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Exporting Civil 3D and AutoCAD Data to ESRI .shp files
Posted by Shane O'Rorke on 19 August 2012 02:07 PM

Here is a quick step by step on how to export data out to .shp file format, ready for import into ArcGIS and other geospatial database systems.


- ensure your data is in the right location and with the right layers and attributes included.  You can include a co-ordinate system
- type Mapexport at the command line. Create a file of type ESRI shp and give the file a name
- at the top of the Selection tab, select the object/s to include and the Type of data to include (you may need to do this four times to capture the four different object types - note that polylines will be considered Line type objects in the .shp)
- click on the Data tab and include all the object data you want in the file.  This can assign an attribute for the AutoCAD layer or other AutoCAD detail, as well as include any Object Data assigned to the entities.
- click on Options to assign a co-ordinate system as required
- then Ok to create the file

For Civil 3D point data it is a two step process:
- click on the ribbon Output Tab>Export Panel>Export Civil Objects to SDF. follow the prompts and dialog boxes to make a .sdf file
- type MapImport and import this data into the drawing - make sure to tick on all the data so you get all the information outputted into the .sdf file
- type mapexport and export this Point data out to a .shp file.  Use process above for attribute inclusion.

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Comments (3)
Jia Hu
01 April 2014 08:33 AM
I have 3D polyline, and when I choose line as object type, the exported shapefile has no elevation. How to include elevation from 3D polyline?
thanks,
shane ororke
05 April 2014 08:35 AM
Try using the FLATTEN command first
Shane O'Rorke
05 April 2014 09:06 AM
When you export you can assign attributes. You should try assigning the object start z and end z to the Objects during export.
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