ORD export to dwg in survey feet

If there is anyone that has exported a dgn to dwg and have gotten the dwg to have survey feet as the units can you explain how you got it accomplished.

I'm in talks with Bentley now.  For those that work in survey feet, know that the files you export are in feet.  If someone else uses these files that are in feet with their files that are in survey feet.  Well it's about 3' off in central Illinois.

Thanks

Parents
  • In V8i, under the Options dialog box, we used to be able to specify US Survey Feet as the units. I also see that in ProjectWise, the Options dialog box has one less tab.

    This is the General tab and I do not see this tab while in ProjectWise.

    But it does beg a question - have you tried both Master Units and Feet to see if there is a difference?

    Officially, DWF does not have a US Survey Feet option, but within Civil 3D, it has that setting but as I understand it, when used, the units of the file are still feet. And we found that if your survey settings are Survey Feet, your Civil 3D units better match or there will be coordinate issues.

    One of my checking mechanisms is to label a triad of coordinate locations around the work area to see if the output still matches the coordinate labels.


    Charles (Chuck) Rheault
    CADD Manager

    MDOT State Highway Administration

    • MicroStation user since IGDS, InRoads user since TDP.
    • AutoCAD, Land Desktop and Civil 3D, off and on since 1996
  • You pic is exactly how I have it set, to use master units, which in ORD are survey feet. On export the dwg is in feet.

    The survey settings have nothing to do with this problem.  They only apply to download data using the survey database with Civil3D.

    The pic shows the units of the dwg (feet) created from a dgn (survey feet), although master units was selected.  Survey feet has been an option in Civil3D since 2017 version.

    So if you bring a file over from a dgn to dwg and do not change it to be in survey feet, if you reference a dwg in feet (topo) to a dwg in survey feet (design file) your data will be off by 3 feet in central Illinois.  This is not good.

    The only solution is to check every file that is from ORD, PowerGeopak, or clients and make sure the units are survey feet.  Because Bentley software will not export to the correct unit format.

Reply
  • You pic is exactly how I have it set, to use master units, which in ORD are survey feet. On export the dwg is in feet.

    The survey settings have nothing to do with this problem.  They only apply to download data using the survey database with Civil3D.

    The pic shows the units of the dwg (feet) created from a dgn (survey feet), although master units was selected.  Survey feet has been an option in Civil3D since 2017 version.

    So if you bring a file over from a dgn to dwg and do not change it to be in survey feet, if you reference a dwg in feet (topo) to a dwg in survey feet (design file) your data will be off by 3 feet in central Illinois.  This is not good.

    The only solution is to check every file that is from ORD, PowerGeopak, or clients and make sure the units are survey feet.  Because Bentley software will not export to the correct unit format.

Children