Hello, Map 3D 2011, What’s Up?

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (March 25, 2010) that is no longer online.

The new 2011 version (or is that “oh-eleven”) of AutoCAD Map 3D has some unique new features.

Group Draw Order

Some are not visible, such as Autodesk reworking the memory usage and making it more efficient, to visible items, such as moving the Group and Display Order toggle to it’s own place on the Task Pane.
The most substantive impact came with the incorporation of the tools to read LIDAR, or point cloud data. Subscription users got a sneak peak at this with the Subscription Advantage Pack (SAP) late last year. I commented on this in my blog right after last year’s AU.

Point Cloud Ribbon

Point Cloud Task Pane

Now the tools to display and work with point clouds are built right into the ribbon, and have been combined into the Data Connect button on the Task Pane (in the SAP, you had to go to the tools button to work with indexes before you could add point cloud data from the Data Connect button).
When I first tried to use the add point cloud data option, I struggled with adding it because I didn’t realize I had to first go to the tool bar to generate an index first. Now it’s a little more intuitive.

Multiple Coordinate Tracking

One of the primary applications driving the use of Map 3D was the capability to manage projections and coordinate systems. You can establish a coordinate system for your current drawing and bring in drawings or data sets from other coordinate systems and Map 3D will project them into the current drawing’s coordinate system. Along with this is the useful capability to “track” coordinates. The Track tool allows you to identify (or digitize) the location of the cursor in a different coordinate system. For example, I may want to get the latitude and longitude of radio transmitters for a FCC permit, but my mapping data is in a UTM system. I can use the tracking tool to capture the latitude and longitude without having to reproject the data. Likewise, if someone gives me a location from a GPS that is in lat-long and I want to add it to my UTM-based map, I can use the tracking tool to place the point. Well, in 2011, the tracking tool has been expanded to add multiple systems. You cann add additional “trackers” to the dialog box to get several on there as once. This can be really helpful to some of us working in several coordinates all the time (such as UTM, State Plane and Lat-Longs).
One new set of features dosen’t really extend the software, but may make it easier for users to take advantage of the tools. There are a number of new “assistance features.” Right on the startup screen, there are links to videos for several tasks available.

Welcome Screen Helps

That’s a short list. There’s a number of others, such as the ability to add grids and graticules, better overlay analysis (can handle a significant higher volume of features), and adding more capability to the Workflow tools (you can now add AutoCAD commands to your workflows).
So there’s some great reasons to look forward to making the transition. Not to mention all of the new AutoCAD features – Isaac Harper blogs about them here. See you on the other side!