Spatial Manager™ for AutoCAD include functions to geo-locate in your drawing postal addresses, streets, neighborhoods or other geographical objects.

Search for locations of geographical objects in my drawing

Spatial Manager™ for AutoCAD includes the ‘SPMSEARCHLOCATION’ command that allows you to search for locations through Internet location services based on your search text. Once you enter the search text (the more precise, the more accurate the location) and click “Search” (or press Enter), the results returned by these services (if found, one or more results) will be shown in the search window and include the following information:.

• Name: Full location name. Although you can resize the window if you want, if the full text does not fit, scroll over and a tooltip will be shown.
• Type: Location type. According to the classification provided by the localization service.
• Geometry: Geometry type. Point, Line-string, Polygon, Multi-Polygon, etc. The icon represents in a simplified way the geometry type, but you can scroll over it and a tooltip including the geometry type text will be shown.
• Source: Location service source. The name of the Internet location service that returned the result.
  • Note: Certain location service providers (such as Google) may require special terms of use for the users of this service. You can configure any special setting for such providers through the button “Configure Location Providers” or the Service Provider API Keys in the application Options (‘SPMOPTIONS’). If this is not done, the results corresponding to these providers will not appear in the results table as they will not be available for query.

You can sort the result rows according to the “Name”, “Type” or “Source” columns (direct or inverse order) by clicking on the column title.

• Notes:
  • If the drawing is not empty when ‘SPMSEARCHLOCATION’ is executed, it is necessary that the drawing has been assigned a Coordinate Reference System (CRS), learn how to georeference a drawing..
  • If the drawing is empty and has no coordinate system assigned to it, when ‘SPMSEARCHLOCATION’ is executed Spatial Manager™ for AutoCAD will assign the CRS Code:3857 (WGS84 / Pseudo-Mercator) to the drawing. This CRS is valid for any Earth area, but may be inaccurate for measurements in some areas..

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Use the results shown in the ‘Search Location’ window

The Spatial Manager™ for AutoCAD ‘Search Location’ window allows you to select any shown result in order to:

• Zoom to the location. By using the “Zoom” button or by double-clicking on the chosen result.
• Insert the Geometry in your drawing, and zoom to the Geometry. Points, Polylines, Polygons, etc., depending on the geometry type.
• Insert the geometry Envelope, and zoom to the Envelope. Internet location services usually also return a rectangular envelope of the geographic object found. This option allows you to insert this rectangle in your drawing.

You can choose “Fill areas using Hatches” in order to add a Hatch when inserting polygonal geometries or rectangular envelopes. The inserted objects (and their optional hatches) will be drawn in the current Layer of the drawing.

Note that the ‘Search Location’ window remains open until you close it so that you can repeat the actions with the results you want. In fact, you can navigate through the drawing, edit the drawing, etc., while the window is still on screen..