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Preserving world coordinates and elevation data for survey


Damon

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Hi,

I've looked for info on this topic, and asked other users for help, but no luck so far. Here is the issue and the question:

I am doing work for a Municipality, and I need to provide them with a autocadd/ dwg file that is referenced to their coordinate system (presumably a world corrdinate/ northing & easting) system, and one with a Z value for some points or objects.

I am not a user of the 3D capabilities of VW so I accept the problems there. However, I hope that if I import a survey dwg file that has the 2D coordinates and the Z values that this data would be preserved, especially if I kept things at 1:1, and used the 'world coordinates' button instead of 'centre after importing'.

I would think that if I did some new linework, and somehow managed to get things at the correct Z elevation, that my file would still be referenced to the coordinates of the original survey.

Does anyone have any experience doing this sort of export? If I cannot export a VW file to dwg and retain that coordinate info, I'll have to hire someone to do this drawing in acad. And that won't be much fun.

BTW I'm on a mac, and I don't know if the file format differences btw mac and windows would by itself muck up the data or database components of the original survey.

Thanks for any help.

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Damon,

First thing I always like to do is test it.

• Import the DWG file. Draw something on it… either in 2D or 3D. Save that. Export that to a DWG and send it to someone there to see if that works for them.

Drawings I have imported have retained the world coordinates they came with (checkout all the dialogue areas in the DWG import section in VW). You can then center your page on the portion of the drawing you want to work on without changing those coordinates for exporting later. Check out the VW Help for this.

Changing 2D loci to 3D… (In case they give you a 2D, "flat" drawing with 2D loci with heights listed beside each… here's what I do)

• In the VW imported file of their survey, create a new layer with the same scale as the survey. You will use this layer for 3D loci.

• Grey/snap other layers so you can see the survey as you drop 3D loci on top of their 2D loci locations…. adding the Z height to your 3D loci as you go.

• Once finished, you have a set of 3D loci you can select and "Create Terrain" with. Look in the VW Help on how to create the terrain.

• WIth the terrain you can start to build your project in 3D.

Hope this helps.

otto

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@damon,

i usually import dwgs with centering after import, the world coordinates get set properly.

i've had issues with further exporting dwgs from sheet layers: the world coordinates got multiplied by 10 or 100 - this may have been the units issue. i haven't found an appropriate fix for this, though.

nevertheless, i've then tried the direct design layer export (not via sheet layer). this time the world coordinates got exported correctly.

hth,

rob

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