ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD

Creating an indoor map

ArcGIS Indoors is an indoor GIS that enables the creation of floor-aware 2D and 3D indoor maps, indoor space planning and management, and wayfinding. Indoor GIS helps management make decisions informed by location data, increase efficiencies of day-to-day operations inside the facility, and improve the on-site experience by providing turn-by-turn directions on a digital map.

The map, which forms the basis of an indoor GIS, visualizes the indoor environment: rooms, assets, people, and important points of interest, providing a common operating picture of the indoor space to all users.

The map can be created using the ArcGIS Indoors Floor Plan Editor web app or by importing existing floor plan data from diverse sources into the ArcGIS Indoors Information Model.

When importing the floor plan data into ArcGIS Indoors, one popular data source is Computer-aided design (CAD).

However, CAD floor plan drawings that were created for architecture, engineering, or construction (AEC) purposes often have small linework gaps, misplaced text, and other conditions that can impede the data import process and affect data quality. These conditions are often difficult to detect prior to import, and they’re costly to account for after.

Detecting data errors with ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD

Esri has a solution to avoid this potential data quality impairment by checking for errors in the CAD data before it is ingested into Indoors: ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD.

ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD is a new tool to Esri’s free ArcGIS for AutoCAD solution. It offers diagnostic checks to help CAD users detect and locate common problematic conditions including:

• Unclosed linework with dangling endpoints
• Self-intersecting polylines
• Missing or misplaced room names and use type text
• Duplicate or non-standard text

Using the tool, users can quickly identify these issues directly in the CAD floor plans and address them before import, saving time and costs on post-data-import quality control.

Watch the following video for a quick demo on how to use the ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD tool.

ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD is configurable to accommodate the different layer names and entity types used in CAD floor plans. The configuration is stored internally to the CAD drawing, eliminating the need to track and maintain a separate configuration file. Furthermore, you can import and re-use an existing configuration to save time and achieve consistency when checking multiple CAD drawings.

The Indoors tool can analyze a CAD floor plan drawing and display results as both an interactive table and a collection of visual marks showing the location of each result on the drawing. Each result can be viewed with a single click, allowing the AutoCAD user to focus on investigating and addressing root causes.

ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD is installed automatically with ArcGIS for AutoCAD version 430 and later and can be used without an ArcGIS Indoors license.

For more information, please visit the documentation page. Also,  learn how to configure and run validation checks using the tool in the ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD training seminar.