A Practical Guide to GIS in AutoCAD Civil 3D (Part 1) (REPEAT)

RICK ELLIS: This is a practical guide to GIS IN Civil 3D. This is part one of a two part lab that I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be teaching part two twice this afternoon in the 1:30 and 3:30 slots. So I'm just curious, how many of you got signed up for part two in here? A lot of you, so that is great, hopefully this doesn't change your mind.

Anyway, to move on here, real briefly just a little bit about myself. I'm based out of Portland, Oregon, or near there. So I'm missing a really nice rainstorm today- this week- to be here, so I'm not too disappointed in that. I've been doing kind of the training, consulting, author thing for about the last 15 to 20 years in various capacities. For the last 15, I've owned my own company where we just do technical services training and I've written a number of books on Civil 3D, AutoCAD Map, those types of things. Prior to that, my background is a lot like yours. I'm not an old Autodesk employee I'm not a programmer I'm a-- I was a CAD manager and Civil designer so my job was to get projects done, similar to probably what a lot of you guys do. So hopefully that's the perspective that will come from in a lot of this.

If you really want to talk to programmers and things like that, you're at the right place, you can find people who are far smarter and nerdier than I am and will-- we can help you find people like that, if you have questions regarding those types of things.

I'm also on the Autodesk University, the advisory council. That's a group that AU put together two or three years ago that is non-Autodesk employees that have been to AU for a long time, and that they want to just get feedback from, talk about new directions, different things like that. Basically trying to help make AU better for everyone here in the long term. So that's been a fun thing to be a part of.

And then, lastly, back home I've got a wife, three kids, and just so my math is correct there, the fourth is my new son-in-law. So it was kind of cool to add him in a couple of years ago. So, in the back we've got three lab assistants. They are going to be kind of your first line of defense here today if something goes wrong. If you have a hardware issue, or you can't find a file, or get a step behind and need help with something, you know, raise your hand. Ask them to come and give you a hand. They are more than qualified to do this.

First of all, we've got RK McSwain in the back. You can all wave at RK in the big bright red shirt. He's going to be easy to find. RK is a CAD manager and he's also the creator of CAD Panacea. Which is mainly Civil-based, right? And AutoCAD, and everything, but if you certainly check him out online. There's great stuff that he's done. I've known RK For a long time here at AU.

Sam is a glutton for punishment. He's back again to help me out today. He helped me with the first one yesterday, so it's a little bit of Groundhog's Day for him probably. Sam is a CAD manager as well. He's taught at AU for a number of years. He isn't teaching this year, but if he looks familiar to you, if you've been to AU before, you may have seen Sam's giant picture hanging from the rafters last year. He is in a lot of the AU Signage and everything. I don't know who he paid to put his picture up there, and I like to give him a hard time about it because it embarrasses him. But Sam does a ton of work with the knowledge network, posting things on there. He is the go-to guy for sheet sets and all that, so if you have sheets set questions, go bug Sam about it sometime, he'll talk your ear off. And he also has a website CAD Pro Tips.

And last but not least, we've got Todd Rogers. He works with a reseller, Great Tech. Used to be-- used to be Total CAD, you guys got purchased a year ago, year and a half, two years ago. Time flies. But he's taught a ton of Civil 3D classes, GIS classes, he's a great resource here, too. And just, on that, one thing that I like to tell a lot of people, I say just in general, about AU is, the classes here are great, classes are the main reason you're here I'm sure. But don't overlook the networking aspect of it, because these three guys are all three guys that I have met at AU over the years, along with countless others, that not only over time you become friends but they're a great technical resource. And people that I touch base with off and on throughout the years, and we talk about things, ask questions, whatever, and help each other out, but just for the rest of week, when you sit down in a class, there's somebody next to you, don't be shy. Introduce yourself. They may very well be dealing with the same problems that you are at work. They may have ideas about-- that you haven't thought of. So it's not just the people up in the front of the room, it's also the community that's here.

So do, do push yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit. Try that out. If you came with somebody from work, don't spend the entire time with them. Go meet other people there, which I know is totally normal and something that you guys all as engineers and stuff, like to do, right? Everybody's total extroverts in this group.

So, with that, just a little bit about you guys. Because I know this is early morning and a rough one to wake up from. But I'm just curious to start with, how many of you this is first time at AU? 12 and we were what 70 80% on there, in a real unscientific count. Well, great. Well, welcome if nobody has, yet to AU. I hope you guys have enjoyed the conference so far and do the rest of the week.

How many of you have never been to AU before? That's a different group. It was-- I got different hands. So he figured it out. So it's early in the morning, we'll give everybody a pass here. We'll just assume that the people were not in either one of those groups maybe are the AU veterans here. And I'm curious how many 5 times, 5 times at AU or more? So quite a few. Anybody more than 10? All right. 12? You are apparently the winner. How many? 15, awesome. So I don't have anything for you. You just you know, you do-- you are the proud owner of the AU luggage set, though. You have the complete one with all the-- you went from roller bags, to messenger bags, to backpacks. You got them all at home like I do.

Anyway, we're going to jump into things. You probably have had people tell you at other classes, or remind you, to please fill out the class surveys. I can say that especially as being part of AU advisory council, I mean, they seriously do want your feedback. AU does look at these, they listen to them. I know all of us, as instructors, go back and look at things and want your feedback there. It's important, not just because there are speaker awards at the end of the year, that's kind of a secondary thing. But we're here for you guys and we want you to have a good experience at AU.

I mean this is not something that myself or any of the guys in the back helping out are getting paid the big bucks to do or anything like that. You know, it's a lot of time to prepare, because we want you guys to have a good experience and just to be, you know, totally blunt and honest about it, I mean, we all- I'll speak for these guys, too- we all want you to have a five star or five out of five type experience in the class. That's why we put the time into it. So if for some reason it's not, ask questions, please. You know, there's going to be time for us to do that. I'll hang out afterwards. You know, we want to make it so that you feel that way about the class.

So enough about that. I will give away a book at the end of the class. This class at AU is a small piece of the book that I wrote for GIS in Civil 3D. So I've got a copy of that here to give away to you- to somebody who sticks it out through the whole thing. So we'll deal with that at the end.

And just in general, our agenda for today. We're going to start off with kind of an introduction, or an overview, to some GIS concepts, just so that we're all on the same page, we're all speaking the same language as we go through class. Then we're going to look at importing data as AutoCAD objects. So we're going to bring in some GIS data, and it's going to be AutoCAD stuffed. Primitives like poly lines, polygons, lines, text, you know those types of things. We'll look at some options to label those because that's one of the most common things people want to do. We've got all this data, how can we use it? And after that we'll look at importing some data as Civil 3D objects. We do have a couple of commands that let us bring GIS data directly into Civil 3D, as things like surfaces or pipe networks. So that's a little bit different approach. And then finally, we'll look at connecting to data, which is similar to importing. But it's just a different command with different features to it. We'll have more of a real time connection, instead of an import, which is more of a copy. And we'll talk more in detail about that stuff as we get there.

So as far as questions go, first and foremost, the lab assistants are here to help with questions. So if you have a problem with an exercise, go to that first or go to them first. I will, time permitting, kind of take questions after each section, you know, just one or two obviously we can't field one from everybody because we would not get anywhere in the hour and a half. But we'll take a little time for questions there. After the session I believe, I'll double check, but I don't think there's anything in here right after this session, because the keynote is going on. So that means I don't have to get out of here super fast to make room for the next person. So I'll hang out afterwards as long as you guys want or have questions for that.

Via email, my email address is in the handout. It's also I'll put it up at the end of class so you have that as well. And something new that they're doing at AU this year is office hours. And I don't know, has anybody talked about office hours before in other classes? No, apparently it's taken off like crazy and everybody knows about it. It is an optional thing for instructors, so you won't find this in the app or in your agenda or your schedule. But essentially it is a time that they told us as speakers we can come in and be in the room that we had the class. This evening, 5:30 to 6:30, and just be around to answer questions. So if you want to come in and discuss stuff related to this, or stuff not related to this, or whatever, I will be here. I will not be in this room. I'll be in 3103, which is I think just a hall over if I am correct on that. Because that's where my last class of the day is, so I'm just going to stay there and handle it from that location. But if you want to, I'll make myself available for that time.

So that should handle questions. Bottom line is, this week I don't want you guys to leave saying, well, gee, I wish I would have asked about this. I mean, this is your place to do that. And if you do leave and you forgot to do that, my email address and contact info is in there, too.

Real briefly, speaking of handouts, I see some people printed theirs, which is awesome. I'm a hard copy guy as well. There is a handout in your data set folder on these machines, which we will go to later on. So that's-- there's a PDF, it's on the AU app if you want to download it. And for the first two people who want one I have two hard copies. So anybody want-- you were quick, and you're sitting way over on the side you can't see anything, so I'm going to give you one. And would you just pass that back to the gentleman in the third row. I wish I had a whole bunch of them, but actually Sam was nice enough to print some out and bring it with him. So thank you for that Sam and at least if you don't have one hard copy, again, it's in the data set. So you have that PDF there. And you can take a look at it.

So, in general, just a quick overview here of some GIS stuff that is really important, is to remember that Civil 3D, although it's one program, it's really made up out of three programs. And that does make a difference on a few of the things that we're going to do, or that you may do in general interacting with GIS data. Because Civil 3-D includes everything from AutoCAD, it also includes AutoCAD Map, both of those are standalone products on their own, and then the Civil Service tools that make up Civil 3D.

So, with that, it doesn't matter when you install it, obviously it's one install, it's one icon on your desktop. But at these different levels you're going to potentially create some different data that may or may not work with all of the commands in the entire program. You also may create some data that may or may not be able to be seen by people with other versions of AutoCAD.

For, instance in Civil 3D, I'm sure you guys have all made a surface, for instance, saved it, gave the drawing to somebody who had AutoCAD, and they can't see the surface. Right, or they get proxy graphics or warnings and everything, and that's all great and fun, and we will get into that, but AutoCAD Map can create some stuff that AutoCAD can't see on its own as well. For instance, the connected data where we have mapped both features, those aren't AutoCAD objects. They're not going to show up in AutoCAD all by themselves.

Also, there are certain commands within here. So for instance, the AutoCAD Map commands something like the AutoCAD Map export command, where you would export data to a shape file. It recognizes AutoCAD Map objects and AutoCAD objects. It really doesn't know anything about Civil 3D objects. So that, command, you can't export a pipe network because it doesn't know where a pipe network is it knows what a polyline, is and where blocks are, and stuff like that.

So there are some wrinkles in there that make this not look like it's absolutely 100% integrated. We'll say it's 99%, and it's pretty close. So just keep that stuff in mind.

As far as bringing data in, and really the main focus of this class is bringing data into Civil 3D so we can use it, whether it's background data, whether it is for analysis, whatever. And in the level two, or the part two, later on this afternoon, we'll talk more about using that data for analysis and different things. But there's three different methods that we're going to look at. First is importing GIS data as AutoCAD objects. So we're going to bring in any number of different file types and make standard AutoCAD objects, polylines, blocks, text, that type of thing, out of them.

Then we'll look at importing GIS data as Civil 3D objects. Different command, different options, we'll go through that. And then finally, we'll do connecting the data. With all of those, it's kind of important to understand the data structure, which is this whole feature classes thing. And in general, I'm just curious, how many of you have a GIS background of some sort? So a few of you. And the hands, kind of, you don't have to be shy about it, it's not-- yes [INAUDIBLE] but--

For those of us who aren't, or who don't, have that type of background and our CAD guys, like is very common within Civil 3D, the data is structured different. In AutoCAD, or with a DWG you might be used to having everything in one drawing file, or lots of different things in one drawing file. Now you might have partials, you might have sewer lines, you might have sewer structures, you might have waterlines, water valves, all in the same file. And you have CAD standards, hopefully, but even if you have CAD standards, nothing kept you from putting the wrong thing on the wrong layer, or skipping pieces of it, or being kind of sloppy within the drafting thing. And we've all seen that happen, I'm sure.

GIS is much more structured and they have what they'll typically call feature classes in different GIS programs, and the feature class is a very strict definition of an object, or a feature. So for instance, a sewer line would be a feature class. And that feature class knows it's a line, so it knows the object type. And it also knows whatever type of data the person that created it decided to define as part of the feature class. So it may know things like, the slope of the line, the diameter of the material, the material that it's made out of, or the diameter of the pipe, and the material is made out of. The date it was installed, what maintenance records, whatever someone wanted to define as part of the feature class would be there. So every sewer line was formatted the same way.

The sewer structures would be a different feature class because they're not a line, they're a point. And they have different data like rim elevation or sump, or type of structure, you know things like that. So keeping that in mind, if you go to your local city or county GIS department, and say I'd like to get all the data around my project in this area, you're not going to get one file from them. You're going to get a whole bunch of files because you're going to get a file for the sewer lines, and a different one for the structures, and a different one for the water lines, and a different one for the water valves, different one for the parcels, and so on, and so forth.

So you a whole bunch of these files and we'll look at that when we do the import in just a minute. It's also important when we talk about exporting and we'll actually do the exporting in the part two. But it's important to understand that when we do the export, because if you can't just take an AutoCAD drawing with all kinds of different stuff in it and say export this drawing to GIS. And you laugh, but I get phone calls all the time, I just want to just click a button and make it GIS stuff. Well, you have to classify it with that. And you have to export one feature at a time.

If you just were to take the entire file and cram it into one GIS file, first of all the command wouldn't allow you to do that, but second it wouldn't be very useful because it would be kind of like when somebody gives you a drawing where all the objects are on layer 0. And you laugh because you've received those before. You know what you said about the person who gave those to you. We kind of don't want to use that as our model.

So it's important you would export one feature at a time essentially. And that you would have CAD standards in place, so that things are on the right layer and formatted the right way and everything. And we'll get into more of that more this afternoon.

For the map import command, here's a list of all the different file formats that we can bring in. I'm not going to read all those to you because that's super boring, but you're going to see a lot of common stuff there. And now we can get-- jump into an exercise. So, first of all our data set. You are going to-- when we go look for some files to import, you're going to find it in a folder that is-- Sam help me remember here it's-- is it right off C? Gotcha. So there's a shortcut on your desktop it says data sets. Inside of that, it probably says a lab number. Inside of that would be a list of instructor names, you'll find my name, Rick Ellis, on there. And inside of that you will find four folders with the different class numbers on them. Ours, I believe, is the bottom one in that list.

So just let me jump over. Yeah, it is the bottom one. It is the one that ends with 8254. So you might want to make a note of that, because we'll come back to this location a couple of times.

So hopefully you have started Civil 3D already. I know most of these got launched before the class started. If not, go ahead and launch Civil 3D. And we're going to start by just selecting, or by creating, a new drawing from scratch, just blank drawing using the A CAD template. So if you go to the big blue letter A in the upper left corner of the application menu, and pick new, there will be a folder called AutoCAD template. And inside of that is the ACAD DWT template.

And the reason I'm using that one is because A, we all have it, and B, it is basically blank. There's nothing in it. So this is the nothing up my sleeves part of the presentation as if I had sleeves today, and you know, I don't want you to think that I've preset a bunch of stuff that makes it work. You know, we're going least common denominator. The only thing that I'm going to do here is, this template has the grid turned on. I'm going to go down to the status bar and turn the grid off, mainly because it bugs me. But not because you have to for anything in this class.

Now the next thing we're going to do is change workspaces because most likely this automatically launched with Civil 3D workspace brought up. And with that, most of these commands we're going to use are part of AutoCAD Map. And the AutoCAD Map tools are in a workspace called planning and analysis. Why the workspace is not called AutoCAD Map is a little beyond me, but planning and analysis is where we want to be. So switch your workspace up at the top to planning and analysis.

You'll see you'll get a different ribbon and a few different options as far as commands go. Once you're there we're going to go to the Insert tab, import panel, and the map import command. So once you change workspaces, it's insert, import, map import. It may take just a moment to launch that command to start with.

And the first thing that we're going to do here is browse to that data set that I just told you about. So at the very top of that dialog box, browse to your data set folder, lab such and such, wherever it was, my name, and then the last one in that list. So everybody find that folder? I'll give you a minute because some of these are a little bit funky to get to. If you get to that folder and find that there are no files showing in it, and you think I must have screwed up because it's blank, or Rick set this up wrong because he's an idiot, or anything like that, change your file type at the bottom to ESRI shape file. Then you should magically have the four files, or the five of them that are in that folder.

So you see, you're going to see, based on our file type and the fact that this was given to us classified as different types of data, you know, we've got to file for contours, parcels, pipe streets, structures, and so on. Because Autodesk knows that you're going to get probably lots of files, not just one to import, you can select the multiples out of this list just by using the shift or control key.

So I'm going to select parcels and streets. I'm going to bring them all in, but just parcels and streets are my two to bring in. Open that, and it brings up the import dialog box. This is the one where all of the cool stuff will happen. Most of the action in this dialog box happens in this table right at the middle. And basically, you will get a row in that table for every file that you picked on the import command. So if you pick 10 files, you get 10 rows in the table. Yes.

Yeah the question up front was, is there a way to import from geo database. You can't import, you can connect to a geo database. And so we will talk about that later. Also, we'll come, we'll get to it later with that. But good question.

This first column is just the file names that we brought in. So if you picked some file that you didn't want to import, you can just clear the checkmark and don't have to cancel the command. The next column is the drawing layer. It's going-- that these objects are going to be created on. By default, it just names a layer the same thing as the file. If you pick that field, so if I pick on parcels, you'll see there's the little ellipsis, or more button, right beside that. Go ahead and click that. And that gives us three options here. You can create the data on an existing layer. So if you've got your template set up very carefully, you already have all your layers there, you can just pick one of those layers and run with it.

You can also create a new layer, which is what our exercise has us do, or this bottom option, which I'm going to show you that. If you want to do this with me you can, if you want to just leave it as the exercise has it, and create it on a new layer, that's fine too. Because our results will work just fine either way.

But if I pick use data field for layer name, what that does is it shows me a list of all the fields of data that happened to be in the file that I'm importing. This will be different based on whatever file you're importing and how the feature class and schema were defined. That is attribute names that we have there. So what I can do in mine, for instance, I'll scroll to the bottom and pick zoning. If I pick zoning, what it will do is it will create a new layer for me for each unique zoning value that's in the file. And then it will place the appropriate polygon on the appropriate layer.

So it sorts all my parcels based on their zoning, puts them on different layers, and then if I went into the layer dialog box and changed colors, pretty quickly I've got a fairly basic thematic map of parcels by zoning, and I didn't really learn very much about AutoCAD Map, or GIS, or any of that, it's pretty simple to do. So I'll do that just so we can see the results. If you didn't and you just picked create a new layer that's fine, too.

I'll pick OK, we'll go down here to streets, click on it, do the same thing. Pick the ellipsis button. This one, I'm just going to put it on a new layer and call it EX-Streets. So that'll make a new layer for the streets. This column in the middle as we move over, continue on left to right. Object class, we're not going to use this one, just because we don't really have time to get into that in this session. But object classes are basically feature classes in AutoCAD. And you can go in and define what the feature class is, which would include it, so you could say I have a feature class for sewer lines. And that means it's going to be a line segment, it's going to go on this layer, it's going to be this color, it's going to have these four data prompts for me. And then as you create those it would classify that for you. And it's a little more advanced stuff that we don't have to use here.

The column after that, you'll notice is input coordinate system. And you'll see this is filled out with a coordinate system. That coordinate system came from the shape file. Our shape file had a PRJ file with it, it had the coordinate system definition in there. This command region says, OK, this is on- in this case, an Oregon south coordinate system.

The reason it's grayed out and you can't change it, is because up at the top, it says we don't have a coordinate system assigned to our drawing. Remember, we just started a blank drawing with the ACAD DWT. That's fine if you don't care about doing any sort of coordinate conversions. You don't have to assign a coordinate system to the drawing. If you know the coordinate system, it's not a bad idea to do it. But you don't have to for this command, because it will just leave the objects in the coordinate system that they were created in and not do any conversion.

If our drawing was in a different coordinate system than the files we're importing it would automatically convert from the form, the coordinate system of the shape file in this case, to the coordinate system of the drawing. You'll notice that is separate or unique to each row or each file that we're bringing in. So you could bring in five files that were all on different coordinate systems, you know, one was an add 27, another one's UTM, another one's lat and long, whatever. You're drawing is on NAT 83, they all come together and converge and overlay, and pretty cool, pretty powerful stuff from there.

We don't have to do that so we're going to just leave it as is. You might, in this case of a shape file, you might get shape files that don't have coordinate systems assigned to them. It's not a required piece to do that so it would be blank if you knew the coordinate system, you could assign it to it, or you can just, again, leave it blank and have it left at the whatever coordinates were that they were created on.

The next column, though, is data. And this is a really important one because under it it says none. If you leave it as is and it's set to none, you're going to lose all the attribute data on this particular file. So we don't want to do that. If for some reason, all you cared about was geometry. I just want some background data for my project or my background, geometry, to print. You can skip this, but I'd rather have the data if it's there because I might want to use it. So if I pick on that first field for parcels, pick none and then pick the ellipsis button. It currently says do not import attribute data. That's why it says none. If I change it to create object data, you'll see it automatically creates an object data table for me. It names it the same thing as the file. If you want to change the name, you can. We'll just leave it as it is.

But object data in AutoCAD Map is saved in the drawing. So there is no file management for you to do. It's just there, it's pretty easy. It's part of the DWG file. It is automatically attached to the object that you import. So if you import an object with object data and then copy it, it copies the data with that object. If you erase the object, it erases the data right along with it. And if you were to explode that object, anybody got an idea? Yeah, it's gone, right? OK.

So pretty straightforward, not a whole lot to learn about it, that is the nice thing with it. So we'll go ahead and pick OK to create object data for parcels. We'll go do the same thing for streets, click on none, click the ellipsis button, pick create object data. We didn't talk yet about the select fields button that's here. Go ahead and pick that, and it will show you a list of all the fields, or all the attributes, that are part of that file. And then you can be selective about what you bring in.

Maybe you say I really don't care about bringing in certain fields. You can toggle those off. So just to see that, let's turn off everything except name underscore full, speed, and type. Notice there is no select all, clear all, right click, shift, you know, it's pick them one at a time. Unfortunately, that's the way it is.

But do that, click OK. Now somebody asked me yesterday, well if I change my mind later, what do I do? Well, you erase everything and you re-import it. So my kind of default is, unless I'm sure I don't want it, I'm going to go ahead and bring it in. It's not going to make my file that much bigger. I would rather have it than not have it. It's much easier for me to ignore it than it is for me to go back and redo this whole process. So, with that, just something to point out, one of the things you might consider, whether you wanted to bring in or not, is something like length. There's length, or sometimes you'll have-- it's parcels, you'll have area. Those are geometry properties. These values that you're bringing in here are going to be static text attributes.

So if we bring in length, and then I edit that line and stretch it, and it's longer. This length value will still be the same. Now there might be cases you want that for record purposes or historical purposes. No, that was the record length of the line but if what you want is the real length as it is defined in AutoCAD, you don't want this length. What you want to use is the AutoCAD property length, because that's always what the real length is. And it just depends on if you want the real property or whether you want a recorded value. And that can get confusing on there, so I just wanted to point that out. And it also is going to be important when you start doing the labeling and stuff, because which value where are you going to use to label. Are you going to label with the AutoCAD property of length, or are you going to label with this recorded value of length? Which probably was right at some time but it is whatever it is in here.

So just a thing to be aware of. I'll pick OK to go out of that. The last column here, it's a little bit off of my screen, is points. We're not going to do anything with that because the data we had is not point data. You know, if we would have had sewer structures, we could do something there. But all it will basically let you do is assign blocks to point data. If you had it. So pretty straightforward.

Finally, upper right corner is a spatial filter. That's very handy if you have a file that you're importing that was gigantic. Maybe somebody gave you all the parcels in the county that you're working in. And you only care about a little piece, as long as you've got something to reference in the drawing, so you know where you're at, you can go out and draw a window and say only bring in the data in this area, which will mean that the import command takes a fraction of the time obviously, then, to do. A few thousand feet as opposed to the entire county.

Yes.

The only two things you have, you have none, which is what we have here. You have current display, which is defined by wherever you are happened to be zoomed to. And you have defined window. So you would just go draw a window. Yeah.

So, a lot of times what I would do with it-- has anybody used the online map tools in-- where you can turn on an aerial photo through that with the Bing maps? I'll put a coordinate system on my drawing, flip the Bing stuff on, zoom in to where I care about, and then run this command and draw my window based on the aerial. And then turn the aerial off I don't need anymore. So I'll use that to get oriented, but that's-- it doesn't work very well in a drawing like I have that's empty because, you know, we're floating in space.

So last thing here is this check box for import polygons as closed polylines. I'm going to leave that turned off just because I want to show you. You have essentially the option for polygons, which will be our parcels in this case. They will either come in as polylines or they'll come in has a feature called an M polygon. And the M polygon, or map polygon, is something that understands complex polygon shapes. So if you have a polygon with a hole or an island in the middle of it, it knows that that hole, or island is there, so when you list its area it subtracts it automatically.

If you have that done with polylones, two polylines have no idea each other are there, and if you did an area of the outer one it would give you the entire area and you'd have to subtract the inner one on that. So, often it doesn't matter a whole lot, but I want to show you what the M polygon does just because you'll probably run into it shortly. So just click OK. It will run the import. Once it does the import, zoom extents so we can see everything.

And you might be surprised that all of our parcels are filled. That's because fill is a property of the M polygon. And you have an option to turn it on or off. Now most of us probably expected to see boundary lines on all the parcels. If that's what you want to see, you just change that polygon display. And there isn't a button for this but the, command is polydisplay if you type it in. And it is in your handout. So you don't have to worry about that, page 10, polydisplay. This is also where that command line auto complete is a wonderful thing, because if I get about halfway through this, it will find the command for me. Polydisplay, enter.

You have options at the command line then of edges only, fill only, or both. I'm going to type E for edges only. You'll notice nothing happens. With Civil 3D, often things don't look like what they should so we regen, and now we have boundary lines like we expected to have. Remember with Civil 3D regen is your friend.

So now, if I go into my layer dialog box, back on the home tab, it looks a little bit different than Civil 3D workspace, but on AutoCAD layers upper left corner is the layer properties command. And because I brought in those parcels according to the data for their zoning, I don't have a streets and parcels layer, I had a bunch of these layers like LD, MD, you know, whatever the different zoning classifications were in the attribute data. And I could turn those on and off, I could change colors on those if I wanted to. You could play around with that, I mean, it's just standard layer manipulation, so for us, I'm just going to take EX-Streets and change it to red, so that the streets look different than the parcels.

Yes.

The question was, can I add a prefix to those layers. I don't believe that you can on this. It's relatively limited. You might be able to do it with LISP if you wanted to get it. Or it would probably be pretty easy to just do a script after the fact to fix it too. Yeah.

This is not the greatest way to somatic map, I'll also tell you that. There's other much better tools for this. But it is-- I mean, this is the quick and dirty one for-- we'll say this is my remedial thematic mapping we're starting off with. This afternoon we'll do some cool stuff with it.

Zoom in on one of those parcels. Doesn't matter which one, pick one, right click and go to properties. Just using the AutoCAD properties command here is all. And when you pick it you'll see a couple of things. You'll see up at the very top of this, the object type is m polygon, that we talked about before. It has all your typical AutoCAD stuff, layer, color, line type. So on and so forth there. At the bottom, it has OD parcels, or object data table parcels, and then below that is all of the attribute data that we just imported.

So here's all the info and this is live. So you can make changes if you wanted to. If I escape and pick one of the streets, you'll see that's a polyline, and at the bottom, it has an object data table called streets. But it only has the three fields that I told it to keep. It sorted out and filtered through all those. Again, this is active live data, so I can go here to like the speed, and change it from 25 to 95 miles an hour, and it updates the data for that particular object.

It does not change the shape file that it came from because this was an import, and it copied it in. Yes, sir.

How did it get live?

OK, so the question was, how could this information here get lost? Any number of things could happen. Again, if these are polylines and somebody exploded them, that would take the information away. If you try to attach object data to Civil objects, like actual parcels or something like that. That will appear to work, and as soon as the object updates it loses the data. If somebody ran any number of a couple of different AutoCAD Map commands, it could get so it could get stripped out based on what they're telling it to do. I really have to see the situation there.