About Exporting Maps to AutoCAD

In the output drawing, object attributes, labels, and any joined data are not preserved. You can view the output drawing with previous versions of AutoCAD Map 3D toolset and with AutoCAD, and the output drawing can be used by the Sheet Set Manager.

The Save Current Map to AutoCAD wizard has two methods for converting your map to AutoCAD format

Editable

This method creates an AutoCAD drawing that contains (to the degree possible) a single styled entity for each entity in the original map. Geospatial features are converted to closed polylines, lines, and blocks. For example, a polygon with a complex fill becomes a single closed polyline boundary using the topmost border style and one or more associative hatches. Feature labels with a background become MText entities with an associated hatch.

Some styling options cannot be represented in AutoCAD. For example, ghosted text becomes simple MText. Lines that use complex or composite styles become multiple polylines. Points that use complex styles become multiple blocks.

The names of the feature classes, symbols, and line styles in the current map (and the existence of same-named AutoCAD layers, blocks, and linetypes) determine how the converted features appear in the target drawing.

If your map contains feature classes whose names match AutoCAD layers in the map, the conversion process creates a layer with that name in the target drawing and places the features for that class as entities on that layer.

If you styled a point feature using a symbol, and your drawing contains a block with the same name, the conversion process will create a block reference to that block to represent the points in the target drawing.

Linear features that use a line style with the same name as an AutoCAD linetype in your map will use that AutoCAD linetype in the target drawing.

To create a target drawing in which feature classes are mapped to different layers, linetypes, or block references than the ones in the current map, create an AutoCAD (.DWT) template. Same-named items in the template will determine the appearance of their counterparts in the current map. For example, if the current map contains points that use a symbol called A, and the map contains a block called A, you can include a different block in your template that is also called A, and the conversion process will use the one in the template rather than the one in the drawing. Any entitites that are not defined in the template will use the styling in the drawing.

AutoCAD has two methods for determining line width: Lineweight and PolylineWidth. By default, the Editable conversion method uses Lineweight.

Visual

This method maintains visual fidelity to the greatest extent possible. Individual features are, for the most part, ignored. The display map is reconstructed in AutoCAD using as many entities as needed. The resulting map may be difficult to edit. For example, ghosted text will become multiple text entities overlaid on one another to imitate ghosting; a complex hatch pattern may become many short lines or points.

Each display layer in your map is saved to a corresponding layer in the target drawing.

To output multiple maps based on different zoom scales, you must save individual maps for each desired zoom scale.