Running Full Text Indexing on DWG Files

Recently a number of calls have been received about setting up full text extraction with DWG files in ProjectWise SELECTSeries 4.

There is some confusion about how to configure this because the implementation guide doesn’t include the configuration settings. However the Help file does have the configuration details. But, most of us are used to using the implementation guide and we all know that “Real” users don’t read the help.

To configure the full text search for DWG files you will need to add a mapping for MicroStation to the Full Text Indexing Properties.

In the ProjectWise Administrator:

To open the Properties Dialog for full text indexing, right click over Full Text Indexing and select Properties:

The dialog opens:

Select the Add... Button to open the New File Association Dialog:

Next you need to enter an extension to use for the mapping. You can further refine that to apply only to a Program for that file extension; IE: Only indexing AutoCAD 2012 DWG files.

Example association that will map/process any DWG file:

Example association that will map only the DWG files associated with AutoCAD 2012:

Now that you have specified the file type to map you need to specify the application that will do the processing. This is set at the bottom of the dialog.

You can skip the documents or specify an extension to use that application for processing. In order to be able to search the text in DWG files, DWG files need to be processed as DGN files.

This example would map to the same application that processes DGN files: (MicroStation)

Once you select OK the rule is created.

Here is an example of the mapping rule that process all DWG files as DGN files:

This example mapping any DWG associated to AutoCAD 2012 would not work because no extension is specified.

Full text indexing looks first for the extension and then to see if that file is associated with the specified application:

This example would not work because an extension isn’t specified as the map to value.

Full text indexing cannot resolve an application name:

Hopefully this blog clarifies what information is needed to properly index text from AutoCAD files. As well as helping you to avoid some common mistakes.