owenransen

I'm beta testing http://www.LidarToDxf.com, it may or may not do what you want.

About a year and a half ago I posted a question about the prospects of a LIDAR to DXF conversion program. The feedback was discouraging but useful, in particular: AutoCAD and DXF is no way to look at LIDAR data There are lots of free programs which already do that A while ago I had another look at the problem and thought: Some people with non-GIS programs might want/need to look at LIDAR data anyway, a "light" version of the data. None of the free (or even payed for) programs did exactly what I wanted to do, and most were very complex to use. So I decided to do one just to see what the reaction is, here it is: http://www.LidarToDxf.com I presume that you are all hard-code GIS people and maybe this is of no interest to you, but all feedback is welcome, negative/positive...

Thanks. I've tried to make it easy to add in the attributes from the database into the DXF (from the shape). All suggestions welcome!

The latest version of ShapeToDxf has these new features: Layers (and their colors) set by elevation. 3D viewer included. Layers (and their colors)n set by any DBF field value. PointZ, PolygonZ and PolyLineZ types recognised. Available in 32 bit and 64 bit versions As usual, this beta is free and anybody who gives suggestions or comments about the program will get the final full release free. You can find the downloads and help file here: http://www.ShapeToDxf.com If you have specific requirements for your Shape To Dxf conversions please contact me at the above site...

I'm aware of this, but it is very expensive, ShapeToDxf should be about 25% of the cost of Arcv2Cad. The last time I tried it Arcv2Cad did not show you the DXF file you were creating, ShapeToDxf does. Arcv2Cad is more sophisticated, but for some users ShapeToDxf may be the right answer. Also ShapeToDxf is free to anyone who gives feedback on the beta.

A new pure 64 bit version to download from here... http://www.ShapeToDxf.com/ ...it'll be slow with very big files but you should be able to convert larger files now...

Now ShapeToDxf includes a 3D viewer for the SHP + DBF files which include 3d info. Free beta here: http://www.ShapeToDxf.com

ShapeToDxf now has its own website... http://www.shapetodxf.com ...where you can still get the free beta.

I'm aiming for the customers who need to get hold of shape files, but they do not want/cannot afford a full blown GIS+CAD system. Ihope to get more feedback on how people want to handle projection and DBF data as the program develops.

I'm not quite sure how best to handle that, I hope I get enough feedback to make a decision...

Do you mean, for example, save only the zoomed portion to DXF? I agree DXF->SHP would be interesting and I'll look at that when I've got this ShapeToDxf under my belt properly.

A new version is now available, still a beta, but probably useful in some circumstances. You can get it here (no sign up, just download and use): http://www.ransen.com/ShapeToDxf/Default.htm

Ok, I've sussed the problem of the "cannot access folder" bug. A new release will be out tomorrow with other new features, and a better toolbar!

Your English is fine. What information do you lose? What does the original DWg or DXF file contain which you end up missing in SHP? I imagine it has to do with the DBF file which accompanies the SHP file?

Yes, I've been trying in Windows 7 only, I'll try to sort out the Windows 8 error message. I should not have left the toolbar in the program until it was better looking. Everything in the toolbar is in the menu, but your point is taken. I'm not sure what you mean by point 3. Do you mean add the shape into an existing DXF file? I'm currently working on adding text fields from the DBF file into the final DXF, either as attributes if the entities can be represented as blocks, or as text entities near the shape object. What do you mean by a "shorting entity"?

It is very basic, so all feedback welcome... Thanks

I've been looking at ESRI Shape files and decided to create ShapeToDxf (Windows only). I wanted to see how hard it was and how much of a market there was. The download is a very early beta, but if you want to make DXF files from your SHP files it could be useful. I don't ask for your email, but I do ask for your feedback! The back half of ShapeToDxf application Pointor. After a few years of development I know more or less what Pointor users want, but I'm not so sure what Shape To Dxf should deliver, especially as far as 3D and layers and text annotations etc. are concerned. Anybody who gives me feedback, good or bad, will get the final release free (if they want it!) Here's the page: http://www.ransen.com/Shp2Dxf.htm

I think you're right. I asked because a few of my Pointor customers have asked for this and I wondered if it could be useful. But then I saw the size of the files and quantities of points and thought I'd better ask here first. Thanks for the feedback.

I've just had a look at the import file options, and neither LAS nor LAZ nor LIDAR is there. Maybe in the future... But the lack of responses seem to indicate that no-one here cares about doing LAS to DXF, which is interesting.

I'm considering extending one of my applications, Pointor, to read LiDar files (LAS and LAZ). Pointor takes pointlists and turns them into DXF files. But after a few experiments I've found that AutoCAD cannot really handle large collections of points, as native AutoCAD points anyway. 3D viewing is so slow I've had to stop AutoCAD running. So I'm wondering if an application which created DXF files from lidar point data would have any realworld application? Or maybe I should allow the user to input only a fracrion of the points from large files? Or...?