Help with AutoCAD DWGs and designating zones

[wmleonar]

Hello, I'm a software developer who’s recently been thrown in the world of AutoCAD for a project where we extract device information from CAD DWGs our Engineers produce.

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction here, I’m looking for some information on how to extract and/or specify zone information within a drawing, if it's even possible. For example, my hope if that our engineers can designate some type of zone within which a block is contained that could correspond to geographical information within a building, for example a room may be contained within a floor, which is contained within a building. I’d like to be able to extract a location hierarchy from this information, i.e. Building X->Floor 5->Room 123->Block X from a single drawing without having the engineer type this information for each block.

I hope that this is not too vague. I've been successful in extracting attribute information from blocks, I’m just not sure how a drawing should be setup to be able to setup a hierarchy like this to traverse for location information. I certainly appreciate any help anyone can provide.

Thanks! - Will

 

[hendie]

the easiest way would be to include that information in the block.
You could develop a program that simplifies the block insertion and auto populates some attribute information, or the user could select from drop down menu's.
Other than that, if the blocks were contained within closed polylines then it would be possible but you would still need some additional information contained within the polylines

 

[zuccus]

Or,

and I am just thinking out loud after reading hendie post.

At the end of the project, one guy could just boundary off each rooms with polygons and name them that polygon. Then extract the polygons and blocks, compare the points to locate the room.


This way you wouldn't have to edit each block and they could copy, move, and stretch all they want while they are building the drawings up.

Zuccus.

 

[ctopher]

There is an application called Facility Center from Tririga that works with AutoCAD, with minor tweaking, may do what you like.

http://www.tririga.com/solutions/solutions_facilities.php

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Apr 30, 2008)

 

[wmleonar]

Excellent, I appreciate the responses, I’m going to look into what the CAD techs can do as far as polygons go, sounds like that’s the route I need to look into.

Thanks again. -Will

 

[DonPhillips]

Back in the Release 14 days (pre-AutoCAD 2000), I know you could link the drawing file to an external database, like Access, so that the model and the data could co-exist in two places, be edited, and the make working with data much easier. Although I use AutoCAD 2004 now, I am sure AutoDesk would have kept this feature and probably enhanced it since then.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com