Spatial Manager™ for BricsCAD - FAQs: GIS Analysis ("Professional" edition only)

Notes:

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Introduction

Objective of this section
- To learn how to use advanced GIS analysis tools in your drawings and maps

Topics in this section
- Create Buffers from point, linear or polygonal borders entities
- Process spatial Overlays which will create new drawing entities based on the operation results
- Dissolve polyonal entities in order to create surrounds of adjacent entities
- Create Centroids from selected polygons
- Calculate and draw Areas of Influence from selected point entities

GIS Analysis tools

Spatial Manager™ for BricsAD includes a set of advanced tools designed for geometric and spatial analysis of geographic entities and their geometric relationships, resulting in new entities generated from the resolution of such analysis

GIS Analysis commands in the Spatial Manager™ for BricsCAD ribbon

Performing GIS Analysis in the drawing

About entities selection

Some of the analysis tools described below allow entity selections before or during their execution. Even some of them (SPMOVERLAY) allow you to select two groups of entities to operate between them. For all of these commands, the following notes and instructions apply:

Select all objects: All entities in the drawing will be processed
Only selected objects: Only a selection of entities will be processed. You can select the entities before executing the commands or by using the Selecting buttons in their corredponding windows
- Manual selection
- Select by Query: Select entities according to the result of a simplex or compound data query (See "Selecting by Query")
- Select by Table: Select entities which have been previously attached to a specific data table (See "Selecting by Table")
  - Note: As you can select the entities previously to execute the commands, in addition to the use of the above included selection options or in combination with them, you can make use of some other Advanced selection application tools, select entities in the Data Grid or any other selection method available in BricsCAD (Quick Select, etc.). Also note that, as most of the advanced application or BricsCAD selection commands will let you apply the selection to the current selection, the number of possible combinations to select what you are interested in is almost unlimited
Select objects in a layer: Only the entities included in an BricsCAD Layer will be processed. You can select the layer using the drop-down list in this window

Note: The selection of entities in BricsCAD may be a few slower when the "SpatialManager" palette is open, depending on the data of the entities

Buffer

The command 'SPMBUFFER' in Spatial Manager™ for BricsCAD allows you to generate Buffered polygons around point entities, linear entities or polygon boundaries. Buffer distance can be constant or taken from the value of a table field for each entities, it is possible to merge the generated entities in their common areas and different styles of joins and endings can be chosen

Entities selection: See the paragraph "About entities selection" above
Buffer options: You can select the Buffer distance (fixed value or field-based value), the Join and End cap styles, the Buffer Units conversion (so you can define the Buffer distance in units other than the drawing units) and if you want to Dissolve/Merge the generated Buffered polygons
Layer name: This setting defines the target Layer name for the Buffers. You can select an existing Layer in the drawing or you can write the name to create a new Layer
- Apply random colors to new Layers
Create: Buffer entities type, Borders or Polygons. The Polygons option allow you to select MPolygons as the type of object to use (BricsCAD 20 and upper). The MPolygons can be defined by multiple rings, even including holes, as a single BricsCAD entity
- Fill areas using Hatches
Treat closed polylines as polygons: When checked (default value), all closed Polylines in the drawing will be considered as Polygons and not as linear entities. Most of the time the closed polylines represent polygonal elements