Using the Autodesk connector for ArcGIS - AutoCAD Tutorial

- [Instructor] In this video, we're going to use the Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS to bring in a Shape file hosted by ArcGIS online, directly into our AutoCAD®. We'll even be able to edit it. First, let's open up the base drawing. So let's click Open inside of AutoCAD®. And in the folder on our desktop, called Exercise Files, chapter 7, and within there, we'll have seven video five, so 07_05. There's a drawing in there called Guelph.dwg. Let's go ahead and open that up. You'll see the background map is actually a Bing base map. You can turn that off by going under Map Road and choosing Map Off. Or you could use the Arial. But for now, I'm going to flip it back to the Map Road. There we are. And then you'll just see a AutoCAD® line that delineates the boundaries of the city of Gwelph, and that's where we're going to be looking at, today. So the next step would be to log into ArcGIS online, so let's do that. And we'll go to ArcGIS.com and we'll sign in. Now I've already got a user set up at ArtGIS online, so I'm going to log in as my user, and I'm going to go into my Organization and go into my Content. And I already have Guelph setup there, so I'm actually going to remove that because I've already done this exercise once. And so I create a new folder and I'm going to just add an item from my computer, and just send that up again. So basically, in that chapter seven, 07_05 there's a zip file that's called GUELPH_TRAILS_SHP.zip. What this is is a zip file with a Shape file and all these associated files that go with it are all inside that Shape file. So there's a DBF in there, there's an index file, there's a PRJ file, all the things that make up a Shape file, so a Shape file isn't just one file, it's actually a collection of files. Some of the files have the graphics, the line work, and some of the files have the attributes, and some of the files have meta data, and they're all zipped up in a file called GUELPH_TRAILS_SHP.zip. So let's go ahead and add that again, and I'll just call the tag guelph and I'll also put trails. So I'll have two little tags in there. So you'll see it's a Shape file. Now the interesting thing is it defaults to Publish this file as a hosted layer. So it's actually a feature layer. That means you can edit this data. So we'll get into editing in a moment, but let's just go ahead and make sure it's a hosted layer with some tags, and we'll hit Add Item. And I'll add the Shape file again. And what it'll do is it'll add two different connections. Let's wait for the service to finish, and then we're going to go back into the content, once the creating service has happened. So what's it's doing is uploading the file and creating the service. So if we go into Content under the Guelph folder that I created, there's the Feature Layer and the Shape file which is the data source in the background. So let's go into the Feature Layer. So I'll pick on that and you'll see that here's the Feature Layer, GUELPH_TRAILS_SHP file. I can export it or download it at any time. But what I want to go into is the Settings tab. So, across the top here, you'll see Overview, Data, Visualization. Click on Settings and scroll down a little bit. And one of the most important things about a hosted layer or feature service is that we can check Enable editing, and that'll allow us to track the editing, and we can even keep track of who created and updates the features and all sorts of things like that, but I'm just going to leave Enable editing as the only one in here and we'll look at who can edit, later. What we will allow people to do is Add, update, and delete features. And editors can see all the features, and so on. So I'm going to just hit Save at this point. So now I've uploaded a Shape file up into ArcGIS online, I've changed the permissions so it's enabled editing, and if I go back to Overview, you can see there's a preview of what the layer looks like. Let's go back into the Content and look at the two files again. We have the Shape file, itself, then a Feature Layer that's based on that Shape file. You'll see the permissions on the side. Right here, it says sharing level Owner. Now, right now, I've got an Owner or everyone within my Organization can see and edit that file, or Everyone public. Now I'm just going to leave Owner, because we're only going to be editing it 'cause we're the ones who uploaded that, so I'll leave that alone, and I'll go back to AutoCAD® Map, now. Now that I'm back in AutoCAD® Map, I can go into the Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS. The first thing you need to do is log into ArcGIS online if you haven't already. Now I've already done it once, so I'm going to hit the GL there and make sure I can connect. So I'm going to hit Sign out just so you can see the dialog box, and I'm going to sign in again. Now we have two choices. We could sign in with the ArcGIS.com or we can add a new portal. And when it says Portal, it doesn't mean another ArcGIS.com site. What it's saying is there's ArcGIS Portal or ArcGIS Enterprise. So you may have ArcGIS Enterprise installed on your own server, or on your own server farm that you can connect to at your organization. So if you're using AutoCAD® Map 3D at your organization and there's a portal already set up internally, you can point to that. But today, we're just going to ArcGIS online, so ArcGIS.com, hit connect, and I'll log in with my user again, which I've already set up on ArcGIS online. So we'll do that. And once I log in, I can zoom into the area I need data for. But in this case, it zooms into where I am in Southern California. So I'm just going to type in Guelph, which is the city. Guelph, Ontario, Canada. That's where this data set is from. And I'm going to use not the Select current map extent, that's the first button, but I'm going to draw a rectangle to get the data I need. There we are, and it's going to go to the public servers and find all the data that's available. But what I'd rather have is my own content. I can look at My Groups, or my Organization, but right now, I'm going to go to My Content and the only file I'm interested in is GUELPH_TRAILS_SHP. So if I check that right now, it'll show it in the Legend and if I hit the eye symbol, it'll actually Preview it in my current drawing. And then down here it says One item selected, Add to my design project. So I'm going to click Add to my design project and there we are. We have the Trails now available. Now they are orange, but in the GUELPH_TRAILS_SHP group inside of my Display Manager, you'll see a sub-layer called the GUELPH_TRAILS_SHP. I can turn that off and on and I can actually pick on the Table button and see that data inside. So for example, if I click on CNR Spurline Trail, it'll highlight that trail, and because we checked Enable editing, you'll see all these blue grips available. So that means that line is actually editable. So let's look at another one. There's another length of trail, right here. And you can see it's highlighted. In fact, I could right-click and go Properties, and you can see that there's all sorts of properties. You see that's the layer that's called Guelph Trails. You could see that there's a layer called Trail in there and we can change the name, if we wanted to, and we can toggle it on and off. Now, because it's vector, we can change the style. So if I click on the Style button, and I can see it's an orange line. I can click on that style where it shows an orange line and change it to, because it's a trail, let's say a dark green line, instead. So I'll pick a dark green. Ah, let's get a nicer green. There we are. Forest green, let's do that. Hit Apply and Close, and I'll just close my Style dialog box. Now you see I have these dark green trails. Because it's streaming the vector data right from ArcGIS online, directly into my AutoCAD®. Let me just close this Data window here, so we can see that a little better. So let's just zoom in, here. We can pick any line you want. And I'll just pick the first one I see, right here. And you can see in the background, there's actually a trail inside a Bing. So actually adjust this line so it lines up a little better with Bing, right to there. I'll grab this grip and move it to here, and maybe move this up a little bit like that. There we are, and we'll put it right there. So that's a lot closer to how we had it. The other thing, too, is I'll right-click on Properties and the trail name, I'll just call it Downtown Trail. Okay, so we've changed the data inside of it, so the attribute data is not inside the Map feature and we've changed the geometry, and all that left to do is right-click on the layer and say Check in Features. And what we've actually done is we've updated that Shape file that's hosted up in ArcGIS online, and we've done a live edit, both to the attributes and to the graphics, and saved them back, all within AutoCAD® Map 3D. This is an amazing new feature. So the Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS is an amazing vector connector. We can add lines, points, polygons, and even edit them directly from AutoCAD®® Map 3D.