Creating an ArborCAD filter from Excel.

Transcription

1 ArborCAD Help File Windows systems only Creating an ArborCAD filter from Excel. This help file assumes you have your tree survey data in an Excel sheet. The ArborCAD filter is a special file which holds details about your survey format. Every time you load/paste further Excel survey data, ArborCAD can subsequently allocate your data into its columns correctly. In other words you are simply telling ArborCAD that, for example, column 1 of your Excel sheet is the tree tag number, column 2 is its name, column 3 is its age, etc. Copyright Chris Skellern 2013

2 This tutorial will use the following Excel example sheet. Your own sheet will not necessarily have the same layout but that is not a problem as you will find out later. It is likely that you may have more columns which can be included into the filter. Please note the following important points concerning your Excel data. It is not necessary to have the T in front of your tag numbers; ArborCAD will add these for you if needed. Diameters are best in mm but ArborCAD will convert from meters if needed. Multiple diameters should be separated with a, comma. The FSB (first significant branch) height and bearing are optional. You must not put carriage returns (CR) or tabs inside cells; unless every other cell of the same column also has a CR etc. You must be consistent and keep your data clean, adding little text snippets next to number data may give errors.

3 We now need to copy the cells to use for filter setup. We could just copy 1 or2 rows but as the whole list is quite small I have selected and copied all of them (see below). To do this first position the mouse on the top left cell you want to use (T1 in this example) click and hold the mouse button down and drag the mouse to the bottom right cell. Notice how I am purposely ignoring the comments column and also I am ignoring the very top row. Once you have selected the cells to copy, right click the mouse and select Copy (as below). I could have included the comments column had I wished but for my intended use I don t need them as I plan to just draw the tree data to CAD; the comments won t be necessary. Additionally, comments can be the biggest cause of errors because they may contain CR (Carriage returns) etc. An important point to remember is that your filter will be created for the format which you used in your setup excel sheet. You cannot later change the order of the columns as the filter will expect the data in the original order and allocate subsequent survey data accordingly. If you need to change the column order or add an extra column etc, it s a simple matter to modify the existing filter using this same method.

4 Now we need to open the ArborCAD filter manager. So startup ArborCAD, select the filter manager from the Filter drop down menu. Once the Filter manager window opens select Add New from the Filter drop down menu.

5 The new filter interface is loaded. Select Paste File Sample from the File drop down menu. If you have lost the Excel copy data from the clipboard buffer, go back to Excel and copy the cells once more. The window should look something like below. The TB character represents a Tab which indicates a column break in Excel.

6 We must now tell the program about the character that separates each column of data. Excel uses Tabs (TB) when copying cells directly, as we did, so click the mouse on any TB character you like so it highlights with a small orange square (see below). Now select Set Separation Character from the Modify drop down menu.

7 The data reshuffles so each data field is located on its own row. Each row now represents an Excel column. The next step is to tell the program where the data for the first tree ends. So first click the mouse on any character within the row which holds the data for the last column of the first tree. For this example it is the row before T2 because T2 is the tag for the second tree. So I have clicked it on the 7 which is the last item (west canopy) of the first tree (see below).

8 Now select Set End Field from the Modify drop down menu. This is telling the program which row represents the last column of data for the first tree; it will now know how many rows represent each tree. This is why you cannot change your Excel sheet by adding columns of data, etc without adjusting your filter to match. If you do so, your data will become mixed up! And the screen data reshuffles once more (below) showing that we have 14 rows (columns) of data and each row has a number which repeats throughout the listing. So every Tag will now be on row 1, every Category is on row 10 etc. You can scroll down and check each tree if required. If your data suddenly breaks its sequence then it s likely you have some change of format in your survey data, maybe a CR or extra line of text.

9 The next step is to tell the program what each row of data represents. We do this by first selecting a row of data and assigning it to one of the coloured field buttons. So start by selecting any character on the first row (see below). With a character in the first line selected (which is my tag number) and showing the orange square (see the T of T1 below), now click the yellow field button labeled Tag Num with the mouse (see below).

10 And the screen display refreshes showing the tag field allocated for each tree (as below). Now to proceed with the next field. First click the mouse anywhere within row 2 (see 1 below) and because this is the Latin name I click on the black Latin field button (see 2 below). Had I used common names instead I would have picked the red Name field button instead.

11 And the screen refreshes showing the Latin name allocation. Simply continue selecting rows and linking them to the relevant field buttons. If you don t want to include a particular row for some reason, just leave it set to ignore.

12 The filter has a number of additional settings available if needed. For example, with this filter I want the program to detect the type field directly from the tag number. I do this by selecting from the Settings drop down menu (as below). This will basically instruct the program to look at the tag number and set the type to Tree if it finds a T before the tag number or Group if it finds a G etc. There are also conversion settings here, a common one used is the convert diameter from meters to millimeters. The filter is just about finished but I will give it a meaningful name first. Select Edit Filter Name from the Edit drop down menu (see below).

13 Type in a meaningful name to identify your filter. Click OK. And that s it! Select Apply and Return from the File drop down menu to close the filter manager. Click Yes to the alert box.

14 On returning to ArborCAD, check the new filter is selected from the filter drop down menu. You can create up to 10 filters and select the one to use for conversion by ticking from the list (see below). The filter will is now saved for future use and will load automatically every time you start ArborCAD. I will now test that the filter works correctly by importing a survey which is compatible with the filter. In this example I will use the same survey that was used to setup the filter in the first place. I will start the process by first making sure that ArborCAD is running and then go to my Excel sheet, select the correct number of columns and copy the data to the clipboard by right clicking the mouse and selecting copy (see below).

15 Now, go back to ArborCAD, select Import and Convert from Clipboard from the File drop down menu. This uses whatever data is in the windows clipboard buffer. The survey data is loaded and converted by the active filter which should be the one we just made. The data has been sorted into the field columns as defined by the filter.

16 I will look at one tree in more detail to check it s all working ok. I first click the cursor on any row (I picked T3 below), right click the mouse and select Edit cursor row. And the data is displayed in more detail. Note the 3 diameter readings and the calculated Mean Diameter. You can compare it with the original Excel extract further below. End of tutorial