Global Mapper v25.0

Area to DXF problems

Legion
Legion Global Mapper User
edited November 2009 in Vector Data
Hello,

Here is the situation. I have a bunch of area features for "roads" that I would like to export to DXF and import into 3D Studio Max to convert into a Mesh.

The road areas sometimes have islands... but only because GM is deciding that the area is enclosed by another area... and creates an island.

If I export the "roads" layer to a DXF and import it directly back into Global Mapper, the areas are all messed up around where the islands were located. It is like GM doesn't know how to interpret the DXF area lines when there are islands in the area.

Coincidentally, a similar problem arises in 3D Studio Max. The islands seem to be causing the conversion to a Mesh in 3D Max to fail... basically meshing the wrong parts.

I have included the DXF which was exported from GM. If you import the DXF, you will see the roads outline... but you will see that the areas are not right around where islands would be.

Is there a better way to go about getting this to mesh in 3D Max? Or is this a bug.

Comments

  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited November 2009
    I'm not seeing any islands created when I load your DXF file. I do see nested areas, but GM is not automatically creating islands from those nested areas.

    What version of Global Mapper are you using? Can you send a screenshot of the messed up areas that you are seeing? Everything looks ok to me.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com
  • Legion
    Legion Global Mapper User
    edited November 2009
    I am using Global Mapper 11.01. I enclosed a jpg to show you what is going on.

    Basically it looks as though 3D Max and Global Mapper both do not know how to interpret the areas with islands.

    Is there a way to output the actual "faces" of an area to DXF?
  • Legion
    Legion Global Mapper User
    edited November 2009
    You have to zoom in to see that in the original picture the ACTUAL areas are selected black and the islands are selected red.

    In the imported DXF, it is all black and I lost the actual areas.
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited November 2009
    It looks like the issue is that the island behavior that you correctly have in the original is lost on export to DXF, which is unfortunately expected due to the poor support for area features in the DXF format. Currently when you export areas with islands to DXF you get separate polylines for the outer boundary and the island boundaries as there is not any explicit support for holes in area features in DXF.

    Is there any other format that you can use? Most other formats (like Shapefiles) do have proper support for islands.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com