From the course: AutoCAD Map 3D 2022 Essential Training

Attaching object data to AutoCAD objects - AutoCAD Tutorial

From the course: AutoCAD Map 3D 2022 Essential Training

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Attaching object data to AutoCAD objects

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- [Instructor] Object data can be part of any feature in your DWG when using autoCAD Map 3D. With an empty object data table, you can add custom information to all your graphics in the DWG. What we're going to do now is draw a brand new line and then attach object data to it. This line will be a new street. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to pick on view and go to the name views. There's a name view called Suffolk Street West, let's pick on that. And it will zoom in to a section of the city where there's a street segment missing. So we're going to draw a brand new line between the two green circles. So I'm just going to type on the command line, line, and press enter. And the first part of the segment will be at the bottom of the screen. We're going to snap into the center of that circle. And then we're going to snap it to the center of the upper right circle where it says endpoint. And there's the new segment, I'll just press enter to finish. So now we have an empty line right in the middle of our DWG. Now I want to attach object data to that simple P-Line. So all we have to do is click on create. In the create ribbon, you'll see the Attach/Detach object data. Now there's a preexisting table in here called streets. It has two columns, unique ID for streets and street name itself. So for the unique ID, I'm going to pick on it, you'll see feature ID, I'm going to give it a value of 4000. And to make it stick, I always press enter. There, it stuck. Now for the street name, I'm going to call it Suffolk space Street and a capital W, it's a west. Again I'm going to press enter, and now it's stuck. And the reason I press enter is so that the value gets attached. So you see that the feature ID is now 4000, it shows you what value to attach, and street name is Suffolk Street West. Now this isn't attached to anything yet. I have to physically attach it. So underneath where it says attach to objects, or detach from objects. I can click on attach to objects. The good thing about this is, it'll overwrite any existing object data that's already on there. Or you can detach it from the object if you don't want it any longer. So in this case, I do. So I'm going to leave the overwrite checked and I'm going to click attach to objects. I'm going to pick on that brand new line we just drew and then press enter. It's now attached, how do we know? If I pick on that one line, and I right click and choose properties, I'll expand my properties pane, so you can see that a little better. And I scroll down to the bottom, in my properties, there's a group set called Streets, you'll see od:streets, that stands for object data streets. So now I've got custom properties in here. I've got a feature ID and a street. So I can pick on anything. Now there's already some existing data in here. So I'm just going to hit escape and pick on another line segment. And I scroll down. Aha, there's already a feature ID and a street name attached to another segment. So I'll hit escape. And we can save this drawing when we're done. Now the nice thing about this is for those of you who used autoCAD in the past, you can see how powerful the use of object data can be. Because you now have an ability to add custom properties to any feature inside of autoCAD. You can't do this in the regular flavor of autoCAD. You can only do it in autoCAD Map or those that are built on top of autoCAD Map, such as Civil 3D. So we now have the ability to attach your own data to any feature inside of autoCAD.

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