Importing Points and Adjusting Point Styles

This is an approximate play-by-play for Lectures on Monday, January 16 and 17.   If you happen accross this page and would like to follow, I'd be willing to share the the template and ascii file referenced below if you join the blog as a "follower". :)

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Open Autodesk Civil 3D. (2011)

Import Civil 3D template (handed out in class) - cv406(winter).dtw (dwtextension signifies Autodesk Template file). Setting the template can be done multiple ways. Here are two:

1) Type OP to bring up the Autocad options menu. Determine where templates are currently being stored, by examining the path shown below.

 

Copy the template to the path shown listed under "Drawing Template File Location".  Template is now stored and should be easily accessible to create a new drawing from.

On the command prompt, type _NEW. The template path will open and the desired template can be selected.

2) Alternatively, the dwt file can be copied to a location and dragged into the drawing window.  This will open a new drawing with "drawing#.dwg".  Be sure to check layer manager and some of the settings on prospector to determine that the template was indeed imported.

Save the file name.  Suggested file name is "LastName_FirstName.dwg".

If the template was imported correctly, you will see; a drawing scale of 1:200 (metric) in the bottom corner. The new name saved at the top of the screen. A list of Points Styles shown in the Toolspace.

 Now that a rough template has been established, we can import a point file.  The one distributed in class "cv406-points.txt" was determined to be in the format - Point Number, Northing, Easting, Elevation, Description (comma delimited).

 

Let's begin the import process of the acsii file.

From the Ribbon Bar....

                Click the Points pulldown menu, then click on Point Creation Tools to open the toolbar.

 

After the toolbar opens, select Import Points  which will generally be located on the extreme right of the toolbar.

 

Populate the Import Points dialogue box as show below. Be sure to choose "PNEZD (comma delimited)".  Under Source File Click the "plus" icon on the right side of the box and path back to where the text file was previously saved. 

I went a step further here by importing the points directly into a point group for easier manipulation.  (Reasons for this were discussed in class).  Click OK.

Type ZE  for zoom extents. 

Your import should look like shown below.

 

After further inspection, we see that some of our points come in with symbols (ie. Station, Trees), but not all. 

Some points, such as ground shots (spot shots for grade only) will not require symbols, but we can manipulate how those points looks.  Several were discussed in class.  I'll provide some information on a couple of them below.

A good way of accomplishing this, is to create point groups for certain things you will want to change.

Here's is an example provided below:

Right-click on Point Group and select New as shown below.

When the window opens, give this group a name "Iron Bars" and change the point style to "Iron Pin".  This will add a symbol defined in the template to the Iron Bars collected in this point group.

We should visibly inspect that the point group creation was implemented correctly.

Notice above, that there were 6 points filtered into the group, one of which has a suffix of "/POW".  This point was included because of the "*" wild card character mentioned earlier.

Right-click on point 102, and select the Zoom to option.  This will allow us to inspect that the symbol for the iron pin was added to the point.

 

After we zoom into 102, we see that an Iron Pin symbol was added.

We can continue making changes to all aesthetic attributes in this fashion.  Please remember a few of the other items demonstrated in lecture including, what to do when a point was two point codes and how to prioritize.  As shown in one of the earlier images, point 183 has a description of "IPF/POW" and may be included in more than one point group.  If so, remember you can prioritize your groups, by right clicking on Point Groups in the Prospector and setting the order (Top taking priority).

This is the start of building a topographic basemap.  We will continue building a site from this information.

Don't forget to have your automatic save location noted, and maybe even bookmarked! 

Here is the link to the AIA Cad Standards........

http://www.cadinstitute.com/download/pdf/AIA%20Layer%20Standards.pdf

Civil 3D Text Sizing - When Dynamic Labeling Isn't So Dynamic

One of Civil 3D's great benefits, transforms to grief when you can't seem to translate text sizes from model space to paper space.  If you've decided to add text to model space and want to create viewports of the model, the text may show too big, too small or not at all.  Below, I'll show you the settings you should check if you run into this problem.

The image below shows a drawing in model space with text sized at the intended size for a 1:500 scale drawing.

Image 1

Notice the station labels circled in red, as well the 1:500 scale annotation setting.  To get this text showing 1.0mm high on the 1:500 setting the label style needs to be set to 2.0mm as shown below.

NOTE: Measurement is halved since drawings in model are 1:1000 rather than 1:500, however; this will be irrelevant as shown later in the post.

Image 2

A closer inspection in modelspace shows the text size to measure at the correct 1.0mm.

Image 3

All seems to be going great.  Until you get into paperspace and create your viewports. For some strange reason your dynamic text isn't so dynamic. The situation shown below, not only doesn't display the text at the wrong size, but doesn't show it all.  Notice the text that was circled in Image 1 doesn't appear in paperspace.

Image 4

The first trouble shooting action is to check the viewport scales.  The image below shows the viewport having the same scale as model space.  In theory, the text size should be showing 2.0mm high. 

Image 5

So the grief begins....you start checking layers, creating new viewports, thawing everything.  All to no avail.  Do yourself a favor and check the Page Setup Manager.  The Page Setup Manager is accessed by right-clicking on the tab of the viewport you are concentrating on.

Image 6



The image above shows the plot size to be 11.00 x 17.00.  The Page Setup Manager's plot size will have to correspond to the size of the viewport and border in paperspace.  Revisions shown below correspond to the metric dimensions actually sized for the border.

Image 7

Assuming that all layers are thawed (including "viewport only freezes") the text labels will now be sized as originally set in the Label Style Composer (Image 2).

Image 8

Now that you've found your missing Civil 3D labels, or adjusted the text to the correct label size, you can go back to burying yourself back in the design work rather than Civil 3D settings and styles nuances.