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Hi @caddrafter, have you had a chance to review How to convert SHP to DWG (Esri Shapefile to AutoCAD)? This is a tutorial guiding you how to do the translation.

Hi, yes I did watch it, a few times in fact. The shape file gets converted but there are no elevations on the contours. I'm downloading lidar contours which we've been able to import into Carlson Survey and output as a DWG file. Problem is we only have one seat of it, which is in the office, and I work remotely so I'm trying to find an alternate method.

Hi @caddrafter

 

 

Have you tried using the 3DForcer to force your Shapefile into 3 dimensions? If that doesn't work, uploading a sample dataset and/or workspace might help troubleshoot the translation.

 

 

Thanks!

 

Thanks Nathan. I haven't had an opportunity to try that out yet but I'll let you know when I do and what the results are.

 

 

Thanks,

Hi @caddrafter

 

 

Have you tried using the 3DForcer to force your Shapefile into 3 dimensions? If that doesn't work, uploading a sample dataset and/or workspace might help troubleshoot the translation.

 

 

Thanks!

 

Thanks Nathan. I haven't had an opportunity to try that out yet but I'll let you know when I do and what the results are.

 

 

Thanks,

The 3DForcer will make your polylines all 3D, which might be what you want. It is also possible to use the "autocad_elevation" format attribute on your DWG writer to set that elevation property on a 2d polyline. This uses less space in the output DWG. All depends on what you want created.

Check the documentation on this at https://docs.safe.com/fme/html/FME_Desktop_Documentation/FME_ReadersWriters/acad/Lines.htm and see screenshot below as to how to expose this:

(Really you could also just rename the elevation attribute you read from Shape to autocad_elevation and it would work too)

The 3DForcer will make your polylines all 3D, which might be what you want. It is also possible to use the "autocad_elevation" format attribute on your DWG writer to set that elevation property on a 2d polyline. This uses less space in the output DWG. All depends on what you want created.

Check the documentation on this at https://docs.safe.com/fme/html/FME_Desktop_Documentation/FME_ReadersWriters/acad/Lines.htm and see screenshot below as to how to expose this:

(Really you could also just rename the elevation attribute you read from Shape to autocad_elevation and it would work too)

I Guess I must be doing something wrong because it still isn't giving me the elevation. I wish I could upload a file for you to try but I got a message that it's too big. I can email it if you want to try that?

 

 

Hi @caddrafter

 

 

Have you tried using the 3DForcer to force your Shapefile into 3 dimensions? If that doesn't work, uploading a sample dataset and/or workspace might help troubleshoot the translation.

 

 

Thanks!
I still can't get it to work. It must be operator error. The file is too big to upload here. Is there another way I can send this to you? It's not too big for email.

 

 

Thanks!

 

 

Hi @caddrafter -- check out the attached template example. If you run it in FME 2017.1 or later, you should get elevation set in the resulting DWG file. Hopefully that then can be modified for your input.

writeacadelevations.fmwt

I still can't get this to work and I've been trying for hours. I have to say customer service is pretty lousy seeing how I can't find any resolution since my original question back in December. I've tried all the suggestions and I still can't get the elevations! When I add the "elevation" attribute it still doesn't appear like the example shown. Very frustrating.

I Guess I must be doing something wrong because it still isn't giving me the elevation. I wish I could upload a file for you to try but I got a message that it's too big. I can email it if you want to try that?

 

 

You could use a sampler to create a small subset of your data and write that, so it can be used as an input.

 

 

I still can't get this to work and I've been trying for hours. I have to say customer service is pretty lousy seeing how I can't find any resolution since my original question back in December. I've tried all the suggestions and I still can't get the elevations! When I add the "elevation" attribute it still doesn't appear like the example shown. Very frustrating.

Well you are on the Q&A; forum here, which is user driven and not necessarily depending on Safe. And people have given you a number of options to try. It is a pity, you haven't succeeded in getting a DWG with elevations, but I don't think you can blame Safe Software for that. Looking from Customer Service perspective you could also issue your problems to your local reseller who might be able to help you out.

 

 

Having that said, I just curious whether your shapefile is 3D, or is it 2D and does it have a height attribute?

 

 

Also you can share your workspace, which would allow us to have a look at it and see if you did something wrong there. Sometimes even without having the source data at hand.

 

I still can't get this to work and I've been trying for hours. I have to say customer service is pretty lousy seeing how I can't find any resolution since my original question back in December. I've tried all the suggestions and I still can't get the elevations! When I add the "elevation" attribute it still doesn't appear like the example shown. Very frustrating.

Well, actually, their customer service pointed me here because they couldn't answer my question which I believe should be a relatively simple one based on the horsepower this software exhibits.

 

 

I can't blame the seller because I have a 6 month free trial. I certainly am not inclined to purchase at this rate.

 

 

It is 2D Lidar contours, no 3D. The contours will convert but everything is assigned a 0 elevation.

 

 

You could use a sampler to create a small subset of your data and write that, so it can be used as an input.

 

 

I don't understand.

 

 

Well, actually, their customer service pointed me here because they couldn't answer my question which I believe should be a relatively simple one based on the horsepower this software exhibits.

 

 

I can't blame the seller because I have a 6 month free trial. I certainly am not inclined to purchase at this rate.

 

 

It is 2D Lidar contours, no 3D. The contours will convert but everything is assigned a 0 elevation.

 

 

Again this is a community driven forum where FME users can answer questions and are doing that to help others out. I think FME is an excellent tool as does the majority of the FME users. It might be hard not having this question answered that quickly, but I think there is no one to blame for that.

 

 

Looking again at your issue, have you checked the ELEVATION attribute for having the right values? If those values are 0, no way your contours will get an elevation.

 

 

Again, it would be helpfull if you share (a subset of) your data and or your workspace.

 

I still can't get this to work and I've been trying for hours. I have to say customer service is pretty lousy seeing how I can't find any resolution since my original question back in December. I've tried all the suggestions and I still can't get the elevations! When I add the "elevation" attribute it still doesn't appear like the example shown. Very frustrating.

Attached is a small example of the Lidar contours I'm working with. Thank you for your help.

 

output-26.zip

 

 

Hi @caddrafter,

this simple workspace creates the 3D elevation lines and writes them to AutoCAD DWG. I have checked the output and the lines are in 3D.

Attached are both the workspace (esrishape2realdwg.fmw) and the DWG (elevation.dwg) I created.

Hopes this will make it possible for you to create your output.

Hi @caddrafter,

this simple workspace creates the 3D elevation lines and writes them to AutoCAD DWG. I have checked the output and the lines are in 3D.

Attached are both the workspace (esrishape2realdwg.fmw) and the DWG (elevation.dwg) I created.

Hopes this will make it possible for you to create your output.

Thank you. Adding the 3D Forcer worked. However when we convert these files through Carlson the output is 2D polylines with elevations. I don't know if the 3D lines are going to cause us any issues, I can just try it. Is 2D output an option?

 

 

Thank you. Adding the 3D Forcer worked. However when we convert these files through Carlson the output is 2D polylines with elevations. I don't know if the 3D lines are going to cause us any issues, I can just try it. Is 2D output an option?

 

 

The 3DForcer (as it says) forces a geometry to become 3D. This was by the way already suggested by @NathanAtSafe and @daleatsafe

 

 

I don't AutoCAD allows an object to be 2D and having an elevation value. So no, I do not think 2D output with an elevation value is an option. The only thing you could do is exporting 2D lines and adding a text-element containing the height of the line. That way you'll have 2Ds line and height values as text-elements in a single drawing, but that was not your original question.

 

 

Apparently I made a small mistake in the previous workspace, lines were output as blocks in stead of polylines. I corrected it in this workspace (esrishape2realdwg-v2.fmw) where lines are output. Now I didn't use the 3DForcer, but renamed the attribute ELEVATION to autocad_elevation as was suggested by Dale as well.

 

I still can't get this to work and I've been trying for hours. I have to say customer service is pretty lousy seeing how I can't find any resolution since my original question back in December. I've tried all the suggestions and I still can't get the elevations! When I add the "elevation" attribute it still doesn't appear like the example shown. Very frustrating.

So actually your question was answered in five hours time, I do not think that is pretty lousy customer service. Especially since your doing production work on a trial license and not even using the paid product.

 

So actually your question was answered in five hours time, I do not think that is pretty lousy customer service. Especially since your doing production work on a trial license and not even using the paid product.

 

Actually, YOU are the one who solved the problem I'm having. Customer service just passed me off because they didn't have anyone who could help. As far as using it for production designs, I haven't been able to use it at all because I couldn't get the data I needed out of it. I surely wasn't going to buy it if it didn't work for me.

 

 

The 3DForcer (as it says) forces a geometry to become 3D. This was by the way already suggested by @NathanAtSafe and @daleatsafe

 

 

I don't AutoCAD allows an object to be 2D and having an elevation value. So no, I do not think 2D output with an elevation value is an option. The only thing you could do is exporting 2D lines and adding a text-element containing the height of the line. That way you'll have 2Ds line and height values as text-elements in a single drawing, but that was not your original question.

 

 

Apparently I made a small mistake in the previous workspace, lines were output as blocks in stead of polylines. I corrected it in this workspace (esrishape2realdwg-v2.fmw) where lines are output. Now I didn't use the 3DForcer, but renamed the attribute ELEVATION to autocad_elevation as was suggested by Dale as well.

 

I followed your example and it generated the work product I was looking for. Thank you for taking your time and patience to help me! I truly appreciate it.

 

 

Actually, YOU are the one who solved the problem I'm having. Customer service just passed me off because they didn't have anyone who could help. As far as using it for production designs, I haven't been able to use it at all because I couldn't get the data I needed out of it. I surely wasn't going to buy it if it didn't work for me.

 

 

As a community moderator I am sorry to hear you're dissatfied with FME right now but I hope you'll reconsider, it is a great tool. Your question is not neccesarily a support question but rather a more general "how do I do X in FME?" question so I'm sure that's why the support staff pointed you to the community (so that others might learn from it). I would like to point out that several people have responded to you right away.

 

 

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