Points not showing up...but annotation shows

TimHayes · ‎01-13-2013

Since ArcGIS for AutoCAD does not work with AutoCAD 2013 I am trying to find another solution to get our GIS data into CAD. I have followed the online instructions in how to Export to CAD and ensure that the Annotation shows up.

I have a Feature Class of 20 points. I Export to CAD. I added the CADType and TxtValue Fields. Seems to export fine, except when I bring the CAD file into ArcMap only the values in the TxtValue field show up, no points. Any ideas why the annotation and no points show up?

DonKuehne · ‎01-22-2013

AFA 300 Sp1 that will add support for AutoCAD 2013+ is wrapping up, but until then....

When you specified the CADType to be "TEXT" you have essentially tricked ArcMap by creating TEXT instead of points. The feature class of points was generated but with TEXT entities instead of point entities. The TEXT entities that you created were filtered out by by ArcGIS Desktop. If you look in ArcMap at the default feature classes you can see this more clearly. Turn off everything except the ANNOTATION and you see the text you created. You will not see any points because there are no qualifying "points" in the drawing. If you looked inside AutoCAD you'd see that there is also a feature class that you expected to create and a layer where your features should be. But they are now TEXT entities and not points, Their geometry type is excludes them from inclusion as a POINT features class.

If all you want to do is make the attribute information look correct in an AutoCAD drawing. You might consider labeling your point features with what you want to see. Run the create geodatabase annotation from labels and export both the points and the new annotation feature class. You will get both the points and a new annotation feature class with the text that looks like the labels. Or make a temporary copy one with CADTYPE/TXTVALUE set and the other without. This will do essentially the same thing. When working with geodatabases the first one option is easier.

And yes it will be better when AFA 300 sp1 comes out.

TimHayes · ‎01-23-2013

AFA 300 Sp1 that will add support for AutoCAD 2013+ is wrapping up, but until then....

When you specified the CADType to be "TEXT" you have essentially tricked ArcMap by creating TEXT instead of points. The feature class of points was generated but with TEXT entities instead of point entities. The TEXT entities that you created were filtered out by by ArcGIS Desktop. If you look in ArcMap at the default feature classes you can see this more clearly. Turn off everything except the ANNOTATION and you see the text you created. You will not see any points because there are no qualifying "points" in the drawing. If you looked inside AutoCAD you'd see that there is also a feature class that you expected to create and a layer where your features should be. But they are now TEXT entities and not points, Their geometry type is excludes them from inclusion as a POINT features class.

If all you want to do is make the attribute information look correct in an AutoCAD drawing. You might consider labeling your point features with what you want to see. Run the create geodatabase annotation from labels and export both the points and the new annotation feature class. You will get both the points and a new annotation feature class with the text that looks like the labels. Or make a temporary copy one with CADTYPE/TXTVALUE set and the other without. This will do essentially the same thing. When working with geodatabases the first one option is easier.

And yes it will be better when AFA 300 sp1 comes out.

It sounds like I need to export two separate CAD files. One CAD file as TEXT, one CAD file as POINTS. The TEXT CAD file will act as the labels for the POINTS CAD file.

DonKuehne · ‎01-29-2013

Not exactly you would be exporting two versions of the feature layer to the same CAD drawing. And then you are correct one for the points and one acting as the labels, but going to the same CAD drawing. You can specify many feature layers to go to the same drawing with a single execution of the Export To CAD tool as well as appending to an existing CAD file.