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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Check out the following link which is the page dedicated to how Vectorworks Landmark handles importing and exporting GIS files. There is a video I have made on the opportunities for shp files brought into VwL and there is a whitepaper available for downloading to see the GIS work done within VwL.

http://www.nemetschek.net/landmark/gis.php

Please let me know if I can answer any questions further on GIS in VwL.

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But VW can also handle other record data and construct queries just as Arcview. With a little programming, you can run scripts to render a map based on queries of the attributes attached to each shape. As a tool to illustrate maps, there is not much difference between them and my experience tells me that many people believe that the main purpose of GIS apps is to draw maps.

The advantage of having Arcview is that it can also serve maps over a network or the internet and any user can view and make queries of these maps.

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The problem is Miguel that very few users have the scripting skill that you do, and most users don't have the aptitude or the desire to get into scripting. For them what the application can do out of the box is the benchmark. If they can't do it using the program as it is then in their mind the program can't do it. Perception is everything.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Some of the examples seen in the video of how we turned 2D contour polygons into 3D polygons, placed at their proper z elevation, and converting 2D footprint polygons into massing models at the precise height the data indicated, were done by scripts, but only because the manual process is very time consuming, but definitely possible without scripts. We explained this to the client who asked us to create this for their own planning needs. The video does explain the use of scripts and if a user wants to learn the scripting process, to do these powerful functions, it is certainly something they can learn. As we would all expect, GIS files are subject to data variations, so having programmed features designed to modify such polygons would have to change based on the specific data assigned to these polygons, thus the need for scripting to do these processes efficiently is necessary.

Many new users who expect to pick up the program and use it without being trained on its unique landscape specific tools, end up using it like a general CAD program. When they do learn how to use the unique tools, they begin to find the amazing possibilities and begin to make their workflows more efficient.

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I'm definately an 'out of the box' user and barely find the time to try and master the basic tools in VW.....so learning to write scripts is probably going to come in my next life. If those of you have written these and don't mind sharing them or offering them on the market then maybe those of us that are have only primitive skills can capture more of the power of the VW GIS functionality.

Thanks for the replies from everyone.

Edited by stmlandplan
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  • 4 weeks later...

What are you trying to accomplish?

GIS has 4 basic elements:

1. The shapes or geometric objects (points,lines,or polygons).

2. A database attached to each shape.

3. A class or attributes to assign for each database query.

4. The database queries to classify the shapes.

You can do all of these steps manually with VW but of course it will take some time to set all this up. If the data changes you would need to go through the steps again

With scripting you can automate these steps and shorten the time considerably. If the data changes you only have to run the script again which is what GIS does.

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I have been posting for long but nobody from VW R&D listens.. WITHOUT georeferenced DATUM (namely WGS-84, NAD83 and NAD-27 Datums) and UTM/State Coordinates grid projections SUPPORT in VW Landmark you are inducing distorsions on the maps coming from Shapefiles from ArcGIS and other GIS programs. VW is regretfully a flat earth application!

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Miguel you are 100% correct that by programming scripts and code you can provide the much needed GIS operability into Landmark ... but then what are the VW programmers doing if we the users have to lose our time learning how to program instead of our real work?

The question should be the other way around:

Why VW hasnt embraced and integrated into the GIS workflow when every other CAD software has been doing it on a fast track basis?

All terrain surveys and most BIM require interoperability with GIS, both online and desktop versions, as well as most planting project the same.

I dont have the time to learn scripts or code programming, I need a real CAD software that imports and exports GIS files as well as KMZ/KML files without flat earth distorsion!

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