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Hi All, apologies for arriving late to this discussion. @SLW210 is right about the decline in forums before AI. There was a big shift away from forums like this one towards social media platforms and it does seem that most of us left here are Boomers. However, despite the decline, I have noticed that in recent years, it has plateaued and although number of visitors are significantly lower than they were (say) 15 years ago, they are no longer declining but seem stable. Traffic here is probably around 10% of what it was back in the day. Currently, new sign-ups to the forum average around 100 per month and that has been pretty stable for the past few years. So that's the background picture. AI has made a difference only in that all the data on this forum and others has now been well and truly scraped and is still being scraped by more and more bots. The graph below shows traffic to this site since January. You can see three massive spikes - those are all bots, scraping content. The result is that most people don't need to visit the site because the scraped content is being provided to them via AI agents. You might think that would result in even lower traffic to the site but that's not what I'm seeing. My guess is that the sort of visitors who prefer to use AI results rather than going to source are the same ones that stopped visiting forums and shifted to social media. So what remains is a solid core of Boomers who genuinely care about community and respect the skill and experience of others. Fortunately, there's enough of us around to keep things going. The future? It's very difficult to predict but my view is that most people are becoming tired of the toxic nature of social media and will likely learn to value the genuine human interactions and sense of community that forums can provide once they realise that AI is just another tool and not a friend that can't always be relied upon. So I'm predicting a return of popularity in forums for special interest groups. As for AutoCAD, I don't really have a good understanding of its popularity any more. It's a long time since I used it professionally (almost 10 years) but I'm not aware that it's being replaced by anything else. Gemini tells me that AutoCAD retains a 38% global market share, so I guess it's still relevant and that this forum is therefore still relevant.

Hello everyone, Advanced notice Every few years, the software used for this forum goes through a major point upgrade and that time has come round again. At some point in the next few days, I will close the forum for a short while, maybe 24 hours, so that the new software can be installed and the forum can be configured and themed. I'll be in touch with more details shortly.

ODBX: The excellent and elegant solution provided here is heartening. As originator and, due to several demands being disconnected, of this important posted topic, your work is appreciated. Best regards, Clint

AutoCAD Command: TESTDBX Success! Total objects in Model Space: 41769 BricsCAD : TESTDBX Success! Total objects in Model Space: 41769 I didn't try ZwCAD or GstarCAD

An another code, for lines or polylines. (vl-load-com) (defun make_label (pt alpha val_txt / nw_obj) (setq nw_obj (vla-addMtext Space (vlax-3d-point pt) alpha val_txt ) ) (mapcar '(lambda (pr val) (vlax-put nw_obj pr val) ) (list 'AttachmentPoint 'Height 'DrawingDirection 'InsertionPoint 'StyleName 'Layer 'Rotation 'Width) (list 5 (getvar "TEXTSIZE") 5 pt "BEARING" "LABEL-BEARING" alpha 0.0) ) ) (defun c:label-bearing ( / l_var js htx AcDoc Space nw_style n obj ename pr dist_start dist_end pt_start pt_end seg_len alpha val_txt pt) (setq l_var (mapcar 'getvar '("AUNITS" "AUPREC" "LUPREC" "LUNITS"))) (mapcar 'setvar '("AUNITS" "AUPREC" "LUPREC" "LUNITS") '(4 3 2 2)) (princ "\nSelect Polylines/Lines.") (while (null (setq js (ssget '((0 . "LWPOLYLINE,LINE"))))) (princ "\nSelection is empty or not are LWPOLYLINE, LINE!") ) (initget 6) (setq htx (getdist (getvar "VIEWCTR") (strcat "\nSpecify text height <" (rtos (getvar "TEXTSIZE")) ">: "))) (if htx (setvar "TEXTSIZE" htx)) (setq AcDoc (vla-get-ActiveDocument (vlax-get-acad-object)) Space (if (= 1 (getvar "CVPORT")) (vla-get-PaperSpace AcDoc) (vla-get-ModelSpace AcDoc) ) ) (vla-startundomark AcDoc) (cond ((null (tblsearch "LAYER" "LABEL-BEARING")) (vlax-put (vla-add (vla-get-layers AcDoc) "LABEL-BEARING") 'color 7) ) ) (cond ((null (tblsearch "STYLE" "BEARING")) (setq nw_style (vla-add (vla-get-textstyles AcDoc) "BEARING")) (mapcar '(lambda (pr val) (vlax-put nw_style pr val) ) (list 'FontFile 'Height 'ObliqueAngle 'Width 'TextGenerationFlag) (list (strcat (getenv "windir") "\\fonts\\arial.ttf") 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0) ) ) ) (repeat (setq n (sslength js)) (setq obj (ssname js (setq n (1- n))) ename (vlax-ename->vla-object obj) pr -1 ) (cond ((eq (vlax-get ename "ObjectName") "AcDbLine") (setq seg_len (vlax-get ename "Length") alpha (vlax-get ename "Angle") val_txt (vl-string-subst "%%d" "d" (strcat (angtos alpha) "\\P" (rtos seg_len) " m")) ) (setq pt (vlax-curve-GetPointAtParam ename (* 0.5 seg_len))) (if (and (> alpha (* pi 0.5)) (< alpha (* pi 1.5))) (setq alpha (+ alpha pi))) (make_label pt alpha val_txt) ) (T (repeat (fix (vlax-curve-getEndParam ename)) (setq dist_start (vlax-curve-GetDistAtParam ename (setq pr (1+ pr))) dist_end (vlax-curve-GetDistAtParam ename (1+ pr)) pt_start (vlax-curve-GetPointAtParam ename pr) pt_end (vlax-curve-GetPointAtParam ename (1+ pr)) seg_len (- dist_end dist_start) alpha (angle (trans pt_start 0 1) (trans pt_end 0 1)) val_txt (vl-string-subst "%%d" "d" (strcat (angtos alpha) "\\P" (rtos seg_len) " m")) ) (setq pt (vlax-curve-GetPointAtParam ename (+ 0.5 pr))) (if (and (> alpha (* pi 0.5)) (< alpha (* pi 1.5))) (setq alpha (+ alpha pi))) (make_label pt alpha val_txt) ) ) ) ) (vla-endundomark AcDoc) (mapcar 'setvar '("AUNITS" "AUPREC" "LUPREC" "LUNITS") l_var) (prin1) )

I'm not very familiar with ArcGIS, although I have prepared drawings to import into it. Which entities exactly do you need to transfer? Surfaces, polylines, points, or something more complicated? This page tells you how to export feature lines, COGO points, and surfaces. The feature line option includes polyline, grading feature, alignment, and profile options. There's a tool called Connector for ArcGIS, but it's probably not worth buying if you only use it occasionally. According to this page, you can import many civil objects directly into ArcGIS. Can you provide more information about what you need to bring into ArcGIS?

I just had AI write a test to see if ODBX worked. (defun c:TestDbx ( / dbxProgId dbxDoc extFile) (vl-load-com) (if (vl-string-search "BricsCAD" (getvar "PROGRAM")) (setq dbxProgId "ObjectDBX.AxDbDocument") (setq dbxProgId (strcat "ObjectDBX.AxDbDocument." (substr (getvar "ACADVER") 1 2))) ) (setq dbxDoc (vl-catch-all-apply 'vla-GetInterfaceObject (list (vlax-get-acad-object) dbxProgId))) (if (vl-catch-all-error-p dbxDoc) (progn (princ (strcat "\nError: Could not load interface using ProgID: " dbxProgId)) (princ (strcat "\nDetails: " (vl-catch-all-error-message dbxDoc))) ) (progn (setq extFile (getfiled "Select Drawing to Read" "" "dwg" 0)) (if extFile (progn (vla-open dbxDoc extFile) (princ (strcat "\nSuccess! Total objects in Model Space: " (itoa (vla-get-count (vla-get-modelspace dbxDoc))))) ) (princ "\nNo file selected.") ) (vlax-release-object dbxDoc) ) ) (princ) )

Have not done this task but CIV3D has this command. Not running CIV3D at moment. I also used GOOGLE "export corridor objects CIV3D to autocad objects" and got a lot of answers, similar to above that point to inbuilt civ3d commands.