Can the Import Floorplans to Geodatabase Tool's excel config table see Xref Layers?

[BenCunninghamCville]

So we are a large university with a great number of facilities with existing floorplan data in CAD. Our GIS team and our Space Management team work together closely. Our existing data structure has our would-be Units (rooms/spaces) contained in one CAD .dwg, with architectural features in another, different CAD drawing.

What I want to know is can the Import Floorplans to Geodatabase Tool's excel config table see Xref Layers?

Unless the architectural layers are inside the space management floor plan CAD file and not Xref'd, it appears that the excel table cannot see them (I-WALL, S-STRS, A-DOOR, A-GLAZ, etc.).

We can solve this by making a third CAD drawing that combines all into one, but I'd love to learn more about this configuration excel table.

Thanks

[SophieFrank · Accepted solution]

Hi @BenCunninghamCville,

To answer your explicit question, the Indoors tools do not support xref layers.

You can, however, provide multiple CAD files for a single level using the Import Floorplans To Indoors Database tool (the Import CAD To Indoor Dataset tool will also support this capability at the ArcGIS Pro 3.3 release). On the Source Files sheet of the xlsx mapping file, each CAD file should be listed in the SOURCE_PATH field in it's own row. If multiple CAD files have features for the same level, you can include the same Level ID information in the LEVEL_ID column for all the files that relate to that level. Here's additional documentation about filling out that sheet.

[BenCunninghamCville]

Thanks for such a quick response! This solved it for me elegantly.

[JeffLash2]

I am in the same situation as @BenCunninghamCville.

Could you provide more detail on how to to configure the xlsx mapping file when using multiple CAD files for a single level in a multi-level facility?

I am most curious about how to complete the Layer to Feature Class sheet given that I need to use multiple CAD layers as sources.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[SophieFrank]

Hi @JeffLash2, Regarding the Layer to Feature Class sheet, when configuring the worksheet to run against multiple files, you can include all of the CAD layers that contribute to each feature type in the respective column across all of your files. This is true even if a CAD layer does not exist in every file you provide.

For example, say I have 3 CAD files, DWG 1 and DWG 2 for level 1 and DWG 3 for level 2 and I have CAD layers A-WALL and A-DOOR that contain my unit information in DWG 1 and A-AREA-BDRY that contains my unit information in DWG 3 and no units in DWG 2. I could add all three layers (A-AREA-BDRY, A-WALL, A-DOOR) to the the UNIT_LINES column to create my units even though those layers don't exist in all of my input DWGs.

Let me know if you have any more specific questions, or run into any issues trying it out!

[JeffLash2]

Thank you @SophieFrank !

My students and I will continue to tinker with the Layer to Feature Class sheet.

Is there any limit to the number of source .dwg files we can process at one time?

[BenCunninghamCville]

Pardon my late response, but I have good news: I have been able to add multiple CAD files as source data for the same floor/level without issue. Apparently the import tool is smart enough to just ignore any specified CAD layers that are not found in a given file and move on without throwing an error. Just as @SophieFrank  said.

I don't know if there is a limit, but I've pointed the Source File sheet to over 330 (!) different CAD file paths without issue in one single successful run. Granted that took 30hrs, but after all it was ~156 Levels of data created from over 330 CAD files.

For most of my floors, I've had Unit/Levels/Facilities data in CAD file #1 (a space management A-AREA CAD layer), and my Details data in CAD files #2 and #3 (ARCH & FURN CAD files) .

[JeffLash2]

Thanks!

Yes, we too are burning up our computers importing CAD files (only!? 198). Much success with a configuration much like yours.

We are now busy editing UNIT polygons and UNIT "Use Type" attributes to facilitate network creation...