GIS Text Formats
I am looking for Bricscad extensions that can create the following text formats:
1. ESRI-style wide square tapered leaders/callouts with text boxes and background wipeouts;
2. Curved wide leaders (I use a leader in Autocad which is composed of tapered bulges); and
3. Shadowboxes and text shadows.
Oddly enough these formats are ubiquitous in every GIS program on the market, yet they are almost unknown in CAD programs. The single width leaders and text boxes almost disappear when placed over an aerial photograph. These formats can be created individually, but on a large drawing it is overly time consuming.
For mapping work I use a combination of Manifold Systems (GIS), Global Mapper (image/vector formatting and georeferencing), and Autocad Map (drafting, cleanup). Manifold does a nice job of extracting individual layers directly from drawing files. Global Mapper will handle about any image format (including MRSID) and export into ECW files of any size. There are no GIS programs on the market anywhere that do an adequet job of drafting (they are all designed for digitizing and GPS, not survey drafting). The trick is to get them to interact smoothly.
My Autocad Map license is beyond upgrading, so I am trying to replace it with Bricscad. It's a pretty clean program so far, but is still lacking the Map tools. I've been looking through the Geotools add-on and it has many of the clean functions, but you have to run through half a dozen individual programs to do a complete clean operation. Autocad Map does it all in one process.
Anyone out there have any leads on Bricscad GIS extensions?
Comments
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Hi Andrew,
Thank you for some good words on GeoTools. Indeed, we are trying to position it as an alternative for many of the AutoCAD Map functions. We have a whole lot of cleanup functions, ability to edit object data and the like.
If you can tell me what exactly were the kind of cleanup operations where you found GeoTools lack of integrated commands made it less convenient than Map, that would be wonderful. It is only when we get feedback and construtive criticism that a product can grow.
> 1. ESRI-style wide square tapered leaders/callouts with text boxes and background wipeouts;
> 2. Curved wide leaders (I use a leader in Autocad which is composed of tapered bulges); andAbout these options above, I invite you to correspond with me via email perhaps and I can tell you what is possible and what is not. I would like to implement all of it if possible, but I have my finger in several pies, but I can help to the extent possible to make it available in GeoTools.
Rakesh Rao
http://rakeshrao.typepad.com0 -
Hi Rakesh,
Just to remind you that you can use now the BOA infrastructure (Bricsys Online Administration) to support your customers. A smooth communication is guaranteed and all communication is also logged for consultation later, both by your customer and you. If in the process you need Bricsys' assistance you or your customer can call us into the communication. We hope this will augment the quality of the support we both want to give to the end-user.
Best regards, erik
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Sounds good, Erik, will give it a try.
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Rakesh,
Thank you for your reply.
About fifteen years ago I was working for an engineering company and needed to work with GIS data. The company already had Autocad licenses and did not want to spring for 'exotic' GIS software, so I spent quite a bit of time augmenting Autocad Map to make it work like a GIS. Nowadays I have my own business, but still combine GIS, CAD, and assorted programs to get projects done.
A major problem in GIS is that aerial photographs are commonly used as a backdrop. Text over a color aerial photograph can be very difficult to make readable. This problem usually does not occur in engineering drawings where the background is a homogeneous white, and so has not been an issue.
There are various cartographic tricks to make text visible over aerials, including the use of wide, tapered leaders; and shadows/halos around text and text boxes.
As an example here is an old Autocad LSP which works very well for creating ESRI-style leaders. It was on the CADALYST site http://cadtips.cadalyst.com/leaders/fat-colorful-leader I'm not enough of a programmer to modify it to work in Bricscad, but it seems to hang up on the textstyle dialog. It produces excellent wide leaders with text boxes. Two upgrades might be to add a wipeout option for a box mask; and to group the leader, text, and mask under a single layer. ESRI came up with this basic leader/callout design decades ago, and has been very successful with it.
Depending on the underlying photograph, sometimes it is desirable to have curved, wide leaders. Attached is a simple pointer arrow which is composed of tapered bulges. I use this arrow when there are a limited number of text objects. The arrow is manually positioned, scaled, stretched, and color coded for each individual text object. It would be useful to have the process automated for larger drawings.
While we are on the topic of GIS wishlists for Bricscad, a very useful program would be one that establishes a draworder for layers. As an example there is an add-on program to Autocad called Layermanager Pro http://www.layermanager.com/LayerManager/englisch/default.htm This program includes a very nice layerorder program as an extra. The program allows a layer order to be defined and saved, then the program sorts all of the objects in the drawing database and redraws them to establish the stacking order. It doesn't hold the draworder as a GIS program does, but it at least allows the draworder to be re-established when needed, particularly when plotting.
Another useful aspect of Layermanager for GIS work is the use of layergroups and hierarchies. In GIS applications a "layer" is usually in CAD what would be a group of layers - typically a shape/polygon boundary, hatching, and associated text/labels. The layers are used as a group, but at times need to be used independently. Layergroups can allow the 'package' to be manipulated as a unit or independently.
A very useful module in CAD/GIS would for plotting real estate legal descriptions. Most of the people that that I know who work in GIS often have to plot property descriptions from deeds and then lay the boundary over an aerial photograph for verification. Virtually all of the civil survey CAD packages are too complex and expensive for non-surveyors. Plotting deeds is usually very different from surveying drafting in that deeds are commonly written from a combination prior legal descriptions, and are often badly written by real estate agents and paralegals (ie, non-surveyors). Sometimes the descriptions need to be plotted several times due to illegible deeds. A very good program that I use is Deedplotter http://www.deedplot.com/Default.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 It is very easy to use and will export a DXF file. A local state agency uses it extensively because they did not want the expense and headache of having title reviewers use Autocad to plot deeds. I've thought for quite a while that a module like this program would integrate well into a GIS/CAD package.
A difficult problem in CAD is to apply levels of transparency to images and vector objects. In every GIS program transparency is an integral part of the program. The only way that I've found it to work in CAD is during plotting using expensive print drivers. The problem there is that you cannot judge the level of transparency until the plot is made. A good example is M-Color http://www.m-color.com/
These are just a few basic ideas with examples. Integrating CAD and GIS is not simple.
Thanks,
Andrew
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Andrew,
That was certainly a very long narrative of the current state of software tools, the solutions and problems etc. I will go over it in the coming days/weeks and get back to you with some solutions which I am sure can be implemented in GeoTools - ad tested for Bricscad as well as AutoCAD.
Stay tuned and remind me if you don't hear from me sometimes...
Regards
Rakesh Rao0