1City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

10+ years experience in GIS industry

Helped Launch (6) GIS programs Civil Engineer Squadron / RAF Lakenheath Civil Engineer Squadron / Lakeland AFB Joint Command 7 / Bagram Airfield Air Force Civil Engineer Squadron / Bagram Airfield Civil Engineer Squadron / Fairchild AFB Public Works / City of Richland

ESRI/Python programmer

Richard Allen / GIS Public WorksCity of Richland

2City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD ScriptCreate Seed File(s) Create Python

Scripts

Put CAD TogetherRun Script

Create CSV Files

3City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

Create Seed file(s) This is how you want your drawing to look Blocks need to be made so that the points have a place to go Linetype names can be saved/stored in the seed file Layers can be saved/stored in either the seed file or the CSV file

• We saved/stored this in the CSV file since our groups wanted different colors Annotation

Blocks Everything else is pretty straight forward except for blocks Depending on how the blocks are created you could have attributes added to them We chose to create two blocks for every feature

• One block shows the feature as well as its attributes when you click on it• The second shows one attribute that can be turned off in the layer manager

Creating Seed Files

4City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD ScriptBlock Examples

Final ResultAttribute Only BlockBlock & Hidden Attributes

5City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

This ESRI diagram outlines the specific field names that must be used when using the Export to CAD tool

This is the base of everything that was done in this code

CAD Fields DefinedField Calculations

listed below are performed in an

ArcMap Edit session.

CAD Staging

GDB TableField Type

Field Length

CAD Application

(s)Short

Description Effect on Export To CAD

Color Use CAD color numbers Entity Short 2 Both CAD color number A valid value will override the default entity color of the output feature

LineWt Export to AutoCAD, measured in millimeters, maximum value = 9

Setting changes required in AutoCAD to apply this to display

Entity Short 2 AutoCAD Only CAD Line weight value A valid value will control the line weigth of the output feature

Layer Calculate records with suitable values in this field for Layer Names in

the output CAD file.Entity String 255 Both CAD entity layer name A valid value will override the default entity

layer name of the output feature

Handle Entity String 16 Both CAD created entity internal identifier Not Used

RefName If Elevation attribute exists in the data, assign RefName as the Alias for the attribute. The Z-aware output

polylines will store the Z-values. If CadType = "Insert", calculate RefName = the name for the block in the output

AutoCAD file.

Entity String 255 BothCAD entity Block name/

Hatch name /Cell Name/Tag name or Text

Value

A valid value will override the default entity name of the output feature

6City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

Edit Python Script The script is designed to run from C:\ Edit _All.py

• Edit what def statements should run Edit the def statements

• Depending on what is needed• The variable CSV file needs to correspond with the actual CSV file

Create New def statements using the one already made Make sure that all def statements are referenced in the _All.py

Edit Python Scripts

7City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script_All.py Script Example

8City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

Edit CSV Files Global.csv

• This is the variable file• inDir_sde, outDir_sde, outDir_fd, inDir_dwg, outDir_dwg

Text – The first three lines are variables• This is the Text file• Name, fc, Layer, sql, LyrColor, Color, TxtFont, LyrFrzn, ProcessIt, Period

Blocks – The first three lines are variables• This is the Blocks file• Name, fc, Layer, sql, LyrColor, Color, Block, Cad Angle, Scale, LyrFrzn, ProcessIt, Period

Lines – The first three lines are variables• This is the Lines file• Name, fc, Layer, sql, LyrColor, Color, Type, LyrFrzn, ProcessIt, Period

Create CSV Files

9City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD ScriptCSV Files Examples

var Name fc Layer sql LyrColor Color TxtFont LyrFrzn ProcessIt Period

var inDir_SN

\\PublicWorks.DBO.Irrigation_Network

var rkaSeed_dwg \\Irrigation_Blocks.dwgvar Finished_dwg IrrigationText_base.dwg

dataESRItoDWGirPressurizedMainAnno

PublicWorks.DBO.iwPressurizedMainAnnoPython GIS_IRR TEXT SymbolID = 0 210 256 Existing 0 TRUE 0

dataESRItoDWGirPressurizedMainAnnoAban

PublicWorks.DBO.iwPressurizedMainAnnoPython

GIS_IRR_ABANDON TEXT null 210 256 Existing 0 0

var varName Directoryvar inDir_sde Database Connections\\arcsqlprod01-publicworks.sdevar outDir_sde Database Connections\\arcsqltest01-publicworks.sdevar outDir_fd \\PublicWorks.DBO.Richards_Basevar inDir_dwg C:\\_EsriToDwg\\Files\\Seedvar outDir_dwg C:\\_EsriToDwg\\Files\\Complete\\Base

Irtext.csv

Global.csv

10City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

There are a few different ways to run this script Copy the Main script (_All.py) and paste it into ESRI python shell Open with a program like IDLE or PYTHONWIN and run it Double click it to run it.

• There is code in this script to document what happened Schedule it to run in Windows

• Again there is code to document what happened

After the code is finished, review the document to see if anything went wrong If all worked, it is time to put everything together If there were errors, re-run the code with just the parts that did not work

Run Script

11City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

Open a blank document and insert drawing When insert do not forget to explode the drawing on insertion After all drawings are inserted wblock the drawing to bring down the file size

A lisp program can be created to do all this in AutoCAD Included on the disc is a lisp program that you can modify

10.1 should make this process easier The program was initially designed to create one drawing per utility There are issues with ESRI’s ExportToCAD tool in 10.0

Put CAD Files Together

12City of Richland Public Works GISESRI to CAD Script

ESRI to CAD Script

If there is any question about this code please let me know

There are (10) CDs that include this code in the back if anyone is interested I will be happy to get the code to anyone that didn’t get a CD

Since this application was created for a public entity, this code is free to share

If you find ways to make the code better or have ideas about it, I would love to hear them

Please feel free to contact me for comments, help or questions Richard Allen (509) 942-7729 rallen@ci.richland.wa.us

Enjoy