Have you ever wonder even with all the great functions and tools available with AutoCAD Map3D there is still one or two tools that are lacking? Have you noticed that the last few releases the new functions have been geared towards FDO functions and nothing towards the enhancements to Object Data objects or any of the other basic map tools that made AutoCAD Map stand out from simple AutoCAD? Well fear no more. DotSoft LLC is to the rescue, with their new MapTools.
Now let me say something first before I get to far into the MapTools functions. When I started this weblog a few years back I told myself the blog was for tips, tricks and how-do for AutoCAD Map3D (and a little Civil 3D) and not a site to sell readers/followers anything. However seeing that there are still some users out there, my customers included, that are not ready for the move to FDO right yet I feel blogging about these tools is fair enough, besides it’s my blog I can do what I want. 
If you are not familiar with the Dotsoft they are the good folks that brought us the fine add-on called ToolPac. If you are or were a ToolPac user then you know the MapTools will be just as valuable once you start using them, there is at least one tool in the set that I’m sure some one will like.
I will point out some of the tools and follow up on later posts of how they work. First there is the Grid Editor for Object Data tables. You can select one or many object that have object data attached and view all the object data values in a grid view to all the object you selected. No more trying to select all and getting the “varies” in the property palette. Not only can you view the data but also edit it there in the grid editor. Second tool for object data is the Property Exchange tool. This tool allows you to populate the object’s property from the object data attached to it. Example you have an elevation field in the object data, the property exchange will take the object data value and move you objects to those elevations. This works good for layers also. Not only can you populate the object properties from the object data, you can also go the other way and populate the object data from the object properties.
Have you ever needed to work in two different coordinate system at the same time in the same map? Well MapTools has an alternate coordinate system tool that allows you to this. It allows allows you to label points as LL even if you are working in a map that has a state plane coordinate system assigned to it. There is even a nice tracking tool that displays the alternate coordinates as you move you crosshairs. Then there are the polyline tools, check for closing and reverse the segments are a couple of those commands there but the big one a lot of users have been asking for is the break ploylines and not lose the object data attached to the polylines, well MapTools has this.
So there you go with a few extra tools that are available for AutoCAD Map3D. Now the ones I mention are not all there is but the ones that I ran testing the MapTools as DotSoft was developing them. So if you are interested give them a look at on their site and let Terry know and/or leave a reply here if you are interested or want some thing else in the bundle. Stay tuned to the blog and you may get a free seat of the MapTools, details to follow in a few days.
Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law – Need More Map Tools?
Go to Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law
I don’t like when I receive drawings with the properties overridden to other than ByLayer. It’s a bit hard to distinguish between layers when people do that. There are many ways to change those properties back to ByLayer. We can select all objects and set the properties to ByLayer or using Match Properties.
