Listed below are answers to frequently asked questions about ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD.
General
Validation
- Where is the configuration stored?
- What should I do if I'm getting too many results from validation?
- What should I do if I'm getting few or no results from validation?
- Do I need to address all results from validation?
- Does addressing all results guarantee the CAD floor plan will import correctly to ArcGIS Indoors?
- How does the Minimum width tolerance setting affect validation results?
- How are unclosed shapes determined by validation checks?
- Can I use Indoors for AutoCAD to check spaces other than units?
- How can I make validation checks run faster?
General
CAD floor plans developed for architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) purposes may not always depict rooms, corridors, or other traversable spaces in a manner suited for use with indoor GIS data. The lines, blocks, text, and other objects in a CAD floor plan must be positioned correctly for ArcGIS Indoors to use them to generate GIS features that can support advanced functions, such as wayfinding and space management.
Validation
ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD stores configuration information in the drawing's named object dictionary. A new dictionary named ESRI_INDOORS is created to store the configuration.
There are many reasons you may get a large number of results from validation. Review some of the results, and investigate the following:
- If there are many results for small or narrow spaces that aren’t units, consider adjusting the unit boundary tolerances.
- If there are many results for furniture, fixtures, or other objects in the drawing that aren’t units, you can filter them out of the Unit Boundaries feature layer by color, line type, or other CAD properties. You can also move them to a different CAD layer.
- If there are many results for block references that reference a single block, you can edit the block to address many results at once.
Not all unit spaces may have been checked due to the current configuration. Review the unit boundary tolerances to ensure that the minimum width and area are set reasonably based on the drawing’s insertion scale. For comparison, you can temporarily set the minimum width and minimum area tolerances to zero (0) so that all spaces in the drawing are checked.
No. Some results returned by validation checks may be false positives, such as dangling endpoints inside walls. You may also choose not to make changes that are not in compliance with your organization’s CAD standards. If you leave validation results in the ArcGIS_Indoors_Marks layer, others can review that layer in ArcGIS Pro and Autodesk AutoCAD to investigate any remaining potential issues.
No. Indoors for AutoCAD can detect conditions that can impact importing CAD data to a GIS, with some limitations. For example, gaps between closed shapes where there are no dangling endpoints will not be marked by verification results. When reviewing results, be mindful of other conditions in the drawing that may impact the creation of closed unit boundaries or the proper extraction of unit information.
To estimate the width of a space, Indoors for AutoCAD calculates Voronoi cell vertices to identify test locations that are centrally located within the space, and measures the distance from each test location to the nearest point on the space’s boundary. If each measurement is less than half the value configured for minimum width tolerance, the space is not regarded as a unit for validation checks.
Indoors for AutoCAD uses a cracking technique to simplify objects, and uses graph theory to model relationships between the simplified objects. In the resulting graph, any node with fewer than the expected number of edges indicates an unclosed shape.
Yes. You can create feature layers that define the boundaries and descriptions for other types of closed spaces, such as HVAC zones or high-security areas, and use the new feature layers to configure validation settings and run checks.
You an do the following to increase performance when running validation checks:
- Reduce the number of entities being processed.
- Use ArcGIS for AutoCAD to edit the feature layer properties of the Unit Boundaries layer, adding conditions to the feature layer’s definition query to filter out nonboundary entities such as fixtures or furniture based on color, line type, or other CAD properties.
Tip:
If nonboundary entities cannot be filtered based on their CAD properties, select the entities and temporarily change their layer property to a different CAD layer to exclude them from the validation checks.
- For large or complex floor plans, copy and paste a subset of the entities, such as one wing or quadrant of the floor plan, into a new drawing. Import the original drawing’s configuration and run the validation checks on the new drawing. Review the results, and address issues on the original drawing.
- Use ArcGIS for AutoCAD to edit the feature layer properties of the Unit Boundaries layer, adding conditions to the feature layer’s definition query to filter out nonboundary entities such as fixtures or furniture based on color, line type, or other CAD properties.
- Reduce the number of checks being run. You can disable Unit Name and Unit Use Type checks by selecting the top blank row in the drop-down menu for the Feature Layer parameter of these two checks.