Discussion: Shapefile to OCAD Standard

What is the easiest way to load data from a shapefile into OCAD Standard (version 10)?

My method is not particularly easy but I convert the shapefile into a dxf file and than import that into OCAD. I'm using OCAD 8, I think some of the newer versions of OCAD do the conversion directly though maybe you need the professional version. I use a free program called DXF Author to convert the Shapefile to DXF though I have used some others too.

OCAD 10 does...but only the Professional version. Because basic format conversion is something you should all have to pay more for.

Personally I use QGIS for this kind of thing.

Indeed Global Mapper, tntMIPS, or QGIS for shapefile to DXF, then import the DXF.

Ok, sounds good, thank you. At what point would I be doing conversion from state plane to UTM?

I am not answering that but, where I am, everything is referenced to state plane so leaving the map in that coordinate system helps with aligning aerial photos

Right, but I have a preference for meters since most of the Lidar tools do not work too well with feet, and I usually convert everything to UTM with gdal or lastools at the very beginning.

Yes, you will prefer UTM. Many more photos are to UTM NAD83 than to state plane. All three tools I mentioned above should be able to reproject to UTM.

If you have a photo that is to state plane and you want it to UTM, you warp/reproject it with GDAL (which underlies QGIS, I'm sure you can also do it from a graphical interface). See the end of this thread.

Yes, QGIS worked pretty well. Add a vector layer from a shape file and then save it in a DXF file, and choose UTM zone while doing so. Easy!

For those of you in the U.S. who played with QGIS, has anyone tried importing the new package of one-minute NED 1/3" (or the smaller quarter-minute NED 1/9")? I know Global Mapper will do it but would like to be cheap since that's all I can afford.