29 Apr 2008
Visio map shapes illustrate data in Viiso 2007

While it's useful just to view geographic maps in Visio, the information becomes even more valuable when linked to data in Visio 2007. We'll show you how to do this using Visimation MapShapes and you can use similar techniques to link data with any Visio 2007 diagram.

First, where do you find good data? Businesses that collect data about their operations or customers can link those data to Visio if they are stored in a structured data file like Excel, Access, SQL Server, or any other database application format. To illustrate the method, we'll use data extracted from public records and placed into an Excel file. There is a wealth of free demographic data available for download from the US Census Bureau. The Download Center enables you to find data and then download it. Let's show how this works with an example. Suppose we want to graphically illustrate the median household income by county for the state of Maryland.

The Census Bureau has data for 1999 that you can retrieve as follows:

  1. Go to the Download Center

  2. Click on Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) - Sample Data

  3. Select "All Counties" and then "Go"

  4. Scroll down to item P53 and highlight "Median Household Income in 1999 (Dollars)

  5. Click the "Add" button to add it to current table selections

  6. Click "Next" then "Start Download"


This will take a few minutes to gather the data and then you can download the zip file. Save it to a folder, extract the files, and then start Excel.

  1. Select File>Open and navigate to the file "dc_dec_2000_sf3_u_data1.txt" that you just extracted

  2. In the Text Import Wizard, select "Delimited" then "Next"

  3. In the Delimeters section, check Other and then enter "|" by pressing Shift and the backslash "\" key

  4. Click Finish to import the data

  5. Expand the columns so you can see the headings

  6. This gives you all of the counties in the US sorted by state.

  7. Delete all of the rows that are not in Maryland and save the file as "Maryland - median income.xls"

  8. Delete the row for Baltimore City because it is not a county

  9. Delete the first row containing: GEO_ID, GEO_ID2, SUMLEVEL, GEO_NAME, P053001 (we don't need this)

  10. Finally, to match the county names in our drawing we must remove " County, Maryland" from all of the entries. Select Edit>Replace and fill in the box as shown and then click "Replace All" (note that there is a blank space in front of County and that the "Replace with" field is left completely empty). This should leave only the text for the county name.




    11. Save the file again... now we have data to link in Visio 2007. If you have the Visimation MapShapes of the US, you can drop Maryland on the page, then move and resize it as needed. Link the data by selecting Data>Link Data to Shapes. Follow the wizard to select the Excel file. Here's what it will look like with the Maryland map shape:



    Let's link the data to the counties:

    1. In Visio 2007 select Data>Display Data on Shapes to open the Data Graphics window at the right

    2. At the bottom of the Data Graphics window, if "Apply after linking data to shapes" is checked, then uncheck it

    3. With the Maryland shape selected on the Visio page, right click in the External Data Window and select Automatically Link

    4. Check the radio button for Selected Shapes

    5. In the dialog, set the Data Column to "Geography" to equal the Shape Field "County Name" as below and click "Finish".




    The data records are now linked to the counties and the linking process has added new Shape Data to the county shapes:



    To color the map based on the data we'll need a Visio 2007 Data Graphic. The MapShapes US Visio template already contains a Data Graphic that colors the regions and states according to their US Census Bureau ID number. We're going to copy this and modify it to color the Maryland counties.

    1. In the Data Graphics window, click at the right side of the Data Graphic and select Duplicate to copy it

    2. In the copy, click at the right side and select Edit Data Graphic

    3. Under "Data Field", click the pull-down menu and select "Households: Median household income in 1999"

    4. Click "Edit Item" and you will see that Visio has selected ranges based on the data set and assigned colors to each range; you can change these if you wish or click OK to accept

    5. Let's also add an informative icon by selecting "New Item" and "Icon Set"

    6. In the Data Field, pick "Households: Median household income in 1999" once again and select the Callout as below:




    We're just about ready to color the map by referencing the data. Here are the final steps:

    1. Select the Maryland shape and then Shape>Grouping>Ungroup. Although this will sever the state relationship, it provides access to the counties for data linking.

    2. Select all of the counties and click the new Data Graphic we just created to apply it to the selected shapes.



    Maryland counties with Data Graphic applied to show median household income: Darker = higher income


    Close-up of colored map - note the icon on Somerset County at lower right to designate low income

    This is just one example of the data visualization versatility of Visimation MapShapes.

 
New shapes , Using Visio
posted by  administrator at  08:49 | permalink



18 Apr 2008
Drawing geographic maps with Visio

ShapeSource (www.ShapeSource.com) attracts thousands of visitors looking for Visio shapes and add-ons. What would you think is the most popular download? What type of shapes are requested most? The product downloaded most often is our free US Map stencil and we receive more requests for Visio map shapes than any other type of shape with the exception of network equipment.

To meet the demand for Visio map shapes we looked at several approaches. First we considered converting existing presentation quality vector image files into Visio. However, we found that the boundaries of several products we reviewed were not precise enough to meet our standards. They didn't fit together all that well. They may be just fine for a PowerPoint presentation but we wanted to offer truly accurate map shapes. We accomplished our goal by converting data from Geographical Information Systems (GIS) such as ESRI shape files. We had already created a program for importing ESRI files into Microsoft MapPoint so we extended that technology to generate Visio map shapes from these super accurate data files. The result is MapShapes a series of Visio stencils containing shapes that accurately represent geography and offer several automation features.

For example, consider the problem of fitting map segments together once you have disassembled them. There are several techniques that can return shapes to their original position. Ours is based on real relative coordinates of geographical regions as defined by the GIS data. When you drag a shape to a page, it locates itself on the page according at its relative position to other geography. If you move or resize the shape, you can right click to a menu that resets its original size and position. This eliminates any guess work. In the example below, we dropped aPacific, New England, South Central, and South Atlantic region shapes onto the page. They located themselves and subsequent additions will fit perfectly.



We also wanted our map shapes to enable easy access to the wealth of information available on the Web for geographical regions. Each MapShape contains a contextual link to the Wikipedia entry for the selected shape. From Wikipedia you can access a tremendous amount of additional information from links on its pages.



Unlike clipart, MapShape Visio map shapes enable you to visualize data in Visio 2007. David Parker, a Microsoft Visio MVP, has developed a very nice Visio data model for the United Kingdom. MapShapes can visualize whatever data set you choose with Visio 2007.

Chris Roth, aka Visio Guy, has drawn several maps with national boundaries that are useful and include some of the features we've developed for MapShapes. There are several differences between these free sources and MapShapes which are for sale. GIS accuracy, attention to detail, automation features that make it easy to assemble maps and visualizations, and the ability to extend their information reach well beyond Visio and out to the Web. We also include vector files that you can insert into any Microsoft Office document without needing Visio.

Our first MapShapes set is for US States and Counties. We plan to release many more map sets based on GIS data.
 
New shapes , News , Using Visio
posted by  administrator at  17:00 | permalink



13 Feb 2008
Converting recent AutoCAD DWG files to work with Visio

Many of us in the Visio user community have struggled with Visio's inability to convert AutoCAD files in DWG format versions later than 2000/2002. Hope is on the horizon with the next version of Visio but many of us cannot wait that long.

If you don't have access to a copy of AutoCAD and would like to convert a late version DWG file to an earlier version that Visio can open, there are a couple of free tools that I've recently found to accomplish this. One is Autodesk TrueView 2008. However, TrueView requires a whopping 150+ MB of disk space and requires a lenghty installation process so if you do not need DWG viewing capabilities, it's overkill.

A more elegant solution is available from A9Tech of Redmond, WA which is right in Microsoft's backyard. The A9Converter requires only about 5MB, is much easier to use for conversions than TrueView, and performs batch conversions on groups of files into multiple versions of DWG including the 2000/2002 format that Visio 2003 and 2007 recognize.



As I said, both are free but the A9Tech solution is preferable for conversions. By the way, they also offer a free mini-CAD program that you can use as a DWG viewer called A9CAD. Both A9Converter and A9CAD offer very modestly priced "Pro" versions as well... great values!
 
News
posted by  administrator at  11:25 | permalink



30 Jan 2008
Items that don't display when copying from Visio to another application

One of our clients just sent us a Visio file with a problem that was frustrating them. The drawing contained a plan view of several network devices including rectangles to represent cabinet encosures. They grouped and copied the objects and then used Paste Special in Word to paste an image (note that the default Paste action in Word pastes a Visio embedded object into Word which you typically don't want). No matter what they tried, one of the enclusures simply would not appear in the pasted image. It appeared in Visio, and a copy of the enclosure appeared in Visio, but not in Word.

The culprit turned out to be the “NonPrinting” cell in the Miscellaneous section of the ShapeSheet set to “TRUE” which means a shape won't print. That can be verified by opening a Print Preview window... if the NonPrinting cell is set to TRUE the object won't appear in the preview or the hardcopy print.



Changing that cell to “FALSE” (which through the magic of double negative means it WILL print) in those rectangles enabled them to appear in Print Preview as well as in a copy/paste in Word. I have no idea how the rectangles got into that state, unless they were imported from a CAD file (my suspicion) where they may have been set to not print.
 
Using Visio
posted by  administrator at  13:54 | permalink



17 Dec 2007
A better way to produce BOM Bill of Materials and estimates with Visio

In a previous article we showed how to use an Inventory Report to generate a simple quantity take off. The problem with this method is that it's not flexible at all. While it does produce an accurate count of items in your drawing, you can't control the report output. It gives you the Master name for the shape and the quantity... that's it.

Visio is widely used to create drawings for many kinds of systems such as network equipment, HVAC controls, security systems, furniture, etc. Some advanced users have been able to generate a BOM but it takes time, skill, and effort to produce something you'd like to hand to a customer. Now there's a much easier way.

We've just released QuotePix, an addon for Visio 2007 and 2003 that does the heavy lifting that enables you to easily create a BOM and format the output to Excel in a customer ready format. You can find out more about QuotePix and download a trial at:
QuotePix for Visio

Design, estimate, and sell with QuotePix
 
News , Using Visio
posted by  administrator at  16:12 | permalink



1 Nov 2007
Bill of Materials BOM and Quantity Take-offs

Counting the number of objects in a Visio drawing is a very common need for proposals, submittals, and estimates. Visio provides a report add-on that performs this task in a very basic way. It's not easy to find in the Visio user interface:

Select Tools > Add-On > Reports > Inventory

It's not surprising that few Visio users even know about it.

Inventory gives you a choice of creating a Visio shape with the report totals or three other output formats: Excel, HTML, XML. If your drawing changes, right click on the Inventory shape and select Update Report to synchronize it with the drawing.



As I said, it's pretty basic but you may find it valuable. Visimation is working on a new product called QuotePix that provides more useful features with considerably more flexibility. Check ShapeSource for an announcement soon.
 
Using Visio
posted by  administrator at  16:55 | permalink



4 Oct 2007
More about "cleaning" unused Visio masters to reduce file size

In a previous post we discussed how Visio drawing file size is affected by "unused masters" in the document stencil. Our free
VisiClean tool can clean these out of Visio 2003 and earlier versions. VisiClean also works with Visio 2007 but 2007 has a built in clean feature in the File>Remove Hidden Information menu. However, this cleans only the open drawing.

If you have lots of Visio drawings at your company and would like to clean out multiple files in a "batch" mode without even opening Visio, try VisiBatchClean. We developed VisiBatchClean after receiving several requests from our clients. It's a very inexpensive and convenient way to clean a small or large number of files of unused masters that bloat their file size unnecessarily.
 
News , Using Visio
posted by  administrator at  18:35 | permalink



4 Oct 2007
Should Network Equipment Shapes be 1D or 2D?

For those of you who are familiar with the difference between 1D and 2D Visio shapes, please bear with us while we explain. It's very relevant to the way network equipment shapes fit together.

1D shapes behave like lines. There is a beginning point and an end point. You can move an end so that the line "rubberbands" according to the location of the end. Therefore, you would correctly assume that a line in Visio is a 1D shape. 2D shapes behave like boxes. You can stretch, expand, or collapse them by moving their handles.

These distinctions relate more to the behavior of the object than to its appearance. In fact, you can use the Format>Behavior menu in Visio to set the Interaction Style of your shape to either Line (1D) or Box (2D).
So, even if your object is a box, it can BEHAVE like a line if you set it to 1D.

In the world of network shapes, there are differing opinions about 1D vs. 2D. Some developers make all of their network shapes 2D while other make them all 1D. At Visimation, we design them with the following rule of thumb:

  • 1D: Devices that snap into other devices


    • Rack mounted equipment

    • Boards, cards, modules


  • 2D: Devices or objects that snap to one another


    • Cabinets

    • Enclosures



There are always exceptions, and this case is no exception (huh?).
The advantage of 1D shapes is that their endpoints snap nicely into default "inward" connection points. To snap 2D objects together we must use "2D glue" with inward connections points matched to outward connection points, or inward/outward connection points. 2D glue is less intuitive and sometimes produces unexpected results for the end user which is why we sometimes break our own rules to support a complex assembly problem.

For EMCOR Enclosures we produced shapes (that you can download for free here)for a modular system of cabinets, countertops, and accessories. In the Front view shapes we used 2D behavior and glue for attaching adjacent cabinets. However, in the Plan view shapes we used 1D behavior for all pieces because these assemblies often contain one or more angles... quite difficult for an end-user to handle with 2D shapes. 1D shapes are much easier to manipulate at odd angles.





In summary, choosing 1D or 2D behavior comes down to determining the best user experience for a particular assembly problem. For typical rack mounted shapes, 2D works well for cabinets and racks while 1D works best for devices that snap into the racks and cards that snap into the devices. The best way to get a feel for the difference between 1D and 2D in various assemble situations is to try it yourself with the free EMCOR and other shapes on ShapeSource
 
New shapes , Using Visio
posted by  administrator at  16:53 | permalink





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