Extract metadata from DXF files, import into xECM and search on added metadata

Phil Cox

The purpose of this article is to show and share knowledge on how easy it is to make Engineering Drawings, in this example, DXF ( Drawing Exchange Format ) files searchable by extracting metadata like Part Number or Part Description from the file and then adding this data when importing into xECM.

Doing a standard file import will most likely leave you with the following results. The minimum of metadata for your drawing.

When we view the file with Intelligent Viewing we can see there is a lot of information that we can use as metadata when we import the file

With the help of a Python library we can extract this information and append it when we upload using xECM REST API.

In xECM we created a Document Type called Engineering Drawings and in Search Manager configuration we can see what field attribute corresponds to which metadata field.

Now all is required is to iterate over all the DXF files we want to import and on upload, grab the node ID of the file and apply the extracted metadata.

If we compare to the listing below to the original you can see there is much more information about the file including, description, extra description number of revisions etc.

Now by adding those metadata fields to the search we can find drawing that match our search criteria for example..

The below shows all files that have in their "Extra Description" field the text "100 PSI"

That's it. In summary it's very easy to the xECM REST API to import documents and apply the required attributes when importing.

Below we see the 100 PSI text in the Extra Description Field

#GoBeyond Always Be Learning

Phil ****