Getting a Better Geospatial RFP

The Request for Proposal is a lot like a first date. It becomes the first impression for a relationship we hope will be valuable for both parties. Like any relationship, communication is the key to success. That is probably more evident in the RFP than anywhere else in the project. It is here we are defining exactly what we’re looking for in the potential partnership. The RFP (or RFQ or Request for Quote) can be challenging and it’s even more so with highly specialized industries, such as geospatial information systems – the focus of our discussion today. A good RFP will invite participation and competitive bids, and a poorly written RFP could get bids that completely miss the mark or get no responses at all. Even worse, a poorly written RFP could result in an award that creates an adversarial relationship with both parties contending against each other.

The most important thing before writing an RFP is to know exactly what you need and are looking for. That sounds self-evident, but it’s surprising how many RFPs I run across from organizations who understand they need something but don’t know what it is they need. Then the RFP is just as confused. An organization that is new to a technology or lacks personnel with reasonable knowledge will be much more successful by teaming up with someone who can assess their needs and clearly define their requirements.  In my experience, it’s very difficult to effectively purchase services when you don’t know what you’re looking for. This is often much more of an issue with geospatial projects as there is still a considerable knowledge gap – both in organizations needing the services and some who would provide services. With the knowledge gap, there is a considerable amount of ambiguous language in our industry.

The first step is to do your homework – understand the market and the industry. Find out what’s available in the industry and know what’s possible. If necessary, trim the requirements or plan on breaking a project into segments. It’s much easier to find a horse than a unicorn. Completing an assessment project before embarking on implementing a solution can make the final solution much more effective.

At this point, it’s critical to identify what your needs really are. Distinguish between needs and wants. Often there are nice-to-have elements that can kill a projects budget and schedule, so peel off those unnecessary layers. The nice-to-haves should be included, but in a different section of the RFP and clearly identified as wishes.

Next we’re going to discuss several things that are critical in a well-written RFP. Having these specific headings or sections is not so important as actually having the information there, and of course, it needs to be presented in a logical and easy-to-read fashion.

Background – Providing details about the organization and its needs gives the RFP context. It provides the why and answers many questions the bidder might have. A comprehensive overview of your organization helps potential bidders understand why you want the work and can deliver results that meet your needs. Along with the organizational overview, identifying the problems you are trying to solve is also important and anything you may have already done to mitigate the issue.  Remember, this is where you start to establish the relationship.

Purpose – A clear and concise purpose is the meat of the request. The expectations, requirements, platform and software requirements, and any other specifics that affect the delivery should be clearly spelled out. This is the place to identify that you require a specific version of software.

It’s also important to identify the type of relationship desired. Are you looking for someone to come and do a job once, or is this the beginning of a long series of projects? That can make a significant difference on bidding, particularly if there’s some retooling – through software or personnel.

This portion of the RFP requires the highest technical capability. It’s critical to understand what you want and to clearly define it for the bidders. If the project requires a field crew (or crews) to manually inspect an approximate 400,000 water meters, then it should be clear. If you have a database definition document, you should probably include it or make a copy available online. It’s also important to determine the delivery format and how you plan to incorporate data into your enterprise system.

A schedule is also important to include, even if it’s preliminary. It helps the bidder understand the resources needed. It also helps bidders recognize that maybe they shouldn’t bid. If the project is time dependent with a lot of labor, a small firm without the necessary resources may not bid. That saves them time from putting together a proposal as well as saves your time reviewing a proposal with no possibility of accomplishing the project.

A controversial element to include is the project budget. It helps define the boundaries of the project. Yet, often people believe that sharing the project budget will encourage bidders to raise their rates, but the competitive nature of the bid keeps firms offering their best prices or lose to competitors with lower rates. Not providing this information can keep qualified firms from bidding so as not to spend non-billable time for projects of unknown value. A stated budget let’s bidders know a project is real and can also give them a chance to identify the appropriate solution. A great solution that costs 10 times the budget is of no use to anyone.

Goals – It’s very important to clearly identify why you are doing this project. This provides a finish line for the bidder. It gives the bidder a chance to respond with how he’ll meet those goals. It allows the bidder to determine a pricing structure that makes sense for the project. And the upside is that it gives the bidder a chance to exceed your expectations.

Proposal Format – Include a desired list of information you want to see and the format you want to see it in. That helps the bidder ensure they provide all the information you are looking for, and it makes it much easier for you to evaluate multiple proposals.

Evaluation Criteria – Most organizations who issue RFPs have some criteria they are using to decide the winner of the RFP. This shouldn’t be a secret. It actually encourages a fairer bid as everyone participating has a way to identify what they need. If you’re giving points for a licensed surveyor and a minimum number GISPs, then letting everyone know ahead of time can ensure you get the best proposals to review and select. If you have a score sheet, I would go so far as to include it in the RFP.

Wish List – Identifying the actual requirement is the most critical, but if there are some targets of opportunity available, make sure the bidder knows and give him a chance to exceed the project expectations.

As I mentioned in the beginning, a well written RFP is key to communicating your intent. A poorly written RFP wastes the time of everyone involved. Putting the right effort in up front makes all the difference. The better the request for proposal is written, the better your proposals will be, and the better you are likely to accomplish the project goals.

The Tyranny of GIS – Part One

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (May 30, 2012) that is no longer available online.

As a professional in this industry for over twenty-five years, it’s difficult not to notice common threads. One of those is the cost of doing GIS. I run into many smaller organizations, such as utilities or municipalities where the cost of GIS is burdensome or a complete barrier to the technology. These organizations often miss out on the efficiencies that GIS can provide them (the fact that even many enterprises with very extensive systems miss out as well is a topic for another time). In many cases, these organizations don’t have the personnel knowledgeable to make effective decisions about the systems and so become hostage to consultants who have interests outside of their own (as a matter of fact, I’ve heard the word “hostage” used many times in reference to GIS). Now as one of those consultants, I’m not self-loathing here, but pointing out that in all cases, a consultant has a mission of increasing their sale of services to be successful – this is different than the needs of his customers. “Good” consultants will align their mission with the customer’s – selling the customer the services they need. In many cases, though, the consultant may not fully realize the needs of the customer, and the customer lacks the technical understanding to fully express their needs.
I noticed this particular effect in a very simple transaction recently – getting my hair cut. I’ve noticed a trend lately. Many of the new stylists (I have to not show my age and call them barbers) ask detailed questions about the methods – cutting with scissors or clippers, or the specific length at the top or sides. Quite honestly, I have no idea how to answer these questions. I want it to look a certain way, but I don’t know how to get there. That’s why I get my hair professionally cut (aside from the fact that trying to cut one’s own hair is challenging). Does this sound familiar? I’ve seen this interchange with service providers from all areas of business, and quite often in the GIS world.
This breakdown of communication is purely the result of different frames of references. The result is that there are several areas of the process that are not effectively “sized’ for the organization. Areas like data precision, system design, system architecture, training, data sharing are specific areas of an implementation (or operation) plan that can get a bit out of control and drive the cost of the GIS up. Getting a handle on these can often bring the cost of these way down. I’ll tackle several of these over my next several entries.
Precision –The first area I’ll cover is data precision. This raises the obligatory issue of precision vs quality. Precision is the standard of measure we use, such as survey grade GPS, consumer GPS, steel tape, measuring wheels or “calibrated eye” (I once saw a survey while on the east coast that used a distance of a cigarette – I assume he meant the time to smoke it – I wonder if it was a regular or long?). Quality is how well we did the measurement (was my tape level, did I read the angle correctly, etc). For the purposes of this discussion, we’re talking about precision, and I may use the word quality, but I mean precision.
The actual GIS data is probably the greatest expense for most GIS programs. Of course, that makes sense, when you consider that data really is the GIS. While there is the old adage that GIS is software, hardware, processes, people and data, the reality is that all of the other components are interchangeable while the data is the reason we do GIS. Because of this, it’s easy to place an undo importance on the precision (quality standard) of the data. Often this is because the actual business purpose of the specific GIS data is poorly developed or understood. It is the actual purpose of the data which should define the precision standard of the data, but in many cases, we start data capture without clearly defining the need, and so data capture is at a higher standard than necessary or prudent. When speaking of data creation, the cost generally rises with precision (often at an increased rate).
I can hear some folks cringe at the suggestion. After all, the standard engineering definition for GIS is “Get It Surveyed” to identify their inability to rely on GIS for design. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. As a designer, I consider it due diligence to survey the site for every project, as things change and the records may not show it. Relying on existing records is a way to guarantee delays, change requests and other problems with a project. Knowing that, then “basis for design” may not be a valid business requirement for GIS data. Generating, for example, parcel data that is suitable for design can be quite expensive and completely justifiable for a construction project (as a percentage this would be a small part of the overall cost of most projects). Generating data of similar quality for an entire municipality where a very small portion may ever be involved in new construction can be prohibitive and become a major impediment to developing GIS capability. Using a lower quality data set may be perfectly effective for the planned use of the data. In the parcel example, maintaining a link to the actual record of survey may provide satisfactory access to higher precision data.
I’m not suggesting that data always be at the lowest possible quality, but I am suggesting that prior to determining the need for accuracy, that a reasonable expectation on the data and it’s uses (immediate and long term) be evaluated. In many cases, having a highly precise base map provides benefits that are perfectly justified for the organization. I know of some utilities that use highly precise data to model their systems and feel the cost of generation was completely justified. In many new systems, using highly precise as-built data from recent designs would be more cost effective than trying to generate a lesser quality dataset. I know of other utilities that have used a commercial street centerline data set and rubbersheeted old scanned system maps to fit. In usage, I’ve seen a range of precision levels used quite effectively.
The key is understanding the needs and understanding your data. The results from modeling a system based on lower quality data will give lower quality results. That isn’t bad, it just means that there is a greater margin of error. That may be just fine for the particular application.
In the next post, I’ll address some system design issues.

The Power of 10: Filtering Contours with Map

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (February 28, 2012) that is no longer available online.

The Power of 10: Filtering Contours with Map

I was recently working with a client, and he was working on a project where he needed to show contour lines in the area as a reference. The particular job didn’t need any kind of surface, just show contour lines as a reference. Luckily, the local city had complete coverage of his project area. The data was 1’ contours in an ESRI shape file. That was way too detailed for the project, so he needed a way to thin down the contour lines (no AutoCAD Civil 3D needed here – no surface or analysis needed). As a matter of fact, he really wanted only 10’ contours. What he needed was a query to filter out the other contours. In this case, identifying the desired contours is pretty easy – they all end in 0.

Some folks create their contour data and using a string (text) data type. In such a case, it can pretty easy to do in a single step – use the substring function (from the Text Function list) to select all the features where the final character of the elevation attribute is equal to 0 – be sure to add quotes to the 0 to show text rather than numbers.

When the field is numeric, there is a just a little more to do. In this case we need to find all the contours whose elevation is divisible by 10. So how do we do that in a query? The trick is to divide the value by 10 and evaluate the remainder. If the remainder is 0, we know that it is divisible by 10. To do this in our AutoCAD Map, we first create a calculated field where we capture the remainder and then run a filter query to select only the values that have a remainder of 0. Let’s take a look.

First, right click on the layer to Create a Calculation.

Then when the dialog box appears (this should look familiar), give it a meaningful name, go to the math functions and select remainder, and then replace the number place holder with your elevation field and the divisor by 10. Click validate to ensure the calculation doesn’t have any problems (keep in mind this can only check for appropriate field types vs actions – it has no way to check if this is what you really want to do) and then ok.Check the table to take a look at the result to see if it gives you the result you’re looking for.

Now that we have the remainder field, we can use it to filter the data. In the Create Query dialog, set the remainder property equal to 0, validate and hit ok.

Now your contours should only show those 10’ contours, and we can see how to use calculations can enhance our ability to select and show data.

Check out my video of the process.

Property Alterations: Get Elevations from Layer Names

This is a reprint of an earlier blog (January 16, 2012) that is no longer available online.

Every once in a while, I run across an AutoCAD drawing with contour lines that are 2d polylines with an elevation of zero, but the actual elevation is the layer name. While they appear as contour lines, that’s not a very useful format for the modeling world – particularly for Civil 3D users that want to use the polyline contours to create a surface. These files usually come from a GIS conversion process, typically where the GIS provider doesn’t understand DWGs and AutoCAD modeling. Often the data started as a shape file, and someone converts it to a DWG and sets the elevation property as the layer name.

There’s a relatively simple way to change it to a more useful format. The trick is to use AutoCAD Map 3D’s Drawing Attach command (found on the task Pane under the Map Explorer tab).

Select the DWG with contours and add them to the selection set shown in the bottom box and hit OK. The DWG file will show up under the Drawings folder on the Map Explorer.

You can select the Drawings folder, right click and select Quick View, make sure the Zoom to the Extents button is flagged, and hit enter. That will set your drawing extents to match the contour drawing extents – it becomes a visual to check progress. Remember, a Quick View is only a view, and will disappear with a regen.

When that is finished, select the Current Query under the Query Library on the Map Explorer.

On the Define Query dialog, hit the Location Query Type and set to All, and then under Options, select Alter Properties.

On the Set Property Alterations dialog, select the Elevation property (this is the property we want to change) and then select the Expression button.

Expand the Properties folder (this is all of the objects AutoCAD properties) and select Layer. This will set the Layer name as the data source.

Select the Add and it will create the expression in the box at the top of the dialog. This will tell the query command to copy the value from the Layer name to the Elevation. In this case it will work because the layer name is a number. If it was not a number, this wouldn’t work the same way.

When you get ready to run the query, be sure to set the Query Mode to Draw. The when you execute the query, the contour lines will be copied into your current drawing and the elevations should now match the layer name.

Check out my video on this on the CADsoft YouTube channel:

New Autodesk Infrastructure Tools

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (August 9, 2011) that is no longer available online.

There’s some new tools in the Autodesk Infrastructure world. Autodesk has just released a few new products for the geospatial world. The Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler is the production release of the former AutoCAD Labs Project Galileo. It is conceptual modeling application that let’s you mix and match GIS, BIM, CAD and image data to quickly get a view of potential design options. You can create very realistic views of an entire area, both above and below the surface. One of the cool things is the ability to include and show underground utilities generated from your GIS data.

Another new tool is not really new at all, but a redesign of an existing powerful system. AutoCAD Utility Design has been released, and it’s the new implementation of the former Autodesk Utility Design. The name change to AutoCAD represents the movement towards a powerful standards-driven tool built within the powerful design and documentation environment of AutoCAD.
AutoCAD Utility Design is built on the AutoCAD and AutoCAD Map 3D technologies. It combines template and workflow-based design tools with GIS to create in intelligent 3D connected network model for the electric utility industry. Autodesk added easy-to-use templates and workflow tools built on a powerful rules base to create consistent designs based on engineering standards. AutoCAD Utility Design includes engineering reports and documentation as a by-product of the design, rather than having to go back through the design to pull data and manually compile common reports. It includes engineering tools for calculating voltage drop, cable tensioning, sag, pole sizing, guying and others. The model is also designed to allow integration with existing supply, EAM, and other enterprise systems.
In a former life at an electric utility, I helped implement Autodesk Utility Design and did some planning for integration with the GIS and Asset Management Systems. I also had the chance to do some trials with Project Galileo while it was in the Autodesk Labs. I’m pretty excited for these new releases and am looking forward to working with these.

Street views in AutoCAD Map

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (June 29, 2011) that is no longer available online.

OK, first off – a disclaimer. I’m blogging about a new software tool – I have no connection whatsoever with Earthmine – I just think it’s a cool new tool for AutoCAD Map users, so I’m sharing.
Thanks to Google Maps, Sketchup, and other visualization tools, there is a stronger interest in seeing things from a 3D and realistic perspective than ever before. There’s a new tool for AutoCAD Map 3D that shows some interesting promise for GIS users. Think of the streetview from Google Maps, and now incorporate that kind of view interactively into your GIS applications. Earthmine combines a new collection process collecting stereo photos as well as point cloud information to create a 3D photographic view of an area. Now take that view, and integrate it with your geospatial data in AutoCAD Map 3D. You get to see the photo model, with your data right in the model.
I see some exciting applications for asset management – municipalities, utilities and campuses, as well as land developers.

So while you “look” around the street, your data shows up in real locations. So you can see the streetview with your valve or manhole location where it might not otherwise be visible in the photograph.

Or get an idea of the subsurface utilities under the street while looking at the model.

It’s a major step forward in the technology. The data itself is coming from Earthmine servers that either you can host, or have Earthmine host. It appears that you can license model information from their partners, or create your own photo models. Imagine making a 3D view of your new development or campus with your geospatial data superimposed. It brings to mind a number of possibilities. Aside from the tools for viewing the data in AutoCAD Map 3D, Earthmine also has a mobile 3D mapping system so you can have your own photo car to drive around (or pedal). I’m pretty excited to see how this technology advances in the coming months and years. I’m looking forward to getting a closer view of this new tool.

BIM and Geo – Playing in the Sandbox

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (April 22, 2011 ) that is no longer available online.

Bandwagon – a party, cause, movement, etc., that by its mass appeal or strength readily attracts many followers - Dictionary.com
Geoworld magazine published an article this month from Liam Speden, the business line manager for Autodesk’s infrastructure planning and conceptual-design solutions. The article is called “Are You Ready for BIM?”
I’ve been avoiding the topic myself as the phrase has become a bandwagon topic. A lot of people are talking about it, but far fewer understand what it means, and so that water gets pretty murky. Now that the subject is going mainstream in the geo industry, it’s time to start clarifying. BIM means a lot of things to different people. I hear some folks talk about it as a type of software, using BIM software where they would have said CAD software in the past. In reality, it’s somewhat more than that. It’s more of a process, or methodology – a paradigm. It’s also a standard defined by the National Institute of Building Sciences. More and more owner organizations, particularly government, are requiring designs that comply with these standards, such as GSA, Corps of Engineers, and recently the US Air Force.
Wikipedia describes it as “the process of generating and managing building data during its life cycle[1]. BIM involves representing a design as objects – vague and undefined, generic or product-specific, solid shapes or void-space oriented (like the shape of a room), that carry their geometry, relations and attributes. BIM design tools allow for extracting different views from a building model for drawing production and other uses. These different views are automatically consistent – in the sense that the objects are all of a consistent size, location, specification – since each object instance is defined only once, just as in reality.”
Of course, Autodesk has embraced the concept with it’s vertical construction products as well as Civil 3D for horizontal design. Autodesk has numerous resources of information available on the subject, starting with their BIM page.
So, what does all this have to do with GIS and geospatial technology? Well, more and more often, the geo technologies will be required to integrate. While there are many similarities, there are some differences that will interfere with a smooth transition in much the same way as the CAD to GIS (or in reality Design to As-Built) continues to plague organizations. It is important for geo professionals to understand this technology. I’ll be exploring the relationships and integrations in the comingposts. Stay tuned and join me in the expedition.

LIDAR isn’t for Dummies

This is a reprint from an earlier post (December 29, 2010) that is no longer available online.

Have you been hearing about LIDAR (or point clouds) but are unsure what it really means or how to use it? Here’s a new resource you can check out. Autodesk and DLT Solutions have teamed up to create a concise guide to the technology.
Don’t let the name fool ya, the Dummies Guides are a great way not to be a dummy.
Hope everyone has a great new year!

2 bits, 4 bits, 64 bits? Getting Your Links Back

This is a reprint from and earlier blog (December 9, 2010) that is no longer available online.

New technology is great, but sometimes presents us with some challenges. 64-bit computing is giving some great gains in performance, but has provided some unique challenges as well. The primary challenge is that 64-bit architecture and the older 32-bit architecture have some interoperability issues (interoperability challenges seem to be the GIS professionals constant companion), and applications on either architecture have some problems communicating. Microsoft has worked around this by providing an emulator to allow 32-bit applications to run on 64-bit systems, which is why we can still run most of our old 32-bit programs. One of the areas that has been later in development has been drivers for Microsoft’s Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). These ODBC drivers allow Windows to serve up, or publish different database for applications to use. The drivers for Microsoft’s Jet database (The engine used by Microsoft Access) were unavailable.
What difference does this make to the GIS user? Well many of the datasets we use rely on ODBC to make the data available to our software. AutoCAD Map 3D used these ODBC drivers to access data through FDO as well as Map data links (link templates). In 32-bit versions of AutoCAD Map 3D, we can drag an Access (Jet) database or Excel file onto the Map Explorer and have it become a Data Source that I can view the data or use it to link to AutoCAD objects. Users who have moved to 64 bit systems (such as myself), could no longer do this. We also couldn’t use the FDO connectors to connect to many of our databases, as they were based on ODBC drivers as well. Microsoft released new drivers, and this made FDO connectors available, but the link templates were still unavailable. That’s because the Link Templates rely on ODBC as well. AutoCAD Map has calls to the Microsoft Jet drivers to make the drag and drop possible. The problem is that Microsoft never released a 64-bit Jet driver (at least in name). Instead they have released the Office Access Connectivity Engine (ACE). The new drivers for ACE were available after the Map release so it wasn’t part of the 2011 release.
The good news is that you can load those drivers and use your Link Templates again. You can’t drag and drop, but you can manually create the links. You’ll have to manually establish the data set through ODBC, and then you can connect to the data in Map 3D. The Autodesk Map 3D support team has a blog with a link to the drivers, instructions, and a video on manually setting up the ODBC connection and connecting in Map.
Keep in mind, Microsoft has set the default install for Office to be 32-bit, so you need to make sure you select the 64-bit version to get the new drivers. When I first installed Office 2010, I accepted the defaults assuming it would load the 64-bit version. As I found out, with the 32-bit version of Office installed, you can’t install the drivers. In that case, you’ll need to uninstall the 32-bit version, and reinstall the 64-bit version of Office (or the drivers). I understand you can load the 64 bit drivers, and then reinstall your 32-bit version of Office (2010 or previous version) – I haven’t tried it since I have made the jump to Office 2010. Let me know how it goes if you try it.

Time for an advantage…

This is a reprint from my earlier blog (September 29, 2010) that is no longer available online.

Autodesk has released the new Subscription Advantage Packs for the 2011 products. These Packs give some additional tools to the software users and provide a little extra value to those users on subscription. Last year, we got cloud file capability with AutoCAD Map 3D. The Packs are downloadable fromt he Scubscription Center, and are now available.
In addition to the added AutoCAD tools which my coworker Isaac Harper blogs about, one of the tools I’m looking forward to most is the new FDO providers. There is a new FDO Provider for ArcGIS allows direct, editable connections to Personal and File Geodatabases as well as SDE connections. These data stores are becoming increasingly popular, particularly as portable GIS data stores. The new FDO Provider opens up more possibilities for managing spatial data without conversion right inside AutoCAD Map 3D (or Civil 3D as well).

Creating AutoCAD Text from Geospatial Datasets

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (August 9, 2010) that is no longer online.

In this tip, I’m going to convert attribute information from a data set in ESRI Shape format, and create a text label from that attribute. There are a couple of techniques, but in this case, I’ll show a quick and easy technique to create AutoCAD text labels from a connected shape dataset using an FDO connection.
Start with a new drawing, assign the coordinate system and create a connection to the data set to label.

Add the data to the map, and the dataset will show up in my Display Manager.

Once the data connection established, create a style and hit the feature label option. This will open the Style Label dialog box where all the settings are to get the labels to look the way you want.

Going down the dialog box, set the Multiline Option (the Advanced Placement option will set the text to follow the line, which you may want for certain conditions, but the text can end up in separate text entities for every letter – that may be ok – it depends on what you are looking for).
The next item is to identify what property (attribute item) you want to use for your label. If you have an attribute that is exactly what you want, you can set it and be done. In some cases, you may want to modify the value or even combine several elements of the text. To add pipe sizes, take the size and add an inch symbol (the double quote) – so an 8” line will read 8”. You could add material so the label reads 12” PVC, or if doing street names, you might want to combine the street number, direction, name and type to get a complete street name. To modify this, select expression here. This will open the Map Expression Builder dialog box.

There are a lot of options for creating text labels from data, calculations, or other elements. In this case, I want to place some text elements together. The function to combine text is concatenate, which I can find under the text functions under Concat.

Selecting the function places the text and format in the expression window. The function works on the elements contained in the following parenthesis, and the bracketed text property are place holders for the text elements. To get the pipe size and combine it with an inch symbol, replace the first Text Property with the value for the size, and the second with the “ symbol (surrounded by single quotes to show it’s a text value – ‘”’). You can continue to add pieces of text until you get the desired label. To add attribute values, such as the size, use the Property menu and the list of attributes will be there sorted by the type of field. I’ll select the size, and complete the expression – Concat ( SIZE , ‘”‘ ). For street names, an expression might be concat( ST_DIR, “ “, ST_NAME, “ “, ST_TYPE) where the “ “ is used to add spaces between the fields.

You can use any combination of data fields and other elements to create a label with this expression process.
Once the expression is set, you can set the display parameters such as size, color and font. Remember with the size, Map Space is scale relative to the model and set the height to a specific value, while device space is relative to the monitor, or view, and will change the physical height based on the zoom scale.

Once the labels are set how we want them, we can go to the Display Manager and select Save Current Map to DWG from the Tools menu.

After saving to a new drawing file, we can open the file and the labels are now standard AutoCAD text items along with the roads. The process actually takes more to write about than to actually do.

Next post, I’ll go the other direction. I’ll show how to grab labels and turn them into attributes.

Getting Your Results – Using Network Topologies

This is a reprint from my earlier blog (May 7, 2010) that is no longer available.

One of the important tools that AutoCAD Map 3D includes is the capability to work with topologies. It can create and manage them, and more importantly, do analysis from these topologies. Basic training classes, and all of the books I’ve seen, show how to create, manage and perform analysis with topologies. One thing that is absent, is how to take advantage of and access the results after the analysis – it’s the cause of a lot of questions from people I work with.
Before I get on to working with the results, I want to give some background of topologies, and how AutoCAD Map 3D manages them.
Topology is a technique for managing spatial relationships between objects. It is a particularly useful technique for managing networks of objects, such as utilities or streets. The relationships allow you to trace up- or downstream to answer questions, such as:

• What customers will be out of power if this line is down?
• What is the likely source of contaminant (common point upstream) when there are a series of sites that are showing high levels of contaminants?
• What is the shortest route between two locations?

The relationships are created by maintaining unique identifiers for each point or junction and line in data tables. These identifiers are called Primary Keys. The lines will also contain fields to include the identifiers of the points from each end of the line. These are called Foreign Keys. By searching for lines that have a specific point identifier, you can find all the lines that connect to a point, and go from point to associate line to associated point to associated line, etc, much like a monkey swinging from one vine to the next.
Consider the example below. Here is a collection of lines and points. There is graphic representation of the network, and a snapshot of the data tables from the network. Look at point # 2364. It appears to be the end of
that particular network stream. We look for all of the lines that have either a start point or end point value equal to 2364, and we find that line # 6888 has 2364 as an end point. We then look at the other point value and find it is 2359 (the start point and end point allow a topology to show direction as well as just connections), so we search the line table for other lines that have that value. We will find line #’s 6887 and 6921. We can then continue in this process until we get the results we are looking for. For a best route, we will evaluate the potential sets of lines that provide a connection between the two points, and use some criteria to determine the best (usually the shortest lengths) set or route.
AutoCAD Map 3D provides tools and the data structures to create and manage topologies, as well as topology analysis tools. Within the Task-based Workspace, the topology commands can be found on the Object Map ribbon on the Topology panel. The only thing required to create a network topology is a clean network of lines (clean means that the end of one line exactly meets another line – their coordinates should match). Map 3D will create points (called Nodes) at the junction points if they don’t exist in the data.
Once a network topology is created, Map 3D will create Object Data to manage to topological relationships. The nodes will get a table called TPMNODE_topologyname (where topologyname is the name of the topology). You can use the Edit Object Data command (The Object Data panel of the Object Map ribbon) to select a node and review the table information. The ID field is the critical element (the resistance values can be used to manipulate the analysis – for example, the resistance on a point could be a time factor for an average stop at a stop sign so route can be qualitatively compared including stops, turns, etc).

You can also see the values of the object data by selecting an object and reviewing the Properties (on newer versions of map 3D).


The lines (Map 3D calls them LINKS) will get their own set of Object Data, called TPMLINK_topologyname. The line (or link) object data will include additional fields. The critical elements are the Start_Node and End_Node fields, which are how Map 3D manages the topology relationships.


The purpose of creating and managing topology is to perform analysis, and the tools are also available on the Topology panel of the Object Map ribbon. The three network analysis tools are Shortest Path, Best Route and Flood Trace.

When completing the analysis, you have the option of highlighting the results with a color (it will go away with the next redraw), or save to a topology. You will give the results a name (my example attached was a flood trace, and I named the resulting topology FloodResults).

Once the topology is created, I can always re-highlight the topology, but it goes away with each redraw. That makes it a bit difficult to use for further analysis or to even print the results.

The easy way to work with them at this point is to save the drawing with the result topology (or topologies) and open a new drawing. In the new drawing, use the Map 3D drawing attach tools to connect to the results drawing.

In the Map Explorer of the Task Pane, the topologies from the attached drawing will be visible in a greyed out icon. This means the topology hasn’t been loaded into the current drawing.
Right-click on the result topology and select the Load Topology option under the Administration menu.

This will open a dialog box with the option to Create objects when loaded. Selecting this will recreate the topology objects in the current drawing, essentially making a copy of the topology data from the original file.

You may have to Zoom Extents to see the newly created data.

At this point, we now have just the objects and topology from the result topology we created. We can save this and have it available for future applications and uses, such as printing route maps or performing buffers, etc. In addition, the objects will have not only the object data from the results topology, but it will also have the data from the original topology and any object data from the original objects.

More Map 2011 info

This is a reprint from my earlier blog (March 26, 2010) which is no longer online.

Katie Jaques, the GIS Technical Lead in Product Support for Autodesk, is sharing some details on the new AutoCAD Map3D 2011 release - new FDO providors, and one I’m really looking forward to – Windows 7 compatibility. I made the move a few weeks ago, and I’d like to get out of the Virtual XP mode.
Check it out.

Get Your Head in the Clouds

This is a reprint from an earlier blog (ember 18, 2009) that is no longer available.

Geospatial applications are renowned devourers of information. As new technologies for capturing data are developed, the geospatial applications soon follow. It makes sense as we try to find better and cheaper methods of modeling our world. One of these technologies is LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging). LIDAR is becoming a common remote sensing technique. It sends out and measures the return of laser pulses to determine distances (as well as other information) in 3 dimensions to essentially generate a 3D view of the scanners environment. The resulting data is a very large group, or cloud of X, Y and Z values (along with other descriptive information depending on the equipment and technique). These point clouds have required specialized software to view and capture information.
Now, subscription AutoCAD Map 3D and Civil 3D users have some new tools available to work with these point clouds. The new Subscription Advantage Packs include tools for viewing and classifying Point Clouds. This can be incredibly useful to geospatial users. At a large private electric utility I used to work for, we used LIDAR as a method to survey electric transmission lines and surrounding vegetation. We were looking for trees that were growing into the lines and cause potential outages.
After installing the new Subscription Advantage packs in AutoCAD Map 3D, some new options become available. In the Task Pane’s Display Manager Tab, there is a new option in the Data menu – “Add Point Cloud Data.” Selecting this option opens a file select dialog prompting for an ISD file – a Point Cloud index, or data store file. You create the index from the new Point Cloud Manager.

Another new option is in the Tools menu – “Create Point Cloud Index.” This option opens the Point Cloud Manager.
From the Point Cloud Manager, we can add LIDAR data files to create a Point Cloud data store, merge them into groups, set coordinate systems, use filters to classify, create elevation ranges and even create spatial filters.



Adding the Point Cloud Data will create an entry in the Display Manager tab, and add a new Point Cloud ribbon giving us tools for stylization, exporting and creating surfaces.

Keep in mind, these data sets are big, and will tax your system resources, so be prepared.
So, get your head in the clouds and check it out. The view is great.

Where'd My Property Go: Finding data during Splits and Merges

One of the challenges when working with geospatial systems is managing the data attributes when the object is split or combined with another. For example, if I have two parcels that are joining, and they have different Assessor Parcel Numbers (APNs), how do I get just one new APN from the 2 previous APNs. And what happens to the area field? Or when I split a parcel, how does the system name the 2 new parcels? More importantly, that about the ID field that serves as a key to link to other databases. The answer is that you can pretty much set it to do what you want. AutoCAD Map incorporated split and merge tools so that you can manage them. The following example should give you an idea of how to get started. The important thing is that like most things GIS, putting some thought into it prior to trying to do the work will give you the best results. In other words, design is very important.

My example will use a proposed forests data set. I have attributes for the proposed name, the area, perimeter, and the area in square kilometers and hectares. During the join, I want to rename to proposed forest, and update the area and perimeter fields.

NOTE: As I go through this, keep in mind the terminology gets wonky. The same words can be used to describe multiple elements of these objects. For example, the attributes of a feature can be called attributes, properties, fields and columns (to us database geeks), and the properties describing the said attributes, such as field size and type, can all use the same names. So, try not to read too much in the wording and I’ll try to match AutoCAD Map’s terminology.

To set the Split and Merge Rules, I will highlight the target data set in the Display Manager and open the Data Table.



Once I get the Data Table open, I’ll select the Options, and select Set Split and Merge Rules.




At that point, I’ll get the Split and Merge Rules dialog box.

At the left of the box, I get a list of all of the feature properties of the selected data set (attributes or database columns). As I select each of these properties, I get the various attributes of that property. It identifies whether the property is an Identifier, the data type of the property, whether it is autogenerated, read-only or nullable. In addition, I can set Split and Merge Rules for each property attribute. Keep in mind, the available Split and Merge Rules are context sensitive based on the data type (it’s a little tough to sum text fields).

The data set I’m using is an ESRI shape file, so there are certain feature properties that are inherent because of the type of data set. The FeatID is autogenerated and read only, so I won’t be able to set any rules for this one.

My ID field is an identifier for the individual forest polygons. I’ll set my Merge Rule to Empty. When merging, I’m going to create a new and distinct record from the previous record. This is a business rule I’ve decided upon so I can keep a history of forest proposals, even if they are not actually implemented.

My area field shows the area of the polygon. I could add the polygons, but for better results I can use an expression to calculate the actual area of the result. To do this, I set my Split rule to Calculation, and select the Expression Builder button (next to the Exporession box). I’ll select the Area2D from the Geometric pull down,


And then Geometry from the Property pulldown.


The resulting expression, Area2D(Geometry) , will calculate the area of the new polygon (if you know the expression, you could just type it in the box rather than going through the expression builder – but if I had done that, you wouldn’t have seen it, right?). That expression will go into both the split and merge rules.
My next feature property is the Perimeter, and guess what? There’s a calculation for that as well. Select Length2D in the Geometric pull down to get this expression: Length2D(Geometry)
On the Name feature property, I will generally not use the existing names – again a business decision. There are cases where I would want to keep one of the names (Using the FirstSelected or LastSelected rule) or concatenate the two names, just not for this case. In my example, I would need to add the name manually after doing the merge (or split).
My next feature property is AREASQKM, or the area in square kilomters. I can use the same expression as before, but include the conversion to square kilometers, giving me this expression: Area2D(Geometry)*0.00000009290304. Again this will apply to both split and merge.
My last standard property is HECTARES, which is the area in hectares. This will match the previous bit with the appropriate factor: Area2D(Geometry)*0.000009290304

Of course the last entry is Geometry, and you can’t use rules on geometry,