Topic: Creating Surface from Text Spots

[bmossman]

I have spot elevations made up of just plain text with no "Z" values.  I could be here all day inserting points on top of the text. Is there a way to generate points from the text values?

[mjfarrell]

Open a brand new file
use MAP to attach this file with the Spot Elevations in it as a source file
Perform a MAP QUERY against this file, change the Query type to REPORT mode.
use the expressions of .X,.Y, .TVALUE to extract the x,y, and z to  a report file
open this file with Excel, and save-as to CVS (don't ask why)
import the report file as Points, or use the terrain explorer to read from this point file to create your surface model.
Detach the source file
and have a nice day!

[Mark]

use the expressions of .X,.Y, .TVALUE to extract the x,y, and z to  a report file

Can we see a screen shot of the dialog box, please? I can't make those expressions work.

thanks

[mjfarrell]

Apologies, for the generalisation...that was more or less an abstract of the process...(bad help is probably worse than none)

the actual expressions

.X1

.Y1

^AcDbMText.Text.Contents    OR one could use .STRING 

[mjfarrell]

use the expressions of .X,.Y, .TVALUE to extract the x,y, and z to  a report file

Can we see a screen shot of the dialog box, please? I can't make those expressions work.

thanks

are you and the Bmossman working together there Chief?

[Mark]

Apologies, for the generalisation...that was more or less an abstract of the process...

Not a problem. I've never tried that before. I can remember a time or two when I could have used that so I thought I'd give it a try.

Not having any luck with the report, i'll study the doc's a bit more.

thanks

[Mark]

use the expressions of .X,.Y, .TVALUE to extract the x,y, and z to  a report file

Can we see a screen shot of the dialog box, please? I can't make those expressions work.

thanks

are you and the Bmossman working together there Chief?

Nope!

[mjfarrell]

Apologies, for the generalisation...that was more or less an abstract of the process...

Not a problem. I've never tried that before. I can remember a time or two when I could have used that so I thought I'd give it a try.

Not having any luck with the report, i'll study the doc's a bit more.

thanks

what part is or isn't working for you?  other than my misdirection on the expression values to use?

[Mark]

Apologies, for the generalisation...that was more or less an abstract of the process...

Not a problem. I've never tried that before. I can remember a time or two when I could have used that so I thought I'd give it a try.

Not having any luck with the report, i'll study the doc's a bit more.

thanks

what part is or isn't working for you?  other than my misdirection on the expression values to use?

When I used 'X1' and 'Y1' I didn't get any values. I have since figured it out, sort of. I can get the X,Y values from the MTEXT object just fine. As long as the MTEXT is inserted in the proper location, or some how associated with a point for instance my method would work.

[Mark]

open this file with Excel, and save-as to CVS (don't ask why)

Why not just save the file as <filename>.csv ? It is already comma delimited. Well mine is!

[Mark]

This is what I have.

[mjfarrell]

Correct, as in the case of a(n) aerial survey drawing, this process is slightly thwarted, when they move the elevation text associated with the elevation node around.  However in most instances I have found that the node has the correct .Z and the text location is a non-issue. There have been instances where it is easier to use the liner elements, breaklines and contours, to extract surface point elevations from.   The process is similar, it all depends on the data one has to work with.

[mjfarrell]

open this file with Excel, and save-as to CVS (don't ask why)

Why not just save the file as <filename>.csv ? It is already comma delimited. Well mine is!

I asked you to NOT ask why....now you've gotten me all riled up.

Because, when you attempt to insert that CSV file you will get an error...because about 7(Seven) versions ago autodesk broke the report writer, and it doesn't write out a clean ascii file that one can use to import points. 
I've been ranting like a mad dog all this time about it, and they wont fix it....

[Mark]

The process is similar, it all depends on the data one has to work with.

Indeed. None the less that is a pretty neat trick! I'll try and remember that one for later use.

[mjfarrell]

This is what I have.

You need a LOCATION statement as well as a property condition.

It doesn't know where in the file to look without that...