Data Capture Enclosed Text
Function
This command automates data transfer from text entities to a
database table. Many
AutoCAD drawings are warehouses of information. The Data Capture
Enclosed Text
command applies to drawings that contain text annotations which are
within linework perimeters.
The command starts by prompting whether to identify the text to process
by Group or by Layer. For the Group method, you to select one sample of
the text to
capture. This sample selection should consist of one instance each of
the data fields to process. In the example below, the sample selection
includes the property id, owner's name, property value and date. For
the Layer method, the program will find all the different layers for
the text entities and you can select which layers to use. For the Layer
method, each type of text field should be on separate layers.
Next, there is a dialog for specifying the text fields to capture and
their order. With the Group method, the text fields will should the
values of the selected text. With the Layer option, the text fields
will show the layer names. There is an option to convert the text
entities into blocks
by turning on the Create New Blocks option. Each sample text field is
available to make into a block attribute by moving these fields to the
block attribute list. In the New Block Name and Layer Names fields, you
can specifiy the name and layer for the blocks. The Delete Objects
option will erase the text entities. In the Block Attribute Properties
spreadsheet, you can set the block tags, prompt, default and layer for
each attribute.
The second dialog setups up the database table to create from the text
data. The destination database is set with the Select Output MDB File
button. You can either create a new table in the database or select an
existing table. Under Table Design, you can set the Field Name and
Field Type for each attribute when a new table is being created. When
adding to an existing table, the Field Name and Field Type are read
from the existing table. For with an existing table, the Field Name
list in the lower left will show the field names from the existing
table, and the order of these fields should be set to match the order
of corresponding the text fields. The Use Key Field To Match Value
option will use the selected record as
the key field for the database table. The key field must have unique
values for each record in the table. To set the key field, highlight
the record row # in the spreadsheet and then pick the Select button.
The Create Carlson GIS Links option
will link the database table with the drawing entity for each record.
After the dialogs, there is a command line prompt to select the text
entities to import. For each text entity, the program finds the
boundary perimeter from the drawing linework that encloses the text.
These boundaries are used to separate the text labels into the groups
that make up the table records.
Prompts
Select text to capture
[Group/<Layer>]: L for
layer
Data Capture dialogs
Select entities to process
[Select/<All>]: All
Created 3 GIS Links.
Done
Pulldown Menu Location: GIS Data
> Data Capture
Keyboard Command: cgis_getencltxt
Prerequisite: text entities within linework perimeters
File Name: \lsp\gisview.arx