Autocad Map 3D 2012

[maghnour]

Hello everyone,

My name is nouri, I am an Autocad User (not an expert), I need some help so please anyone can help please feel free to post your suggestions,
Actually I am using Autocad 2005 as a mapping tool, which making my life a little bit hard, the thing is I would like to move to another software which will be similar and has the same capabilities as Arcview, as you are already using Autocad Map 3D, do you think it can be used as alternative for Arcview?
to answer that I know that i should give more details so here we go:
I need a software that can handle projections and datums systems, also can load excel and text data files easily and quickly, has the same symbology and queries capabilities as arcview, also a software that can add automatic legends, scales and grids(graticules), I have downloaded a trial version for autocad map 3D 2012, I started to get a feel of it but I need experts opinions,
now I have a couple of questions about Autocad Map 3D:
1- If I have a locations data as excel file and shapefiles, which is the best method to bring it to my map and make some symbology quries on it? the data i have is locations as X,y, depth and some other fields?
2- Is it feasible in autocad map to put on these locations a proportional gradient bubbles to represent one of the numeric values and label them with that value? if so could someone please detail the process for me?
3- Can we load in Autocad Map a 3D trajectory(xyz) as polylines?

I have more questions in my mind but lets start with these first,

Thanks in advance

Nouri

[Jmurphy]

I have a couple of questions about Autocad Map 3D:
1- If I have a locations data as excel file and shapefiles, which is the best method to bring it to my map and make some symbology quries on it? the data i have is locations as X,y, depth and some other fields?
2- Is it feasible in autocad map to put on these locations a proportional gradient bubbles to represent one of the numeric values and label them with that value? if so could someone please detail the process for me?
3- Can we load in Autocad Map a 3D trajectory(xyz) as polylines?

I have more questions in my mind but lets start with these first,

Thanks in advance

Nouri

1. Yes with FDO / Data connect however the Excel data may have some issues depending on your OS (32 or 64 bit) It's best to save the excel data to a txt format and import the text file.
2. Yes with FDO you set a label in the style editor for it. If you use the mapimport you need to create Object Data then use Map Annonation blocks to lable,
3. Depends on the format but yes Map3D can create 3D polylines.

[maghnour]

Thanks Murphy for your time,
But to be more specific, what I am thinking to do is importing a list of wells as shapefile, make a symbology based on the wells status, then I want to link that layer to an external database which contains the production data,
based on this data I would like to create scaled bubbles on the wells, these bubbles will be updated on monthly basis, that is why I think it will be better to keep it as external, to make this process I am facing some problems because I am new on Autocad Map,
to do that I started by importing the wells locations as points from shp file, then I dragged and dropped the Excel file into Data Source folder, then I defined the link template by selecting the table and the key field but when I try to link the objects and the external data by using 'Convert object data to database links' it does not work and it says that 'SQL table is not defined', do you have any idea about this?
Thanks

Nouri

[Jmurphy]

Thanks Murphy for your time,
But to be more specific, what I am thinking to do is importing a list of wells as shapefile, make a symbology based on the wells status, then I want to link that layer to an external database which contains the production data,
based on this data I would like to create scaled bubbles on the wells, these bubbles will be updated on monthly basis, that is why I think it will be better to keep it as external, to make this process I am facing some problems because I am new on Autocad Map,
to do that I started by importing the wells locations as points from shp file, then I dragged and dropped the Excel file into Data Source folder, then I defined the link template by selecting the table and the key field but when I try to link the objects and the external data by using 'Convert object data to database links' it does not work and it says that 'SQL table is not defined', do you have any idea about this?
Thanks

Nouri

Excel is not a database, you may be able to link to it but you can not do database operations or SQL statements to it.

Have you looked at the Data Connect(FDO) instead of the mapimport? It can do what you want.

[maghnour]

I think I am missing something, Could you please give a detailed process to do that, I have a shapefile for the locations and excel spreadsheet for data, they have a commun field which is the well name. the target is to have the wells plotted with oil production proportional scaled circles, if you don't have time to go through a detailed steps, do you know any website or tutorial where I can follow?

Thanks

Nouri

[Jmurphy]

Have you looked at these? My old blog has some tips as well.