BIM on the Rocks

Using Raster Design to Crop and Convert MrSID

A few days ago, I posted about Favorite Uses for Raster Design: Cropping Aerial Imagery. Jason asked the question:

The aerial image I often use is .sid format. A high resolution image that I bring into Civil 3D through the Map 3D data connect. Do you know how i can crop this image in Civil 3D or perhaps with raster? The image covers the entire city so I would like to crop it to my work area.

I have had this problem often myself! I am happy to report that the answer is YES. You can make those lovely, giant MrSID (*.sid) files more manageable with the help of Raster Design. (Which, if I haven’t already mentioned, is now part of the Infrastructure Design Suite. Eventually, I’ll stop saying that.)

One thing to note- in his question, Jason said he is using the Map 3D data connect for his .SID. In order to crop the image, you’ll have to either use Map Image Insert (MAPIINSERT) or the Insert button on the Raster Tools > Insert panel (IINSERT). For more information on different ways to insert images into Map 3D and Civil 3D, check out Connecting to a Raster Image through the FDO.

Here is a *.sid file that I have. It covers an entire small city in North Dakota called Grand Forks. When I lived in Canada, my colleagues in Manitoba used to talk about their big weekends hitting the mall in Grand Forks, so of course I was interested to check out this short interview on youtube: City of Grand Forks Interview on Autodesk Technology and Expectation of Changes. I was disappointed that they didn’t show the mall, but I am sure it is spectacular.

Anyway, here is the image. It’s a black and white 1’ resolution *.sid.

I made a rectangular region:

And cropped it down to a smaller corner of the city. I could have cropped it down to just the neighborhood or site I was working on if I wanted.

Using the Image Export tool, I get the choice to export the image to a few different formats, including bitmap (.bmp), tagged image file format (.tif. .tiff), Portable Network Graphics File (*.png), JPEG (.jpeg), and JPEG2000 (.jp2, .jp2K).

 

I get some choices on export quality, which could help you if the image file is large and you don’t need it to be quite as fine as the original.

As I mentioned in the post about georeferencing scanned images, I can export the image along with a world file. This way, I am making the image more manageable without losing that geographic intelligence.

Not hard, eh? That’s how you convert a MrSID (.sid) to JPEG (or one of many other) image formats using Raster Design.

Check out the other posts in this series:

Favorite Uses for Raster Design: Georeferencing Scanned Images

Favorite Uses for Raster Design: Cropping Aerial Imagery

Favorite Uses for Raster Design: Merging Tiled Images

Favorite Uses for Raster Design: Georeferencing Scanned Images

Have I mentioned that Raster Design is now included in the Infrastructure Design Suite?

Earlier this week, I posted some of my favorite uses for Raster Design, Merging Tiled Images and Cropping Aerial Imagery. Today, I want to talk about taking scanned sketches and giving them geographic intelligence.

Remember this guy? That guy that likes tracing paper, colored pencils and pentel sign pens? We met him over in Alignments from the Land Planners Curves.

Well, he’s awesome and everything, but I don’t always know what to do with his sketches. Using a combination of Raster Design, Infrastructure Modeler and Civil 3D, I can take his ideas and use them to get my model started.

(I actually show this workflow quickly in this video from our media launch (starting around minute 10) and mentioned it in a post called Breathing Some Life Into Infrastructure Planning)

Georeferencing Scanned Images, Especially Pencil Sketches

Insert the scanned image and just place it somewhere near the area it belongs. It is useful if you scan the tracing paper while taped to some sort of print out of a map or base plan like the image below. (The blue and green interchanges are pen sketches on tracing paper over a print out of my basemap.)

Of course, I wasn’t that smart for the example I have queued up for this post, but we’ll go with it.

Next use any combination of the Raster Design tools Match, Rubber Sheet, Scale, or Displace to get your sketch lined up where you need it.

Once you have the image where you want it, use Image Export to create a new image of the sketch, and include the creation of a world file.

I can continue to use it in the Civil 3D environment, or I can use it other places- like Infrastructure Modeler.

If your planner has multiple sketches, you can built them as proposals in Infrastructure Modeler and use Autodesk 360 Infrastructure Modeler to share those proposals with your team.

If I want to take those conceptual centerlines back to Civil 3D to work on early stage design, I can use the IMX export from Infrastructure Modeler, then IMX import into Civil 3D. The yellow centerlines in the Civil 3D model are alignments. I can use some of the techniques I talked about in Alignments from the Land Planners Curves to begin some early corridor modeling and more detailed feasibility analysis.

James will touch on this workflow in our upcoming CE News webcast on June 28, 2012 called: Planning and Environmental Assessment with BIM for Infrastructure. That’s TODAY! Don’t forget!

Favorite Uses for Raster Design: Cropping Aerial Imagery

 

Yesterday, I posted about Merging Tiled Images using Autodesk Raster Design.

Cropping Aerial Photography

Now that I have one image, I often only need a portion of it. This is especially true with road design projects- I just need an image that covers the road and some right of way area on either side.

You can make regular shapes, but I will use the Crop>Polygonal Region option to make a custom shape.

The image is cropped.

If you don’t like the black pieces, you could use a rectangular region, but keep in mind that black takes less time to load than detailed aerial imagery.

Circle can be useful as well if you need to focus on a specific radius.

Again, I’ll want to save this image with a new name and produce a world file. The major benefit to doing your image manipulation in Raster Design over an image editing program is that Raster Design understands that you need to keep things in the right location.

Working with these photos reminds me of a post I wrote about Conceptual Road Design Ideas and using imagery to complement planning exhibits.

James will talk about creating exhibits for planning and conceptual design  in our upcoming CE News webcast on June 28, 2012 called: Planning and Environmental Assessment with BIM for Infrastructure.

Favorite Uses for Raster Design: Merging Tiled Images

Raster Design has been around awhile, but this year it was added to Infrastructure Design Suite. I’m really happy with everything we added to the suite this year, but I think Raster Design is one of those workhorse tools that quietly adds a lot of value.

Everyone I know who uses Raster Design has a few favorite workflows. Over the next few days, I’ll share some of mine. I’d love to hear yours.

Pasting Together Tiled Orthophotos

It always happens. You’re working on a site design or a road project and the information you need crosses tiny bits of about 9 high resolution orthophotos.

Insert the images so that they tile together, then use the Merge Images command to merge all of the images into one.

Note that the tool adds the images you choose to a destination image, so you’ll want to use the Save Image tool to prevent overwriting your originals. Or, change the Prompt Options.

If you work with tiled images a lot, you might like this old post about using the Map 3D Query tool to transform a bunch of images at once: Transforming Images from One Coordinate System to Another.

James will touch on another one of my favorite uses for Raster Design in our upcoming CE News webcast on June 28, 2012 called: Planning and Environmental Assessment with BIM for Infrastructure

Transforming Images from One Coordinate System to Another

It happens all the time. You get a whole pack of orthophotos with world files that are assigned to UTM, but you are working in state plane. If you have Raster Design or connect to the raster files using the FDO, you can transform the image upon import. Another way that works really well- especially if you have a lot of tiled images to transform- is to use a Map query. This procedure works for Map 3D and Civil 3D of every version I’ve worked with in recent history. Here’s how:

1. Open a new drawing. Assign a coordinate system to the drawing to match the coordinate system of your tiled images.

2. Insert your tiled images using Map>Image>Insert (also can get there by typing MAPIINSERT in the command line). It is helpful if you put all of your tiled images on an easy to find layer- like _IMAGES or similar.

3. Save and close the drawing.

4. Open the drawing that you ultimately want the images to live in. Assign a coordinate system to match how you’d like to work. For example, State Plane.     

5. Bring in the Map Task Pane (type MAPWSPACE in the command line.)

6. On the Map Explorer tab of the Map Task Pane, right-click on Drawings. Choose Attach. Attach the drawing that holds your tiled images.

7. Right-click on Current Query. Choose Define.

 

8. Build a query that grabs your images from the attached drawing. I find it easiest to do a Property > Layer query. Just press Values… and find the layer that holds the tiled images.

 

9. Press Execute Query. Your images should appear- transformed!

 

There are many ways to do this- there is no right or wrong way as long as your images are transformed. I like doing it this way because I can do a big batch of images at once and the FDO connection for large rasters can be clunky.

What are some of your techniques?

Further reading:

• Raster, Raster, Who has a Raster from Murph’s Law: the differences between OLE connections, AutoCAD Insert, Map 3D Image Insert and FDO connections
• Connecting to a Raster Image through the FDO
• Using GIS Data in Civil 3D 2010

More About My Co-Presenter for CV218-5 “More Power to You”

Lynda Sharkey and I will be covering the Subscription Advantage Packs for Civil 3D and Map 3D in our Autodesk University class:

CV218-5 More Power to You: “Autodesk Subscription Advantage Packs” for Civil and Geospatial Professionals

Lynda has over 10 years of experience developing advanced GIS applications for local governments and utilities. She’s also great company- at least on conference calls, facebook and telepresence meetings! AU will be our first time working together in person, and I can’t wait!

In addition to working with me on a lot of subscription advantage pack materials, she’s also spent a lot of time working with LandXplorer. LandXplorer brings geospatial data, digital city information, design models and more together into an environment that is so valuable for city planning, transportation planning and other applications where you need to see everything together.

Check out Lynda’s demonstrations of LandXplorer on the LandXplorer Studio Professional playlist on youtube.

Right after our joint class, Lynda will be teaching:

Autodesk® LandXplorer™ Software Family: A Closer Look

Stream Buffer Analysis with Map 3D 2010 (and Civil 3D 2010)

A few weeks ago I posted about Overlay Analysis for Floodplain Study. Now, let’s look at some other tools you can use for floodplain studies, wetlands work, urban planning and other tasks where you need to create both exhibits and detailed reports about buffers.

This demonstration begins with county parcels, road centerlines and stream centerlines. Many states regulate what types of construction are permitted within a certain distance from a wetlands area, which includes streams. There are plenty of other situations where this is useful- Which property owners must be notified about a new waste transfer station, or a zoning change? What types of land uses are within a certain buffer around sensitive open space? or How many homes are within walking distance to a school?

I’ve recorded a short video showing Stream Buffer Analysis using the tools in Map 3D 2010, which are also included in Civil 3D 2010. (I use Civil 3D in the video.)

 

Here is a summary of the tasks shown:

1. Parcels, roads, stream centerlines are in the drawing through an FDO connection.

2. Use Feature Buffer tool. Choose the blue stream centerlines.

3. Create a buffer distance of 100 feet.

4. A new layer is created for the buffer.

5. Drag and drop a land cover layer into the drawing.

6. Create a theme that colors each land use uniquely.

7. Add a legend.

8. Create a layout border for your exhibit.

Ideas to take this further:

The buffer is a layer like any other through in the display manager. Use the query, overlay, and any other techniques to report, theme and understand the information before you.

Do an overlay between a watershed layer and the land use layer to come up with some conceptual runoff coefficients for preliminary rational method calculations, or other watershed exercises.

I’d love to hear what you are working on and where you might find this useful.

Overlay Analysis in Map 3D 2010 for Floodplain Study

I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past few months digging through the FEMA Guidelines and Specifications for Flood Hazard Mapping Partners. (And quite a few other sample documents and regulations.)

I’ve been learning about how different water resources projects come together- of course from a hydrology/hydraulic analysis perspective, but also from an exhibit and study perspective. I remember that the stormwater management and drainage reports that I did were largely an exercise in collecting data, creating maps, creating exhibits, documenting what we found… THEN taking it to the next level and crunching the numbers.

One exercise that often has to be done for flood studies is to identify parcels that are located within certain flood zones. This same idea also applies to a broad range of water resources, environmental, civil engineering, land planning, etc. projects. Thinking about finding certain land uses within a watershed, or parcels in a special zoning area, or green space within a municipal boundary.

You’ve been able to do an overlay between map topologies in Map 3D (and Civil 3D which is built on Map 3D) for a few years now, but I just learned how to do an overlay with data connected through the FDO.

You can find the command if you switch to one of the geospatial workspaces. This one is from the Task-based geospatial workspace.

I’ve recorded a short video showing the process.

Here is a summary of the tasks shown:

1. Drag and drop a .shp with county parcels into the drawing

2. Stylize the parcels to be a light gray, line-only style.

3. Drag and drop a .shp with floodplain information

4. Create a theme for the flood zones, then query only the zones I am most interested in.

5. Create a Feature Overlay to overlay parcel polygons with floodplain polygons.

6. Looking at the resulting overlay information noticing that the information about the parcels is now merged with the information about the flood zones.

Ways to take this further:

-Export the overlay table to .csv and taking the information into excel for further sorting and calculations, graphs, charts, summaries, trends, etc. (select all first)

-Create a layout tab, insert your appropriate sheet sized title block and build report exhibits

-Add aerial imagery, school locations, and any other information you need to study as part of due diligence, flood study, watershed study, etc.

-Export or convert critical polygons into AutoCAD objects either by exporting your map to dwg…

or using the Extract Feature from Geometry

Then use AECLINEWORKSHRINKWRAP to make a bounding polyline for things like… building a flood elevation surface to show on profiles and sections.

Thoughts on this? What types of exhibits to do you make that you don’t know how to get Civil 3D or Map 3D to do for you? What type of analysis do you still do by hand when it comes to preparing and overlaying data? What other types of reports do you create that could take advantage of this?

Connecting to a Raster Image through the FDO

I saw a question about this today and I figured it would be quick enough to write a short post about it. I thought maybe I had seen Murph post about this before, but I couldn’t find it.

Very simply- you can insert raster images into Civil 3D using the Map tools two different ways.

You can mapinsert the image (also Map>Image>Insert for those of you in a menu version).

Click on the image below to see an animation of the process.

Or you can connect to the image using the FDO.

Click on the image below to see an animation of the process.

You may notice better performance when connecting to the image rather than inserting it.

It’s easier to transform multiple images from one coordinate system to another using the FDO. Using Map 3D, you’d have to create a warehouse drawing at one coordinate system and query the images into a second drawing applying the transformation. Raster Design makes that a bit easier, but it’s still a pretty heavy process. Using the FDO, you do get more visibility and style options, and you can use the Display Manager to control things. (You also can use tricks for image transparency like Murph shows here.)

More about image insertion and image connection:

Using Drawing Based Image Source (very detailed post showing how to query images and more)

Getting Images into AutoCAD Map 3D via FDO (Step by step of what I show above, applies to both Map 3D and Civil 3D)

Speed up Large Datasets with Tiled Raster

CAD and GIS (Translation and FDO)

AU Online Class: Raster Images for Mapping and Land Development Professionals

For more on CAD, Civil 3D and GIS integration, be sure to subscribe to these blogs:

CAD and GIS Integration

geoExpressions: An Engineer's Perspective on CAD and GIS integration 

geoExpressions youtube channel for tutorial videos on buffers, and GIS in LEED-ND

Using GIS Data in Civil 3D 2010

One of my favorite topics of conversation is using geospatial data in Civil 3D. Civil 3D is built on Map 3D, so you get the advantage of several methods of importing shapefiles, arcinfo data, raster imagery, and much more. I'll be showing some techniques in Civil 3D 2010, but this capability has been around for a few releases and much of it should work similarly in Civil 3D 2009, 2008 and 2007. I originally wrote a process for Civil 3D 2007, which you can find here at "Can you do that in CAD? Yes!"

You can connect to data through the FDO a few different ways, but a really easy way is to just drag your shapefile into the drawing area. This animated image shows you how- click on the image to see the animation.

Next, bring in the Map Workspace. I typically get it by typing "mapwspace" in the command line. Then right click on the data you'd like to study. Choose Edit Style.

 

In the dialog, use the pull-down to choose which property of the data you'd like to theme. For example, this data has a field that breaks the soils up into categories of "well drained", "poorly drained", etc. I want to look for well drained soils, so I will chose that field. The theme will make each different drainage type a different color. You can play around with the colors using that style range option.

Then I can press the Label Ramp button and it brings up a dialog which will automatically make a label for each polygon. You can label the same data as your color theme, but you can choose anything else. For example, I could color the polygons by drainage properties, but label them with their soil name of hydrologic group.

Once I press OK to dismiss both dialogs, I can see a nice color map.

Let's say I wanted to isolate just the well drained soils. I can make a query to sort things out.

For this example, I made a property query and used the "get values" button to provide a list of properties so that I didn't have to remember how to spell "Well Drained" (or remember what my choices are).

Once I press OK, my map is redone, and those well drained areas are isolated.

 

A few weeks ago, Lucy did a webcast about using geospatial data that covers a lot of techniques like this to help you study sites during the concept phase, bring in data to get started, create maps and exhibits, and other tasks using Civil 3D 2010. You can watch other archived webcasts here.