Data Capture Text By Sample
Function
This command automates data transfer from text entities to a
database table. Many AutoCAD drawings are warehouses of information.
The Data Capture Text By Sample command applies to drawings that
contain text annotations which show the information about the objects
in the drawing.
The command starts by prompting 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.
Next, there is a dialog for specifying the text fields to capture and
their order. Optionally you can 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. The program uses the sample text layout to find
matches sets of text data in
the text to process selection set.
Prompts
Select sample text to capture.
Select objects: pick one instance of each type of text
field
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_gettxtbysmp
Prerequisite: Text entities
File Name: \lsp\gisview.arx