AutoCad Entities

[charon]

hi,

First of all I would like to introduce myself, I'm now working at Property Developer Company as a Web Developer and currently assign a project which concern display the attributes data of the Parcel Map on our
Extranet/internet.The original parcel map is in dwg format (AutoCad). What I intend to do is display the Parcel base on their status (sold/available, which store in external access database) as well as allow to display their attribute data such as lot number (Parcel number) price, sqft,owner...etc. I have already find a component/utility allow me to publish my map on the web and the utility is called ASPMap from vdstech.com which direct support Shape file (.shp) and Tab file (.tab)

I have downloaded the evaluation copy of CAD2Shape utility for converting my dwg file to shape file. I use the MapBrowser for viewing the shape file after converting. I'm not a AutoCad Designer, so I'm not really know about AutoCad. Below is what I read from the CAD2Shape help file.

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ATTRIB data in a DXF/DWG file can only be attached to Inserted Block entities, and not directly to basic geometric entities such as Lines, Points, etc.
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1.)Base on the above explaination does it mean that only BLOCK entities are allow to add attributes data, others enetities such as lines, points, circles..etc can't add attributes data???????

2.)Our original drawing of the parcel map is in polyline type, and this is not the entities type that I want. What I want is in polygon type, so that I can define the area and add attributes data to the area, such as price, sqft, address etc after converting to Shape file / Tab file by using ArcView or MapInfo. When I asked our AutoCad consultants to draw the map in polygon type, they seem like not really understand polygon, the answer they gi\ave to me is AutoCad don't have polygon entities but BLOCK entities. But when i read the AutoCad tutorial from the web, as i know, AutoCad has polygon object and also rectangle object, IS IT TRUE??? Why our consultants don't know???

3.)What are the differences between closed polyline and polygon????for me they are the same.

I have been spending about 1 month ++ time to find out the solution, but still can't solve the problem. I feel so happy to find this forum, and hope that it can help me.

To have better view of what i want to do, kindly go to:

http://www.setiahomes.com/johor/splan_alicia1.htm.

The site plan that you have seen is not a dynamic image, we manually change the color. Now aht we intend to do is change it on the fly.

thanks!

 

[SEMott]

I'm not sure about regular Acad but in Acad Map you can attach extended data an entity. You can also create topologies that are polygons and these will have extended data attached to them and all these can be exported to a shape file. When these polygons are viewed with the list command they just show up as lwpolylines. The easiest way I know possible to attach extended data to an entity is with the express tools -> tools -> Xdata Attachment and to view the data use express tools -> tools -> List Entitiy Xdata. I'm not very familiar with all these features. With Acad Map there are more tools for adding object data to entities that are more along the lines that you are talking about. I hope this info helps you.

SEMott

 

[Bayou]

To answer some of you questions:
1) The comment concerning attributes is stating that any attribute data not contain within a block will not be imported into ArcView. However, of course, once a shapefile, attributes can be manually added.

2) Acad does not have polygons. Closed polylines are still looked at as plines to ArcView. There is an extension for ArcView that will convert the polyline shapefile made from the Acad drawing to a polygon shapefile. You should be able to find this extension on the ESRI website. It's called Polylines to Polygons.

I using to add the Acad drawing into a dumbing ArcView View and then convert to a shapefile. Then apply the extension onto the new shapefile.