SS - Exporting a Sight Survey job to ASCII & DXF/DWG format

"Sight" Survey (SS115)

Exporting a "Sight" Survey job to ASCII & DXF/DWG format

(for use in Carlson software and other programs)

Most COGO and CAD programs are fully capable of importing ASCII point data and AutoCAD compatible DXF/DWG drawing files. To export a "Sight" Survey job is a two step process: first, export the data to an ASCII format; second, export the drawing to a DXF or DWG file.

Exporting a Data File to an ASCII format - All "Sight" Survey versions

1. Select File > Export > Coordinates to activate the Save As dialog box.

2. At the bottom of the left column, set Save file as type to All files

3. In the File Name box, type your filename with an extension of .ASC. Use no more than eight (8) characters on the left side of the decimal point.

4. In the center column, select the disk drive and folder location for the new data file.

5. Click OK and a File Format menu will appear. When exporting an ASCII data file, the most commonly used format is a comma delimited file structured of: P,N,E,Z,D where P is the point number, N is the Northing, E is the Easting, Z is the elevation and D is the point descriptor. In "Sight" Survey, the corresponding pre-set format for this structure is the Lewis & Lewis format. Scroll down the list and select the Lewis & Lewis format, then click OK.

6. A point selection dialog box will appear with the prompt, "Enter the points you would like to export. Type <A> for All Points." Enter the points or type the letter A and click OK. The file will be written. If you had alpha-numeric point numbers in the file, you will be given a chance to see the conversion file, Convert.Txt, which contains a mapping of the alpha-numeric point names to plain numeric point numbers.

Export a Drawing to an AutoCAD format - "Sight" Survey 1 or 2

If your drawing or any portion of it was previously imported from another source like AutoCAD then we would encourage you to first exit the transfer window and run Repair Drawing (FD) on this drawing file.

1. Access the DXF/DWG transfer window by selecting File > Export > Drawing to activate the Filename to Write dialog box.

2. At the bottom of the left column, set Save file as type to AutoCAD DXF or AutoCAD DWG.

3. In the File Name box, type your filename with an extension of .DXF or .DWG depending upon your chosen file type in step 2. Use no more than eight (8) characters on the left side of the decimal point.

4. In the center column, select the disk drive and folder location for the new drawing file.

5. Click OK and the prompt, "Write everything, else just selected" will appear at the top of the drawing window, along with Yes and No buttons. Click Yes to write everything in the drawing, or click No to write only the portions of the drawing that have been selected.

Export a Drawing to an AutoCAD format - "Sight" Survey 3

1. Access the DXF/DWG transfer window by typing the Exchange File command, XF to activate the Filename to Write dialog box.

2. At the bottom of the left column, set Save file as type to AutoCAD DXF or AutoCAD DWG.

4. In the center column, select the disk drive and folder location for the new drawing file.

5. Click OK to open the DXF/DWG Transfer Options window.

6. In the Purge Settings section, select the option to Purge Redundant Elements. As you worked on your "Sight" Survey drawing, it is quite likely that you created several redundant elements; for example, several point numbers or lines stacked on top of each other. You only see one copy, but several may exist. To compact your file, click the Purge Redundant Elements checkbox and also check the Remove Duplicate Entities and Remove Unreferenced Blocks settings.

7. In the Write Settings section, choose to Write Everything in the Drawing, or Write Only the Selected Portion of the Drawing.

8. If you are writing a DXF file (not a DWG file) and you want to Add Elevation values to endpoints from the COGO coordinate list, check the box. However, you must have actually placed a dot entity at each point that carries an elevation. See the discussion below regarding adding elevations to a DXF file. This option is not available in prior to version 3 of "Sight" Survey.

9. Click the Save DXF/DWG File button and your drawing file will be written.

Adding Elevations to a DXF file - "Sight" Survey 3 Only

The only way elevations will go into the DXF is if they are actually POINTS on the drawing.

Placing a line or an arc does not place points. Follow this procedure to place points and elevations into your DXF file: Click the Properties button and set your End Point Symbol to be a Dot. You may also want to set your Point Labeling to None. Now do a Point Plot (PP) on all the points where elevations are desired. Finally, use the XF command to export your drawing as a DXF file.

NOTE: Elevations can only be placed in a DXF file, not an AutoCAD DWG file.

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