BIM on the Rocks

Using Google Earth and Civil 3D to Figure Out Where the Heck You Are

I was talking to James about a project this morning and he asked if I knew where it was in the world. Apparently, “Um, Florida somewhere?” wasn’t good enough.

Let’s say I want to put a Google Earth image underlay in my drawing for reference. Or maybe I want an idea of what is surrounding my site. Or even just get driving directions.

Your drawing must be assigned a coordinate system and properly placed. This isn’t going to read your mind or magically line up based on you wishing hard enough. The idea here is that Google Earth will prevent you from having to manually pan around maps or GIS data, etc. to find your site.

Press Publish to Google Earth.

Work through the wizard. Take care to check the assigned coordinate system.

At the end of the wizard, be sure to press View.

Google Earth will open and fly you to your location. If it flies you far away from your location, you know that somebody screwed up. Either the wrong coordinate system was applied, or the entities were put in the wrong place. Breathe deeply. Resist the urge to run down to the survey department screaming. Chances are, it’s your fault. But we’ll deal with that later.

To turn off your drawing entities in Google Earth, look for the entry under Temporary Places that should match your drawing name.

Now you can import a Google Earth Image, Surface, Grid, etc. or get those driving directions you need to take the field crew lunch.

 

For more ideas on how to use Google Earth, check out their blog. http://www.gearthblog.com/

Tom Inzinga also did a really nice AU Class on publishing to Google Earth at AU 2009. Publishing DWG Data to Google Earth™

While I Was Out…

I’m back from maternity leave. Web conferences will no longer be handled by my proxy.

 

Baby Galileo is growing like a weed and working hard hitting his milestones so that he can discover the moons of Jupiter before his four month birthday. This should solidify his spot at the CERN preschool near our house. It will be close, but we have our fingers crossed.

As you can imagine, my plate is quite full with Autodesk University  class selection. I’m just about finished and avoided going analog. This is how I did the final selections last year:

I need to get back to finding the pony in this stable, but I wanted to let you know some things I discovered while I was out.

1. Words with Friends (iPhone, iPod Touch, Droid) helped me keep me entertained while feeding the baby. By accident we discovered that it is a great way to interact with friends and coworkers far away. It’s also great for building kids’ word skills. Panorama plays with her grandfather in Arizona, but unless he throws the game it might be awhile before she beats him. Also discovered Chess with Friends before I remembered I hate chess.
2. Autodesk Tinkerbox (iPhone, iPad) is a free app that is at least as entertaining as Angry Birds or Cut the Rope. Our monthly app budget is a paltry $6000 per month, so I am always looking for free stuff. Panorama plays daily, even when I don’t force her.
3. Bones. We don’t have TV at our house. I mean, we have a TV, but we don’t have cable or anything. While poking around on Hulu, I realized I had never seen a single episode of Bones, so I started watching this season and the old episodes. I love the mix of anthropology, graphics technology, funky clothes and social awkwardness. I’ve never seen such brilliantly rendered heads since the Matt Murphy playdough experiment.

Things I did not accomplish while I was out:

1. Finish David Copperfield
2. Clean out the craft closet
3. Write the Great American Novel

Oh, and yeah, I think we released some software or something. Check out What’s New with Civil 3D on our product center.