Question

Convert Civil 3D dynamic block visibility state text to a GIS attribute

  • 13 September 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 8 views
L
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Hello,

 

I am working with a Civil 3D 2019 file with FME verison 2018 that I want to convert the dynamic blocks as points to a GIS layer. I can see in the Civil 3D file a field name Visibility1 that has text of what type of water fitting it is. i.e. TEE, BEND, VALVE etc. (see image) I would like to "expose" this attribute to use in the final GIS point layer as an attribute. I looked online for solution. I tried using the attribute exposer to get autocad_entity_visibility, autocad_text_string, autocad_entity_visibility and autocad_visible_attributes{} butI don't see any text. I have exploded and not exploded block entities. I checked and unchecked read visible attributes as text entities. I am sure that there is a solution, but haven't found it yet.

Thank you for your responses and help.

 

4 replies

drc43
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I don't know much about dynamic blocks, but it looks like the ones you're using are made up of multiple blocks that have different visibilities set so only the Butterfly Valve shows in the drawing when that one is selected. That is the visibility that is showing in the Civil 3D properties box.

However, when you bring the data into FME, the autocad_entity_visibility attribute simply shows which part of the dynamic block is visible. As you're finding out, this doesn't really help you filter or sort them.

The attribute that you can expose and filter on is autocad_block_name. It doesn't display as it does in Civil 3D, but shows as an obscure name (ie. *U64), so there will be a bit of interpreting on your part. But you can use this attribute to filter your blocks into groups. If you correlate the autocad_block_name attribute in Inspector to what is in Civil 3D, you could use an AttributeValueMapper transformer to populate the actual dynamic block name in your FME process.

If you have more questions, just let me know.

L
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@drc43

 

Thank you for providing an answer. I test what you suggested. I was able expose autocad_block_name and see results that had content that started with *U. Then I started to change the blocks to the different types to view the different corresponding *U to establish a "cross reference" list. What I found was that some block's autcad_block_name changed and some didn't. I am not much of a CAD expert, so this may be user error. I am reaching out to CAD folks on my end. I think you provided an answer, I just need to get it working on my end. Thank you!

R

@lmawhinney7175

I had a similar issue where I wanted to extract the Custom attribute "Angle1". The only way I could extract this value was by using the AutoCAD 'DATAEXTRACTION" command and getting a csv with the data. The Visibility1 attribute like the Angle1 attribute is in the category of "Dynamic Block".

Other general Attributes and Geometry data can also be selected if needed in the data extraction by usig the Category filter. This csv data could then be used in FME in conjunction with your AotuCAD Layers.

 

Hope this helps

 

,

J

Hi - I have the same query - wanting to expose the visibility state of an autocad dynamic block in FME. Just wondering if this has been solved in FME 2020

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