Plotting points

[Bertie]

I have lots of co-ordinates to plot into CAD - is there an easy way to do this without having to type in each of the points individually? Such as using the data from a spreadsheet.

[rkmcswain]

Using vanilla AutoCAD?
How are the coordinates ordered?
N,E,Z ???

Try ASCPOINT.LSP at http://www.caddzone.com/free.htm

[pendoggett]

I've was looking for a bit of lisp code for that very purpose also.

In the end I came up with

IMPORTXYZ.lsp

If you look in the lisp forum, there is a link there and another piece of lisp code that also imports points from a .csv file.

[Bertie]

Sorry forgot to say, i'm using autocad 2005

[CarlB]

How do you want them plotted - as individual points? Connected by a polyline? If you get your coordinates in a single column in Excel, in format x,y,z you can copy the whole column of data and paste into AutoCAD when prompted to enter or pick a point.

[Bertie]

Thanks that worked!

[FindAPath]

Diggin up an old topic because I'm just full of dumb questions today...though, this may not be so dumb...

I've got a huge list of points from a scene survey that I need inputting into Acad, normally this would be easy, just make an excel spreadsheet with all the X,Y,Z points and run the LISP routine and badda-bing badda-boom... But these points are using a Vector Location (i.e. I have Horizontal Angle, Slope Distance and Vertical Angle data, not an X-dist, Y-dist, Z-dist). Horizontal angle as best I can guess is from the postitive X-axis (around the Z-axis), and vertical angle is from the positive Z-axis (around the X-axis????). The Slope Distance is the distance from the Total Station (origin?) to the point of interest.

I know this can be done fairly simply with lines, make a line at the desired angle of the disired distance, then make a point at the endpoint of the line, and erase the line...but I've got 250+ points, and well, that would take all weekend, haha.

I found something in Acad Help that was something along the lines of making a point with a string [dist<angle1<angle2], however, when I tried it, it spat out "Invalid Point." So....is there a command to make a point with "coordinates" in a vector system?

[CarlB]

Sounds like you have survey data that is not "reduced", it has the raw data from the survey. If you aren't able to get the reduced data, you can reduce it yourself (not recommended if it really is land survey data, should be done by the surveyor). *IF* al the points are relative to a single station location it may not be too difficult. I suggest you do the comps in Excel first to create the XYZ data then import as you usually do.

You're correct, the slope angle is relative to the xy plane. So first get the horizontal distance (projected on x-y plane) using the cosine of the vertical angle. The sine of the angle times the slope distance is the delta z value. Now with the horizontal angles and the horiz distances, calculate the delta x's and delta y's.

[FindAPath]

*yawns...* This is gonna be a long night....this has to be done in CAD by Noon on Monday so I probably will not be able to get reduced data from the surveyor.

Well, it's scene survey data from an accident scene. Points were taken at the edge of the road, skidmarks, impact location, etc etc.

The complete set of data I have reads something like this:

Pt#: 1, HzAngle: 165.0224, SlpDist: 463.900, VtAng: 92.5940, ParOff: 0.000, PerpOff: 0.000, TgtHt: 5.000, Description: EP

That's just point 1. It goes all the way to 272....

I guess I'd better get back to work then eh?

[CarlB]

Well once you get the formulas figured out, 272 points is not much worse than 2 points

Be careful on vertical angle, 0 degrees is usually straight up so for angles greater than 90 the delta z will be negative. And be sure all numbers to the right of a decimal are decimal fractions, and are not (for angles) degreeminsecs.