I can't get the dxf background to appear. I've tried smaller dxf file sizes, bringing it into a new file, transforming the world coordinates. No joy. I've noticed that even though I reduced the size of the dxf file, it still has X,Y coordinates of 1 billion when viewed in the select backgrounds window. I've tried clicking, double clicking,on the X,Y values (as well as the color) to change them, but with no joy. Please advise.
I think it is always better to convert it to some kind of picture formats, like jpeg or bitmap etc... since you already lose all the functionalities of the DXF after it was imported into Synchro anyway.
Caltrans has a nice in-house digital image inventory of the state highway system, which is very accurate for measuring distances. problem is, that it hasn't been updated since they completed it probably 5 years ago. Anybody done some checking to see how accurate the distance measuring tool from google maps is?
I know one this I do to minimize scale errors is measure points that are as far apart as practical. A 10 foot error at 3000 feet is much smaller than a 10 foot error at 100 feet.
Google's distance tools (under the "My Maps") can be close enough sometimes. You still have to use some good judgement though. (Safe to call a 253' bay 250' most of the time)
It's better if you have access to rasters/sids though. If you're comfortable with MSDOS, you can launch the SID converter that's built into Synchro from the command line prompt. (...\program files\trafficware\mrsiddecode.exe plus switches) It gives you some options to convert a clipped portion instead of the whole thing. If you have the geo reference file to go with the SID, you can figure out the pixel:feet.
Easier yet, just clip an aerial in Microstation or Autocad and export it to a picture file. If you know the dimensions of your exported image and the pixels of the final image, you can crunch the numbers for the scaling in Synchro.
I usually don't go to all that effort unless I really need a good scale.
