Autodesk Object Data Converter

I just bought a sunfish sailboat. Arguably the most successful sailboat design, with over 500,000 made. This sailboat is easy to sail and has pretty good performance. My boat is one of the old ones, 1965. Several design changes over the decades have improved the design's performance. Better, rudder and centerboard shapes and materials, and a kick-up rudder feature that allows for easier beach launching are some of the more notable improvements. Its upstart cousin the Laser is faster… but not as easy to sail. Although both are touted as being “car-toppable”, both are still a little more than I want to manage by myself from my garage to the water and back without a trailer.

I have been on a quest to design a sailboat, toy, machine or thing that is fast, comfortable, simple to sail, and easy to transport by one person. I’m currently working on my 11th significant prototype concept of such a boat… I bought the sunfish because I’d actually like to sail something now!

I have some drawings that were created by someone else in Autodesk Map 3D that I need to use in ArcGIS. I have Autodesk Map 3D and could use it to convert the Object Data to Shapefiles to make the drawings more usable by ArcGIS, but a colleague has just put together an Autodesk Map 3D converter that I can run in conjunction with Autodesk Map 3D that keeps the data inside the AutoCAD file. This tool generates attributed AutoCAD drawings according to the mapping specification for drawings that I can understand and that are readily usable by ArcGIS for AutoCAD and ArcGIS desktop.

I had to spend some time in my garage retrofitting a little utility trailer to accommodate the sunfish, next weekend I will be sailing!

Getting In Shape

As a volunteer assistant high school basketball coach and former athlete myself, I understand the value of off season training. Getting in game-ready shape is much different than just general physical fitness. I work out at the gym sporadically. Yesterday I played a game of basketball with the high-schoolers and quickly realized that my two mile jog twice a week was not going to take me many times up and down the floor at the pace they were running!

During the season, even as a coach I still get anxious before each game. I get transported back to the feeling I had as a player… Do I have my shoes and uniform …my sweatbands? Do I feel ready to run and jump,... ya know my knee is kind of stiff? Then I realize the only physical exertion that will be required of me is to occasionally leap off the bench and shout at the referees… respectfully of course!

Working with ESRI Shapefiles as an intermediate exchange between AutoCAD and ArcGIS is one way to move data back and forth between ArcGIS and AutoCAD. It requires that you have a way to read and write Shapefile within AutoCAD. You may have an existing routine that you jog through to make this happen.

I think people are just now coming to realize that with ESRI’s mapping specification for drawings the AutoCAD .DWG file itself is a better intermediate file for sharing data between AutoCAD and ArcGIS. It handles attribution on Points, Lines, Polygons, 3D features and Annotation. Annotation, curves and splines are supported where as in Shapefiles they are not. With the free ArcGIS for AutoCAD application there is also no need to buy any software to support the exchange of data between ArcGIS and AutoCAD.

I'm learning to sit down, relax and enjoy the game.