Hi List,
I searched the archives and found some useful
information, but I can't seem to get things to work
properly. I don't have a budget to buy those extra
tools at the moment like the one suggested at
http://www.icsinger.de/flxmap_e.htm or the
VisualHelmert thing with the broken link.
What I'm trying to do is convert AutoCAD .dwg files
into MapInfo Pro .tab format. The .dwg files are
detailed soil survey maps that someone before me
apparently digitized? using CAD. I can't locate a
file anywhere on the Maine Office of GIS or at USGS or
anything. . . Regardless, surveyors send the town CAD
files of subdivisions all the time, so I need to get
this down. I understand CAD doesn't come with
projection ("non earth coordinates, meters") and I
have tried three things:
First, I tried the Register Vector Tool (only 3
control points??), but that brings my machine to a
grinding halt once I get the option to save (it's a
2GB RAM machine with 500GB hard drive, dual Xeon
3.4GHZ processors). . .
Second, I tried what many people suggested in the
archives, which is to export the .dwg as a .mif file
and open it in notepad and change the Coordsys line.
I looked in the MapInfo user guide and where it
describes export options as either Save Window As or
Save Copy As .mif isn't an export option. So I took
this to mean use the Universal Translator. To figure
out the Coordsys line of the files that I already
have, in UTM, Zone 19 (NAD83), I used Universal
Translator to convert like so:
.tab -> .shp
.shp -> .mif/.mid
opened .mif in notepad
Coordsys line is:
Coordsys Earth Projection 8, 74, "m", -69, 0, 0.9996,
500000, 0
So then I take the .dwg in the Universal Translator:
.dwg -> .mif/.mid
open in notepad and changed Coordsys line to above,
saved changes
.mif/.mid -> .shp
.shp -> .tab
This doesn't work, because when I open the soils layer
and my other layers, it does the bad projection thing
of having two tiny black dots far apart from each
other when I do View Entire Layer-All Layers :-(
Third, I tried using the CoordSys Bounds Manager tool
to set the coordinate bounds of the soils layer based
on the coord bounds of my reference layer. Didn't
work.
Oh, and I also tried just converting .dwg to .tab and
then doing a Save Copy As and setting the projection
but I realized after doing so that MapInfo won't know
where in UTM, Zone 19 to assign my data, since it has
no coordinates.
So my last thought was to save a .jpg screen print of
the window and open it and register the image? It
would be nice to not have to do this for every CAD
file the town will receive from here on out.
Thanks to anyone with enough patience to give me a
little extra help- sorry I am such a beginner. In
such an Arc-dominated area, using MapInfo basically
means I'm teaching myself. Thanks again :-),
~Gretchen
Mapping/GIS
Town of Hampden
Hampden, ME 04444
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