SpaTools: Clip Features in AutoCAD
Recently, I posted about the workflow to clip features in AutoCAD like ArcGIS. The post named as “How to clip objects in AutoCAD” was much appreciated by readers. The workflow contains following steps: Creation of a polygon in model space Copy that polygon in a layout with base point (0,0,0) Converting the polygon into viewport …. Read More
SpaTools: Create 3-Point Rectangle & Right Angle Triangle in AutoCAD
AutoCAD provides a basic command to create a rectangle. The command can be invoked by typing “REC” , “RECTANG” or “RECTANGLE” on command window or by clicking on Rectangle icon button on DRAW panel of Home Tab. Multiple options are there to create rectangle such as: By specifying the opposite diagonal corners of the rectangle …. Read More
SpaTools: Create Buffer Around Linear Objects (Updated)
My last blog CreateBuffer Around Polylines was about creating buffer polygons around Polylines & Spline CAD objects only. Lines and Arc objects were not implemented. Besides that, the resulting buffer polygon was created on both sides of Polylines and Splines with round corners at the ends. The same shortages were indicated by a reader on …. Read More
SpaTools: Create Buffer Around PolyLines
In the continuation of my last post about buffer around points, I have developed another tool to create buffer polygons around/along the linear AutoCAD objects such as Polylines and Splines. Buffer is one of the vital tool of Spatial Analysis and it is often needed to create buffers along the linear features such as roads, …. Read More
SpaTools: Create Buffer Around Points
Buffer analysis is a common tool of spatial analysis, which deals with the problem of proximity Buffer analysis can make the complicated problem be more scientifically and visually, and provide valuable information for users. The basic idea is to create a zonal area of a certain distance around its boundary. This zonal area is technically …. Read More
SpaTools: Merge Polygons into One Closed Polyline
It is often needed to merge multiple closed polylines and circles into one closed polyline in AutoCAD. Different users do it in different ways such as Creating Boundaries using “_boundary” command or creating Regions and then applying UNION (Boolean operation) on those region objects and then exploding and joining all line segments. This method is …. Read More
SpaTools: Import ESRI Shapefile into AutoCAD
Shapefile is one of the data format developed by ESRI to store geographic information. Because of the simplicity of shapefiles, it is very popular in GIS and Geospatial industry to transfer geographic information along with attributes. The SpaTools toolbar has a dedicated panel for tools to import different file formats in AutoCAD directly. These tools …. Read More
SpaTools: Toolbar with all tools
Since January 2020, I started writing blogs about the custom tools developed for AutoCAD. All those blogs are entitled with the prefix of “SpaTools”. Currently, ten (10) different tools have been added to SpaTools.DLL. For each tool, I have published a blog with the explanation of its usability and some basic information. The readers not …. Read More
SpaTools: Import Lidar Point Cloud (LAS/LAZ) files into AutoCAD
Point clouds are large data sets composed of 3D point data. These geographic point data is collected mostly by Laser scanners and drones equipped with LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) sensors. In addition to these directly collected LIDAR point cloud data, the aerial RGB images collected by drones are processed using Image Processing & Computer …. Read More
SpaTools: Extract Topographic Profile From Contours In AutoCAD (Extended)
One of my recent blog SpaTools: Extract Topographic Profile From Contours In AutoCAD was appreciated by the AutoCAD users by commenting on the blog directly as well as on social media pages. Last week, an anonymous reader commented on the blog to improve it further. The comment is depicted as below. The tool was able …. Read More
SpaTools: Plot Points In Cad
Most of the total stations used in Surveying & Mapping industry, store the data in their native raw format. These raw format files may be binary or ASCII. For example, Sokkia made total stations store the data in SDR33 file format natively. SDR33 is an ASCII file having custom file headers and record types. Similarly, …. Read More
SpaTools: Import GPX files into AutoCAD
Most of the handheld GPS devices used for reconnaissance survey stores the data in GPX format. GPX format is a light-weight XML data format for the interchange of GPS data. These XML based files are used to share the spatial information between applications and web services on the internet. The data is stored as Waypoints, …. Read More
SpaTools: Import KML in AutoCAD
KML, or ‘Keyhole Markup Language’, is an XML based file format for modeling and storing geographic features such as points, lines, images, polygons, and models for display in Google Earth, Google Maps and other applications. KML uses a tag-based structure with nested elements and attributes and is based on the XML standard. KML files can …. Read More
SpaTools: Extract Topographic Profile From Contours In AutoCAD
A topographic map is simply the two dimensional representation of a portion of three dimensional surface of earth. Topographic maps provide the detailed information about the natural and man-made aspects of the terrain, but are best known for their series of contour lines that show elevation changes, and colors signifying varying land types and bodies …. Read More
SpaTools: Cut Polygon in AutoCAD
Cutting a Polygon into Two Parts is a frequent operation used in GIS environments such as ArcGIS and QGIS for real estate, land development, cartography, parcel mapping applications. In cad environment, it is little bit tricky to cut a polygon into two polygons. A command named as “MPSPLIT” was introduced in AutoCAD Map which cuts …. Read More
SpaTools: Annotate alignment of centerline with chainages
Chainage is the horizontal distance measured along a centerline of a linear structure such as Road, highway, irrigation channel, pipeline and any linear feature. The term Chainage is usually used in conjunction with route surveying along the center line of a linear feature. It is often referred as Stationing or RD marking. The term RD …. Read More
SpaTools: Construct Convex Hull in AutoCAD
Convex Hull is one of the geometric entities used in GIS, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, CAD and CAM applications. The convex hull is a polygon with shortest perimeter that encloses a set of points. As a visual analogy, consider a set of points as nails in a board. The convex hull of the points would …. Read More
SpaTools: Construct Polylines / Polygons from Points in AutoCAD
It is often required to create a polyline or polygon from a set of points when working in CAD environment. The point data comes from the conventional terrestrial survey instruments like Total stations, GPS/GNSS equipment and other survey instruments. The data is then plotted in AutoCAD for cartographic purposes in the form of point objects. …. Read More
