The Topobase Insiders

Google, Bing and the Position Finder

Within Topobase there are plenty of possibilities to find features. The most powerful way is probably using the Topobase Forms. Here you can search for almost everything. Either with a simple filter, an SQL filter, a geographic filter or a projection through foreign keys. Another easy way is the Advanced Generate Graphic. This button can be found under the Generate Graphic button in the Home - Display ribbon. Within the Advanced Generate Graphic dialog we put a control called Position Finder. The position finder is a one to many steps guide for finding a feature. For instance the user wants to search for an address, then he starts the address search, selects first the street and in the next step he selects the right building number. After he has done that he generates the graphic around this feature.

I like the concept of the position finder because it is a guided process where the search will give the user in 100% of the cases the correct result. If he searches for a Hydrant, he'll find it.

Why not taking the position finder out of the Advanced Generate Graphic dialog and place it somewhere more prominent. We could put it for instance into an AutoCAD palette set. Do you also think that's a good idea? Watch the movie to get an impression how this looks like:

If you need this gimmick NOW, just go ahead and download it here (109.9K).

To install the tool you have to copy and paste the file Topobase.Insiders.PositionFinder.dll to your Topobase Client 2010 bin directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Autodesk Topobase Client 2010\bin). Start Topobase Client, open a workspace and type NETLOAD in the command window, select the file Topobase.Insiders.PositionFinder.dll. In order to load the file automatically with Topobase Client you can type TBPFRegister in the command window (TBPFUnregister removes it from the registry). To start the Position Finder type TBPF. Or just place a new button in the ribbon:

Oracle Data Import - Domains

In the previous post I explained how to enable a Topobase document for import with the Oracle data import tool (here). 

In this article you will see how to link domains and their values.  In the SIMROSEWATER source schema the material of the pipe is stored in the MATERIAL table.  For each of these values there should be a corresponding value in the Topobase domain table WA_MATERIAL_TBD, and if there is no corresponding value, you will have to add it.  The Oracle data import allows you to add missing values in the target domain tables.

Open the Oracle data import tool. Select the mapping definition that you created in the previous post, and click Edit. The Edit Mapping Definition window is displayed.

Select the Domains tab.  Select MATERIAL under Source Domains for SIMROSEWATER, and select WA_MATERIAL_TBD under Final Domains for ATORAMIG. Click Link Domains.

The icon shows that the tables are linked. The link is listed under Linked Domains.

 

Now you will map the values of the domain. Select the Domain Values tab. 

First, you need to relate the ID and VALUE of the domain table to the primary key and description of the source table (MAT_CODE and MAT_NAME).  Click Domain Settings.

Select the MAT_CODE Source Key Column and select the MAT_NAME Source Caption Column.  Retain the default values for the target columns (ID and VALUE).

Click Close.  The Link Domain Values area displays the values of the MATERIAL table listed by MAT_CODE – MAT_NAME. 

 

Before linking domain values, you need to analyze your data and know which entries you need to create in the Topobase domain table. It is recommended that you copy first the new values to the domain table.  Select the new values in the source table and Click Copy.

Now you can use the Autolink functionality to match values automatically in the source and target tables.  This process works in three levels: 

• The string is exactly the same
• Any of the words in the source string are contained in the target string
• Using the soundex algorithm

Autolink matches the column with the first match in the alphabetically ordered list of target values.

Click Autolink and the values are linked automatically.

Afterwards, you can review the linked values, unlink any incorrect values or link manually values that were not automatically linked.  The resulting links should appear as shown in the figure below:

 

In the next post I will show you how to link feature classes and attributes.

TBEXECUTE

One little-used command is TBEXECUTE, which provides access to defined workflows via the AutoCAD Command: line. This means workflows are available to AutoLISP and the menu system of AutoCAD.

For example, if you have a workflow called LightStandard, you could invoke it using a menu item like:

^C^C_tbexecute LightStandard

or you could create an AutoLISP routine to run it with the definition:

(defun c:lightstandard () (command "_tbexecute" "lightstandard") (princ))

A beneficial side-effect of the latter is that the command can then be repeated with the space bar.

This can really increase your speed for often used constructive workflows with only simple interactions that use the command line rather than a GUI.