Furniture CAD/DXF

Arboricultural Consultants and Estate Managers are sometimes required to deal with CAD drawings for planning new developments or providing information about the estate. OTISS supports you in various ways to get the job done quickly and easily.

Option 1: Starting with a CAD drawing

Arboricultural Consultants and Estate Managers are often provided with architectual CAD drawings as their site/topo plan. While surveying you can plot trees directly onto this base drawing. After surveying, OTISS can generate a DXF file containing the tree icons and crown spread (see below), which can be easily merged with the original CAD drawing.

See BS5837 CAD drawings for step by step instructions for how to use the CAD drawing. The only difference is that for TreeSafety and Furniture icons there are fewer features inculded in the CAD DXF files (see below).

Option 2: Using a PDF or Map site plan to produce CAD reports…

Arboricultural Consultants and Estate Managers often use PDFs or OS maps for their surveys, but they want to be able to produce CAD layouts and printouts for their BS5837 reports. After surveying, OTISS can generate a DXF file containing the tree icons and crown spread (see below), and this file can also include the image of the site plan. So, even though you did not start with a CAD site plan, you can use your CAD application to produce more sophisticated printouts.

See BS5837 CAD drawings for step by step instructions for how to use the CAD drawing. The only difference is that for TreeSafety and Furniture icons there are fewer features inculded in the CAD DSF files (see below).

Troubleshooting…

Working with CAD can be frustrating – hopefully these guidelines may help.

OTISS DXF files

A DXF file containing tree icons, crown spread and furniture locations can be created from the survey data for use with your own CAD application to combine your existing maps and site plans.

 
  • Each item is plotted using simple XY co-ordinates (metres) for site plans, or the Grid Reference co-ordinates for maps. For example, an item at location ‘TL 05635 04970’ will be plotted at x=505635 y=204970 (in metres).
  • Each furniture’s location centre, width, reference and type are each plotted on separate layers so that you can change and manipulate them with your CAD application.
  • The DXF file contains only the tree/asset information, it does not contain a background map.
  • The items selected for the inclusion in the DXF is governed by the Site and Survey filters at the top of the web page. At present the column filtering is ignored when compiling these reports.

CAD Layers in the drawings

DXF Layer Description of the Asset / Furniture Layers
ItemLocation Layer This layer contains the small circles that represent the furniture centre. The line colour and thickness can all be changed using the layer’s properties. The circles can be removed by hiding the layer.
ItemOutline Layer This layer contains the larger squares that represent the ‘width’. When the DXF is generated you have to option of using the actual recorded width or of using a fixed width for all the items. Line and polygon shaped items are shown as they are drawn.. The line colour and thickness can all be changed using the layer’s properties.
ItemReference Layer This layer contains each item’s reference number, which is plotted beside the item using the ItemText text style. The text colour can be changed using the layer’s properties, and the text font and height can be changed using the text style’s properties. The text can be removed by hiding the layer.
ItemType Layer This layer contains each item’s type, which is plotted beside the item using the ItemText text style. The text colour can be changed using the layer’s properties, and the text font and height can be changed using the text style’s properties. The text can be removed by hiding the layer.
ItemText Style This text style is used for both the item’s Reference and Type text. The text font and height can be changed using this text style’s properties. In some CAD applications, you may need to re-apply the text style to the text items to make the change – please consult your applications’s reference manuals.