Chapter 7 - Import

Data from third-party programs can be imported by CadnaA using various file formats or via the ODBC interface (see Database Import (ODBC & XLSX)). Any objects contained in the current CadnaA-file will not be deleted, but the external file will be inserted or existing data will be updated. This enables you to continuously complete a file by importing external and/or internal data.

Import Options

Depending on the file format, CadnaA allows you to specify certain importing options:

Layer

selection of layers to be assigned to specified object types (see Allocate Object Type to Layer).

Import only Section

specifying a target area in th project file by using the Section tool, to where the data are to be imported in order to reduce the amount of data (see Import only Section).

Coordinate Transformation

coordinate transformation serving to match the data to those of your project file (see Coordinate Transformation).

Selection of Object Types

selection of object types - by this you may import only the needed object types from a file, e.g., only roads.

Simplify Geometry

Already during the import the object geometry can be simplified by entering a reasonable value for the option Simplify Geo (see manual "Introduction to CadnaA")

unknown Attributes

In case attributes respectively parameters cannot be assigned to CadnaA attributes (since they are named differently), these unknown attributes can be saved automatically as memo variables in the Info-field of the corresponding objects. They transferred to object attributes afterwards.

File Formats

Select the Import command from the File menu and specify the file format to import objects from into your project file (file formats like, e.g. ArcView, MapInfo, AutoCad-DXF, AutoCad-DWG and others). Importing data from database files like dBase, MS-Excel, MS-Access etc. via ODBC interface use the command File|Database.

In the file selection dialog Import Files, select the file format first from the list box „File Type“, then select the file to be imported.

The button „Options“ offers to specify the further import options depending on the file format selected (see further below in this chapter).

The files are imported by clicking the „Open“ button.