How do I bring an ArcGIS Online polygon layer into AutoCAD?

[DanielDuffee]

Hi,

I am trying to export a polygon layer from ArcGIS Online into AutoCAD 2017, however all the guides I can find seem to be fixated on ArcGIS Desktop and do not seem to apply to the online version. I've tried downloading the shapefile and importing that into a CAD drawing using the IMPORT command and finding the downloaded shapefile (.shp) and I also tried the .shx file, both to no avail. Clearly I'm missing some vital step(s) and getting this wrong, but there don't seem to be any current/relevant video guides or written guides that seem to even start with a process that I can see in ArcGIS Online. Would somebody please show me how I can get this right?

Thank you in advance.

[AdrianWelsh]

Daniel,

I am not sure that the issue lies within AGOL.

Are you able to import shapefiles normally into AutoCAD, regardless of AGOL?

When you downloaded the shapefile from AGOL, do you have all related components in one folder together (meaning the .shp, .shx, .sbn, .prj, .dbf, etc.)? All of those components have to be together in the same folder in order for the shapefile to work.

Do you have all the needed shapefile components (like listed above)?

[DanielDuffee]

Adrian,

Thank you for replying, this is the contents of the folder when I downloaded the shapefile.

[AdrianWelsh]

Daniel,

I'm not sure what those last two objects are since they don't have file extensions. If it's ok, can you share the contents of your shapefile here?

Questions, have you been able to open other shapefiles in CAD?

Can you open this shapefile somewhere else to verify that it works and is valid?

[DanielDuffee]

I cannot share the contents of the shapefile as the data is sensitive.

The bottom two files are .shp and .shx respectively.

No I have never tried to extract shapefiles to CAD before.

I have no idea how to open the shapefile anywhere else. This is why I tried asking for help.

[AdrianWelsh]

Daniel Duffee, well, the bare minimum for a shapefile to work are the .shp, .dbf, and .shx files, so it looks like you have enough to make it work. Without seeing your data, it's hard to tell how valid it is.

When you say you cannot see your data, it is possible that the projections are not lining up from the AGOL file and your CAD drawing. When you import into CAD, can you "zoom to full extent" (or whatever the command is in CAD) to see if the file did come in, just maybe in the wrong place?

[DanielDuffee]

Hi Adrian,

I can indeed ZOOM then EXTENTS after trying to IMPORT the files from the download folder, but the model space is still blank and black. When I try to use the IMPORT command CAD only lets me import one file at a time. I have tried importing them one by one and nothing seemed to happen. There must be something I’m missing. What I could really benefit from is a step-by-step process for how to get a polygon layer to show up in CAD. It is baffling that I cannot simply export a layer of shapes from one drawing program into a different drawing program that is also designed to deal with layers of shapes, in just one to two easy steps. Can you still help, Adrian?

Thanks for your efforts this far.

[AdrianWelsh]

Daniel Duffee, the issue I have is that I don't have AutoCAD to see what you're seeing and not seeing. The issue we have now is that I want to know if your shapefile is a valid shapefile and appears to look normal. To do that, we need to have something read this shapefile. You could zip it up (all of the contents) and try opening it in ArcGIS Online (documentation here: Shapefiles—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS ) or you could try opening it in a free reader, if you do not have ArcGIS Desktop: Free GIS Data Viewers ~ GIS Lounge 

[DanielDuffee]

Hi Adrian,

I spoke to someone else about this who had the benefit of seeing it live. As it turns out there was something about AutoCAD not being able to deal with the data that AGOL exports, meaning that dedicated conversion software was required to allow AutoCAD to see it. Civil3D and other engineering specific bolt-on programs can accept it, but AutoCAD itself cannot. The issue has not been dealt with and now I know why the struggling was happening.

Thank you for trying, I really appreciate that you reached out. ☺

Daniel

[AdrianWelsh]

Thanks for letting me know. It's too bad AutoCAD can't read it natively. One more [late] suggestion. Have you tried installing the extension ArcGIS for AutoCAD? It may have a way to read in AGOL objects straight into the drawing (but I don't know since I can't test it).