AutoCAD Map and database integration

So, I’ve been messing around with AutoCAD Map 2000 lately.
I went ahead and built out some topology from a dwg file, then exported all that data into a txt file before finally converting it over to Excel.
Once I had everything, I filtered out the specific data points I actually care about because, honestly, there was way too much noise, and now my goal is to get this stuff visualized in Map. Everything is sitting in an Excel sheet right now—I've got the polygon IDs from when I made the topology, plus all those other little bits of info attached to them.
When I say "visualize" in Map, I really just mean I want to color things in, you know? Like, I want to take those specific filtered polygons and highlight them against the rest of the polygon topology so they actually pop.
My gut feeling is that I should probably convert this whole table into an mdb format and then link Map directly to that database, but man, I am completely stuck and hitting a wall here.
Does anyone have any tips or maybe a better way to tackle this?

I honestly have no clue what you're getting at here

So, I ended up dropping a question here on the forum because I was falling down a Google rabbit hole, just scrolling through endless threads about AutoCAD Map and all that related stuff.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I did manage to get some of the data from the database visualized, but for some reason, it’s only pulling in about 70% of it—it’s like it’s just being stubborn or something.
Since this whole dataset was originally pulled via an export from Map in the first place, I honestly can't wrap my head around why it won't just play nice and link everything up with the dwg file now.
I'm totally stumped as to where the disconnect is happening.
Anyone got any pointers or advice they could throw my way?

Paul Martinez37 said:I decided to post here after stumbling upon some threads about AutoCAD Map and similar software while searching Google.
I managed to visualize the database information, though I could only get about 70% of it to link up properly.
Since this data was originally exported from Map, I don't quite understand why I can't get everything to sync back with the DWG files.
The logic seems a bit fuzzy to me—I just can't see where the disconnect is.
Any advice?

Did you run a topology cleanup before you did the export? It’s possible you only have centroids within closed polygons...

Besides, there's no need to stress over it too much—since you're already using Map, you might want to dive into some topological and thematic querying.

Or, if you really want to make life easier, just convert everything to shapefiles and pick up Geomed or ArcInfo...

Yeah, so I went ahead and did a full drawing cleanup before I even touched the topology.
The data I'm trying to link up right now actually came straight out of the topology—you know, all those IDs, block attributes, centroid info, the whole nine yards—so I spent some time cleaning things up and filtering everything through Excel.
Once I had that filtered set ready, I dumped it into Microsoft Access and now I'm in the middle of trying to get that database to talk to my Map.
The weird thing is, it actually worked perfectly for about 70% of the rows in the database (even with the "link must exist" setting turned on), but then it just hit a wall and I'm totally stuck. Honestly, I have no clue what's causing the connection to fail on the rest of them.

I'm really trying to pull this off using Map, just testing out its limits to see if it can handle it.

Paul Martinez37 said:Sure, I ran a drawing cleanup before I even started building the topology.
The data I'm trying to link was exported from the topology—it includes IDs, block attributes, and centroid info—so I went ahead and filtered everything in Excel.
After filtering, I imported those records into Microsoft Access and now I'm attempting to link that database with AutoCAD Map.
So far, I’ve managed to successfully create links for about 70% of the rows in the database (with "must exist" enabled), but that's where I hit a wall. I'm honestly not sure what's causing the connection issues for the rest.

I'm just testing things out right now to see if I can get this done using AutoCAD Map.

Just to reiterate—if you're working within AutoCAD Map and need to isolate or hatch specific polygons, you should try a topology query, or better yet, a thematic query...

And if you're already stuck dealing with an MDB file... just open Microsoft Access and take a look at those specific rows where AutoCAD Map isn't pulling the data.

So, look, I’m pretty comfortable messing around with queries and all that, but I hit a bit of a snag when I tried to set up a filter for the specific category I was hunting for. It turns out my criteria ended up being based on comparing topology data against some other info that isn't actually tied to the CAD Map at all.
I'm going to go through the rows one by one to see what's what, but honestly, it looks like it's just that same leftover data that got stripped out of the topology earlier—basically just the bits and pieces that were left hanging.