GIS Exchange

AutoCAD WS is here and it's FREE and it works with GIS data!

 

AutoCAD WS is an easy-to-use FREE web application that allows you to work on your AutoCAD drawings from anywhere and with anyone. With AutoCAD WS you can view, edit, and share DWG™ files through a web browser or mobile device.  this product graduated from Autodesk Labs as Project Butterfly.

 

With AutoCAD WS, you can display maps underneath a drawing’s geometry using an integrated service from Google Maps.

Placing a drawing on top of a map will give you and your collaborators a better understanding of the design within the context of its surroundings. With a few simple steps you can dramatically enrich the presentation of your drawings to clients and team members.

In this example, you can see a stadium plan in Portugal overlaid onto a geospatial map image

To get started, visit AutoCAD WS  today.

 

AutoCAD WS Includes:

· autocadws.com- web application and online workspace.

· AutoCAD WS mobile app for the for Apple® iPad™, iPhone®, and iPod touch®, available for download on iTunes (www.itunes.com/app/autocad-ws)

· AutoCAD WS plug-in– to upload and synchronize files automatically from AutoCAD (32/64-bit, see entire list of supported software below). 

 

An AutoCAD WS plug-in is currently available for the following products:

 

AutoCAD WS Plug-in for AutoCAD 2011——(English Only)

·    AutoCAD^® 2011

·    AutoCAD^® Architecture 2011

·    AutoCAD^®MEP 2011

·    AutoCAD^® Mechanical 2011

·    AutoCAD^® Plant 3D 2011

·    AutoCAD^® P&ID 2011

·    AutoCAD^® Civil 3D^® 2011

·    AutoCAD^® Electrical 2011

·    AutoCAD^®ecscad 2011

·    AutoCAD^® Structural Detailing 2011

·    AutoCAD^® Map 3D 2011

 AutoCAD WS Plug-in for AutoCAD LT 2011—(English Only)

 

 

 

Autodesk Subscription Advantage Pack for AutoCAD Map 3D 2011

The Autodesk Subscription Advantage Pack for AutoCAD Map 3D 2011 enables you to access, create, and edit a broader range of GIS data sources, including ESRI ArcGIS geodatabases, with the new Autodesk FDO Provider for ArcGIS. http://cot.ag/ahDwIw

 

 

See this video from Autodesk Product Support for detailed information about the FDO provider functionality including installation, usability and troubleshooting.

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Performance Monitor for AutoCAD and AutoCAD verticals

New to Autodesk Labs is the Autodesk Performance Monitor.  This Windows gadget is used to gauge the virtual memory utilized by running versions of AutoCAD and AutoCAD-based vertical products.  It provides a color-coded status bar indicating the level of usage of virtual memory by AutoCAD products.

 
To get the best performance from Windows applications, it is better to use physical memory. When running low on physical memory, powerful programs like Autodesk applications are forced to use disk as memory. When this happens, memory intensive applications become less responsive. The Performance Monitor for AutoCAD provides you with feedback on how your system resources are being used as you work with your designs. The technology preview supports Windows 7 and Windows Vista at this time. Both 32-bit and 64-bit systems are supported.

Supported AutoCAD versions include:

• AutoCAD 2009-2011
• AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009-2011
• AutoCAD Map 3D 2009-2011
• AutoCAD Architecture 2009-2011
• AutoCAD Mechanical 2009-2011
• AutoCAD Plant 3D 2009-2011

Adding an FDO provider

This isn’t something that we see too often, but it is possible to add any of the FDO providers that are available here:  http://fdo.osgeo.org/  to Map 3D.  Here are the steps (and bear in mind that these aren’t supported by Autodesk – they are kindly made by the open source community and made available to the world).

1.    Decide what provider you need. I’ll use OGR as it’s the most popular one for Map 3D.
2.    Download it.  Be sure that you get the right version (both 32/64 bit and FDO version).   Check your needed version by :

• Opening providers.xml and checking the versions of the FDO providers that are in there already
• You can find providers.xml somewhere like C:\Program Files\AutoCAD Map 3D 2010\FDO\bin
• For this example (Map 3D 2010 on x86) I used http://download.osgeo.org/fdo/3.4.0/release/binaries/fdoogr-win32-3.4.0.tar.gz .  Be sure to check on the download page for updates. 

3.    Extract the .dll from the download to your \FDO\bin folder.  To do so:

•     Unzip the downloaded file.  You may need a downloaded utility that can handle both .tar and .gz compression.  I personally like 7Zip.
• Once you have the .dll extracted from the file, you will likely have a bin folder that was created in the location that you did the extraction.  Go into the folder and copy the .dll.
• Go to C:\Program Files\AutoCAD Map 3D 2010\FDO\bin and paste the .dll there (you'll need Map/Civil to be closed at this point).

4.    Open providers.xml and edit it such that the OGR provider is included at the end of the list.  You can just copy an existing section and edit as follows:  
  (be sure to keep the </FeatureProviderRegistry> at the end of the file).  You may need to open your text editor as administrator to save to the right file location.
5.    Save the edited version, and open Map.
6.    Go to Data Connect.  You should have OGR in your list of providers: 

7.    Put in the full path to your file, such as C:\temp\massGIS\TOWNS_POLYM.shp, and you’ll be on your way.

Wondering why all the effort to connect to a shapefile when we have a provider just for that?  Well, OGR supports a slew of other vector formats, and the GDAL provider a good number more of raster formats, never mind the other options, such as SQLite, King Oracle, etc.

Thanks for originally getting me started with OGR go to Murph and this post

Edited Sept 7