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VW09 still no ground and grid coordinates support !


holsteinson

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Another VW release and again no support for real land surveys and stake out designs!

When will VW support UTM grid coordinates as well as WGS-84 datum?

AUTOCAD CIVIL 3D and Land Desktop, Eaglepoint, Bentley, Microstation as well as all other serious CAD provide support for ground and grid real world curved earth coordinates.. so the question remains, when VW will?

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Mandates do not mean anything if they cannot be implemented or enforced due to the fiscal burden imposed on local agencies. So in the end they become an optional feature rather than a requirement. For example, Caltrans made a push in the early 90's to use metric units but to this date, they might be the only ones using metric in California. AB3418 was also a mandate to change all traffic signal controllers to the type 2070 so that different systems could share data but this was never enforced because local agencies could not afford the change. Furthermore, if the project is not federally funded, local agencies do not need to follow US DOT mandates or requirements.

As I pointed out before, the survey provided becomes the canvas for the design of the infrastructure. If the survey is geographically correct, then the design drawn on the projected coordinate system will be correct also. How the projected coordinates of the design are translated to a geographical coordinate system for GIS data is of no concern to the designer. As long as the design points are laid out in the field and the infrastructure is built according to plans and specs, everybody is happy.

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I was basically using Arcview to translate property coordinates in GIS shape files which I assume are correct to South Central Texas State Plane coordinates and importing the resulting polygons with property data into VW 11. With VW 2008 support for shape files, the conversion can be done directly as long as the corresponding projection file (*.prj) is present in the same folder.

The surveys I get are not georeferenced but are based on known monuments and right of way pins. I then match the survey to the property coordinates by translating and rotating. It is not always an exact fit but good enough for the design.

After the road is reconstructed, the plans are filed away and never used for GIS input. You would need a team dedicated just to input all these data into GIS and some agencies just cannot afford it. When I started working for LA County in the mid 80's, they had 3 shifts working 24 hours just laying out all the property data they had on paper into CAD.

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Miguel

Your georeferencing land surveying and layout workflow is totally wrong and obsolete... I dont know if it is because you dont have the proper modern georeferencing training or access to the surveying hardware/software or else.

I cant believe that you are justifying not enforcing the legal mandates for each state to geoference all federal and state public works! I wonder how you these projects will be georeferenced and converted to as built GIS files that have to be delivered to the authorities when the jobs are done?

Let's face it VW's georeferenced land surveying, GIS and layout features and capabilities are really lame in the CAD industry and that is the reality... VW needs to improve this and fast!

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Miguel you hit the issue right on the button!

How will the FLAT EARTH "design" done in VW be CORRECTLY layout in the CURVED EARTH field if VW does NOT support coordinates sytems, datums, grid coordinates and geoid models corrections?

When you import a "geographycally correct survey" into VW it is distorted or dont you get it?

Edited by holsteinson
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Sorry to disagree but VW does not actually do the calculations. Esri and perhaps other vendors provide an SDK (MapObjects and now ArcObjects) to add GIS functionality to applications such as reading shp files and which I used to build a standalone program to do the translation from a geographic to a projected coordinate system. It would be a waste of time to reinvent the wheel when someone else can provide the means to do this calculation. There is a method in this SDK called Transform that does the calculations based on the coordinate systems defined in the function. Every shp file needs a prj file in order to project accurately the data on the screen and this prj file has all the geographical data for the shp file such as coordinate systems, datums, units, prime meridian, correction factors, etc. If the data in the shp files that make up a map have different coordinate systems, all the data is converted to the map's common coordinate system when the shp file is read. And for your information, I was doing server-client GIS programming for a while so I know very well about geographical coordinate systems.

I wonder where do you get the information that as-built GIS files need to be delivered to the authorities? Did you notice I said that I work for local government (i.e. the authorithy here) and this is not something that we require?

I also never claimed the old method was accurate but rather acceptable for the task in hand. I was only relating that although the benefit of providing GIS data is well intended, the fact is that currently, the data is not being used by most agencies. The same goes for requiring CAD files to be in a specified format (dgn or dwg) for future use when in reality the files will never be used again for design. I rather have pdf's to view and print which is the format I ask consultants to provide.

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I pointed out that it is precisely due to VW lack of built in datum support and scale factor corrections whenever you import or open a georreferenced survey file, it is distorted to a "flat earth" and the design generated

I recommend you to get Trimble Geomatics Office or Trimble Business Center Advance 2.0 software to properly handle all the georeferenced works while VW wakes up to the real curved earth world.

Can GeoTIFF and DRF files be used and manipulated within VW?

Can ground distances and grid distances and areas be measured in VW?

You should check ongoing practices outside your local government ... I would suggest you to assist to the 2009 ACSM Congress and see for yourself all the georreferencing requirements that all government at federal, state and local level are requiring for all public works.

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I wonder where do you get the information that as-built GIS files need to be delivered to the authorities? Did you notice I said that I work for local government (i.e. the authorithy here) and this is not something that we require?

At least Finnish and Australian authorities do not appear require this, either. At least urban planners and road engineers work quite happily with AutoCAD or MicroStation in Cartesian coordinates.

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To me the questions is: are your designs for you or will your designs hopefully benefit society. The public is demanding input in to our design work & the best way to share our designs is with Google Earth, which makes it very easy for the public to visually determine how the proposed design affects them.

Governments here require georeferenced designs & as-builds drawings, do they always get correct drawings - no, why not, because our design software hasn't made it easy to meet the requirements.

Miguel, officials in California advised me that they require georeferenced as-builts - are they misinforming me because I am not a local practitioner or canadian?

Should all public drawings be georeferenced, in my opinion yes, as it is the only practical way to make them available to anyone at anytime. Vast amounts of public money are wasted because drawing can not be retrieved.

Please Nemetschek lets move forward & provide your users with ability to work with georeferenced drawings. I am sure that Safe Software could assist you in providing this ability as they have for others.

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I guess the federal government created all these committes and standars with the tax payers money just to have them idle?

FGDC

http://www.fgdc.gov/

EPA

http://www.epa.gov/irmpoli8/ciopolicy/2121.pdf

GOVM

http://govm.geospatial-solutions.com/gssgovm

DNR content standard for geospatial http://www.dnr.state.md.us/policy/geospatial1.html

Maybe these link can provide the answers to those who still dont see or dont want to see that geospatial data usage IS the only way to work.

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Maybe these link can provide the answers to those who still dont see or dont want to see that geospatial data usage IS the only way to work.

At least I don't deny the benefits of geospatial data or the fact that one day large scale planning & infrastructure projects will be required to be delivered using such mechanisms.

However, very few VW users are involved in such projects. Assuming that the proportion of these users to whom U.S. Government's policies are relevant is the same as with VW in general (approx. one third), I can't see a huge drop in user numbers any time soon. Not even if VW would never have this capability whilst all Goverments would require it. (Last night I had the strangest dream or whatever.)

Nevertheless, as an urban designer, town planner, landscape architect and ecologist (among other things, still excluding show business), I find VW a very good tool for what I call "creation of new data". This includes both intelligent analyses and decision-making, in which GIS-programs do not actually excel. (I've been told that they are getting better, though.)

I am in no way associated with NNA, but as a user since 1987, I've gleaned, gathered, pieced together and deducted that the quite successful business strategy of NNA and its predecessor is based, often to my frustration (utter dismay & despair at times), on a rather clever (be it by accident or not) market situation analysis: ((functionality/price = success) + (right price point = success)).

Look: I don't disagree. But the next tract of McMansions, the next "musical" by Sir Andrew or the next dekathousands of dwelling units built in Japan every year simply do not need to be geospatially google-earthed* by a button.

*) There is not a single noun in the English language that could not be verbed.

- Sir Winston Churchill

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With the world heading towards rapid increase in infrastructure spending maybe more users of Vectorworks will be diverted from McMansions to design/build of linear assets.

"Very few VW users are involved in such projects" - the greatest potential for Vectorworks growth is if they can provide a suitable product for civil engineers.

"Do not need to be geospatially google-earthed* by a button", why not?, potentially a great data retrieval system.

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This is really odd for me to learn that an urban designer and town planner is not using geospatial data in his works and worse yet an ecologist who is not georeferencing the same natural resources he wants to protect?

How can you create a GIS of urban designs as builts?

How can you come back into a forest, coral reef, swamp, etc and locate a sensitive resource without geospatial location?

This is really a pointless discussion over a known fact of the geospatial data being required, and for once I am glad I am living in a georeferenced country where all cadastral land titles and maps, enviromental impact studies and protected areas, public infrastructures ARE REQUIRED BY LAW to be georeferenced to WGS-84(G1150) of ITRF 2005 datum and their as builts have to be SHAPE compatible to upload them directly into the respective GIS layers of the government institutions.

I guess NNA bought Archisoft's ARCHICAD and they have not found out that this CAD software already as built in View in Google Earth button?

Google Earth in Archicad

If NNA can not swim with the big CAD boys in deep water without sinking, it should remain on the shoreline as a talker not a doer.

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How can you create a GIS of urban designs as builts?

Well, 'fess,

It seems that you're totally out of your depth here, so it is pointless to continue.

You may well be the finest sales rep for Trimble (whatever that is) and may even remotely know what a coordinate or grid is, but obviously you haven't got the faintest idea of the professional fields related to your sales pitch.

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With the world heading towards rapid increase in infrastructure spending maybe more users of Vectorworks will be diverted from McMansions to design/build of linear assets.

I don't think that these "residential designers" who seem to constitute the majority of the minority of VW users can be diverted to become road construction contractors...

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Alexander,

Landmark supports the Import of many georeferenced image files (.bpw, .jgw, .pgw, .tfw, .gfw, or .wld), currently GeoTiff is not supported, but that isn't to say it can't or won't in a future version.

Landmark also supports the import and export of SHP files and "If the Vectorworks file contains projection data from a shapefile, the export process removes the projection and

exports the file with the original georeference data." (as quoted by the Design Series Reference Manual).

In another post, I've also indicated that Landmark and Architect support KML export with georeferencing data.

I ask that before getting too accusatory, that you further examine this functionality and then give us feedback regarding how it can be improved within VW and not simply stating "do it like ArchiCAD or Trimble". It doesn't work that way. Show/describe the workflow and the data points needed and our development team will examine the situation.

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I am sorry that you are taking the personal attack route instead of the issue of the post, but that is normal "hands on the cookie in jar" reaction

Regardless of your opinion that georeferenced support is not needed in VW as the basic foundation for any GIS project (including urban design and any land planning and development), it is needed for survey, design, mapping, layout, as built and monitoring phases of these projects.

If you dont know what Trimble stands for in the GPS geopositioning world in these last 10 years, then go to www.trimble.com.

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Jeffrey dont worry about it, I am not sensitive to opinions.

The georeferencing workflow is very simple:

1.- Any project starts with its land survey input of the site, which traditionally was on a flat Earth cartesian coordinates system, selected arbitrary by each PLS but since 1994 differential GPS constellation became operational it has been based more and more on curved Earth geocentric coordinate system that has an scale and elevation factors to convert ground distances to grid (or map)distances and viceversa. A mininum of 2 intervisible GPS control points are monumented on a site and from them everything is tied in with total stations and RTK GPS.

2.- The CAD program has to be configured by the user accordingly the datum, ellipsoid, grid and geoid models that are used in his area, before the data and or geotiff and or shape files are imported so that no mapping distorsion is generated.

3.- Once the georeferenced survey data is edited and adjusted in the topographic software, it is imported in the working plane (ground, ellipsoid or grid)of the CAD software and a DTM is generated with contours at user defined intervals.

4.- 2D/3D Design is generated based on 3 and can be uploaded to Google Earth for marketing and GIS purposes.

5.- Finished design corners or vertex are exported in georeferenced Y,X,Z coordinates CSV text file to data collector for layout in the field

6.- Georeferenced as built drawings are generated by input of collected data on the field of all changes during construction using the redline report in the CAD software.

I dont know how can VW imports and handles georeferenced image files and SHP without distorting them unless it is taking them in only grid or mapping coordinates. Same goes to Google Earth since its native input is lat, long, elevation in WGS84 (which has 2.2meters origin offset difference with NAD83)

Again the ground versus grid distances/areas/coordinates is a major subject because of the low accuracy of the UTM (1:2,500 or 4 meters every 10,000m) and State Plane (1:10,000 or 1 meter every 10,000m)systems.

Let me know if there is anything else that you want more details on the georeference workflow.

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