1. Open the drawing named lesson12.dwg which is located in your GeoTools Tutorials folder. This folder is located in the folder where you have installed GeoTools.

2. You should see a drawing (see Image 13-1) of a small layout of Conduit carrying electrical cables of different companies represented by 2D Polyline

Image 13-1

3. The drawing shows number of block attributes displaying the pole details like Pole number, Owner name, Tel.No. Now we will see how we can utilize GeoTools Block tools for extracting and editing the block attributes.

4. We shall begin with extracting the block attributes into a text file.

Extracting block attributes into text file

1. Click on menu GeoTools => Blocks => Extract Block Attributes to file or type GT_ATTEXT at the command prompt. This will pop-up the dialog box as shown below (image 13-2)

Image 13-2


2. Click on the button Extract File... and specify the file path for storing the extracted attribute information.

3. Under Specify Block to process click on Select Block... button. This will pop-up the dialog box as shown below in (image 13-3)

Image 13-3

4. Select Pole block and click on OK button. This will bring back to the previous Attribute Extraction dialog box.

5. Under Select Attributes Names select all the three attributes by holding down shift key on keyboard.

6. Under Additional Extracts check the Block Name and Insertion Point boxes (This will extract the block name and insertion point along with the attributes).

7. Now click on OK button this will pop-up the standard selection dialog box as shown below in (image 13-4)

Image 13-4

8. Click on Scan entire drawing button this will select all the block attributes in the drawing and lastly click on Apply button.

9. Below (image 13-5) shows the .txt file of attributes extracted.

Image 13-5

So we have learnt how to Export block attributes to text file. Now we will see how we can export Block Attribute Tag names only into ASCII file.

Export (extract) Block attribute tag names to ASCII file

1. Click on menu GeoTools => Blocks => Export Block attribute tag names to ASCII file or type GT_TAGEXT at the command prompt. This will pop-up the dialog box as shown below (image 13-6)

Image 13-6

2. Under Select block names to export choose Pole.

3. Click on the button File Name... to specify the file path for saving the extracted data. And lastly click on OK button.

4. Below (image 13-7) shows the text file of Attribute Tag names extracted.

Image 13-7

After learning how to export the block attributes now we will see how we can modify (edit) the block attributes.

Modifying (Editing) the block attributes

1. We will see how we can change the value of attribute Owner from  BESCOM  to Vodafone.

2. Click on menu GeoTools => Blocks => Global Attribute Editor or type GT_ATTEDIT at the command prompt. This will pop-up the dialog box as shown below (image 13-8)

Image 13-8

3. Under Specify Block to process click on the button Select Block..  this will pop-up the dialog box as shown below in (image 13-9).

Image 13-9

4. Select the Pole block and click on OK button this will bring back to previous Global Attribute Editor dialog box.

5. Under Select Attribute choose OWNER and under Edit Criteria click on Find / Replace. This will enable the Find String and Replace String boxes.

6. Under Find String box type BESCOM and under Replace String box type Vodafone.

7. Now click on OK button this will pop-up the standard selection dialog box as shown below in (image 13-10)

Image 13-10

8. Click on Scan entire drawing button this will select all the block attributes in the drawing. And lastly click on Apply button.

9. Below (image 13-11) shows the modified attribute value from BESCOM to Vodafone.

Image 13-11