Eliot Sinclair & Partners in New Zealand (https://eliotsinclair.com/) began their innovation journey with 12d Model quite some time ago, with a young Sam Cech then leading the charge with their macro development.
Not every software package makes it easy to export 12d Model data to it. A number of Eliot Sinclair & Partners (“ESP”) clients were using software packages that were open source (or not widely used), and thus custom export macros provided the best results. Below are some examples.
- An ESP client working on the Wimakeriri River fish habitat studies was using a software package by the University of Alberta – River2D, a two-dimensional depth averaged finite element hydrodynamic model which has been customised for fish habitat evaluation studies.
The requested export format needed to contain point and break lines to allow the River2D package to perform its own triangulation. Roughness height value was also supplied, but more was needed to optimise efficiency on this important project. - ESP was supplied an Adobe Illustrator file in an older version, which they were unable to open. The ASCII file was deemed to likely be corrupt, so they decided to create a custom import tool for 12d Model to extract as much information as possible.
- ESP client SCIRT needed the ability to import and export complex multi level attribute groups for many strings, and while there are many native options in 12d to do these exports, most only allow for one type of string.
- ESP’s internal GIS package for cadastral information, Quickmap, allows for the import and management of custom information. They were eager to upload points and lines into Quickmap in order to show nationwide areas they have surveyed and benchmarks established on sites that could be reused by future surveys. Because Quickmap is an Access Database system that utilises WellKnownText, they needed another export tool from 12d Model.
Faced with these challenges, the most effective solution was to leverage the expertise of their 12d Model Customisation specialist to develop tailored 12d Model macros.
These custom macros enabled the ESP team to:
– help optimise their client’s River2D work on the Wimakeriri River
– extract all the relevant information from the corrupted Illustrator file
– assist SCIRT with importing and exporting complex multi-level attribute groups for many strings with their macro that recognises both drainage and super strings
– create the export tool they needed for working with Quickmap.
Building on these successful outcomes, ESP intends to further expand its use of 12d Model macros to drive efficiency and solve increasingly complex challenges in the future.