then assign the correct Coordinate System to the drawing. If the survey is using State Plane Coordinates, them I’m set with knowing where the project is located at in the real world. If not, I have to find the coordinates of the site. To do this I use Google Earth or Maps to find the lat. and long. of the site and then use the Coordinate Track to find the location in the drawing.

Next I create a rectangle delineating the area I want the vicinity map for. Now I create a query to get the streets from the drawing file.

Here are the roads imported into the drawing. I imported all of the streets, but you can limit the import to major streets if the GIS data contains those classifications.

Now I’m able to label the streets using Annotation.

Then I detach the drawing from Map Explorer. I now have a vicinity map and I don’t have to trace anything or approximate anything or type any of the street names. I do have to adjust the labels or delete any of the local roads I don’t want in the drawing. I could also import the various streets based on their classifications and put them on their own layers.

Map 3D and You

If you aren’t using the Map capabilities in Civil 3D then you should be. Especially if you are required to show vicinity maps on your plans. By using queries to data it makes it easy to create and label the streets. If you need to create maps showing zoning, sewer lines, and other information then Map 3D is something you should look into.

If you are looking to learn Map 3D you might want to take a class or purchase a book. One such book, I received from Cadapult Software Solutions, Inc. (for free), is A Practical Guide to AutoCAD Map 3D 2012.

I just happened to have projects to perform a sewer studies. As part of the study I needed to determine the flow of sewer flowing in the existing sewer lines in front of the projects. A great source of data was provided free (and some at a low cost) from the County of Los Angeles. I used the book as a reference guide to display the relevant information in order to perform the analysis for the sewer flow calculations.

The book covers both using Object Data and an FDO connection, which I used on this project. It covers the basics to allow me to label both types of data and explains the difference between the two ways to access the data. By using the book I was able to perform the basic tasks I needed to do to display the data. Once I had the data displayed I was able to determine the zoning type of the parcels that discharge into the sewer system allowing me to determine if the sewer has adequate capacity.

The book breaks possible tasks into Chapters with each having a similar structure of Introduction, Key Concepts, Objectives, and then a discussion of topic at hand. This makes it easy to pick up anywhere in the book for the concept you are to learning. The book covers the basic, so if you are looking for the book to hold your hand through every conceivable task, then you might be disappointed. Since Map 3D’s user interface is quite daunting I would think a book that was able to do that would be hard to find.

The book is large in size and has a spiral binding to lay flat. I usually dislike spiral binding since it’s hard to spot the title of the book on a book shelf (for you printers out there please develop a way to print the name of the book and the end of the pages of the book to fix this problem). But for using the book in a coffee shop while traveling it made it easy to take advantage of the sometimes small space available. I thought the book could use an expanded index, but the table of contents helped find topics if the word I was looking for wasn’t in the index. Overall I thought the book was great.

If you are looking to have a sewer study completed in the State of California or need a workflow developed to create vicinity maps utilizing Civil 3D or Map 3D. Then Email me for more information.