Looking for software

[jason27]

I'm looking for something to draw to scale cable maps for my work but have been unable to find anything thus far. If you work with underground cable and know of a program or just have any idea of what to use I would greatly appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction. Thanks

[konigfritz]

Are you looking for software with true mapping capability or just a way to show cables running in an area.

Import map into CAD then draw in cables.

Photoshop, but scale issues.

Google earth then find a way to capture the image and lay the cables over the map.

Guess i need a little more info. I don't run cables, but know alot about alot of software.

[jason27]

Well all I have is hand drawn maps on notepaper. I have photoshop and Solidworks but would "basic". Map doesn't need to be real pretty just intuitive and to scale and something that could easily be read. Seems that around my workplace we keep using hand drawn maps and cant understand them down the road, hmmmm, wonder why?

[walleeme]

There are plenty of shareware CAD/CAM programs out there. (computer aided drafting/computer aided mapping).

Secondly, I would do a google search. For the life of me, I cannot remember the names of those other softwares too well. I think one is KEYCAD, one is GENERICAD, and there are some others too, but I don't think the el cheapo products support raster overlays while also managing scale effectively, which is what you really need to do concurrently.

I drop images from Google Earth onto CAD vectors all the time while preparing flight maps. Realize that Google Earth provides an orthorectified digital image that is adjusted for scale and elevation variations. You can pull pretty effective measurements, say within 200 feet and better, out of google earth with the measure tool. Because the image is orthrectified, you can almost pull your own scale and be okay. Myself, I would like to have some other method involved to QC the final product.

There is a program out there called R2V that will do a pretty good raster to vector conversion of your original scratch sheets if you can scan them to a TIFF. I beleive it exports a DXF which almost all CAD programs can read/write.

You might be able to find an old copy of AutoCad R14 with the raster/CAD overlay feature for cheap these days seeings as AutoDesk no longer supports the product. (this would be my personal choice) Being an open architecture design, there is still a lot of life in ACAD R14 and the product is well supported by loving users around the world. Scales are easy to manage at 1:1 and you are allowed a couple of options for rubber sheeting your rasterized line data.

Hope this helps.

Wally
I am skilled in Photogrammetry, surveying, civil engineering, real estate, Citroens and beer drinking.

Send me a PM and I can get you hooked up with a computer science friend of mine who consults on this stuff for a living. Phone calls are cheap and he owes me a few favors. Dig around on google first, and if you get hornswoggled, give a me a shout.

[walleeme]

Sh_t.
You live right next door to me. I am in Redlands.

Wally

[jrubin]

If you have Microsoft Office 2003 professional it comes with Visio. there are a bunch of templates available. some free and some costing hundreds of dollars. it might be worth also investigating this program also.