From the Ground Up
A European perspective on design and out of the box thinking with Civil 3D.
About Jack About OveLatest Post
- posted 01/23/09 by Jack Strongitharm Tab between drawings
- Is it just me but I missed out on this one.
Using the 'Ctrl' Key held down and then hit the TAB key you can switch between drawings in AutoCAD.
Probably been there ever since AutoCAD could handle more than one drawing at a time in one session.
Nevermind, but I bet there are plenty of you that missed it also.
Jack Strongitharm1 comments In From the Ground Up > Tips and Tricks
Add to Bookmarks
Previous Posts
-
Combine with an Analysis Surface
Posted 11/26/08 by Ove Cervin
Hi there,
Last week I was on Iceland again - and this time I spent some relaxing time on the Blue Lagoon. www.bluelagoon.com
Not bad, not bad at all... Half way between the airport and the city of Reykjavik.
In Civil 3D, as you are well aware of, it is very easy to create Surface of almost any kind.
I just want to give some hints to new users, to open up for a "broader mind", on how you can use it in an "extended" way.
For example, one thing is that because of the linked objects, you can relate a Surface easily to another.
If you then design a simple parking with elevations, Feature lines etc - present it with contours etc, like below:
What you can easily do, besides assigning a number of Surface Labels, is creating Slope arrows on the Surface.
Like below:
To avoid Slope arrows on the whole Parking Surface (including the Grading slopes etc) and just keep it over the paved area, you can create a new Surface.
In my case called "Parking Analysis". Then under that Surface, Definition, use "Edit" - "Paste Surface" and add the Parking Surface.
Apply a Surface Style that has Slope Arrows "ON" and set the "Analysis" parameters on that tab.
After that is done you simply put a Border to it using a Polyline etc from the "Curb stone" and then you don't have the Slope Arrows on the Grading anymore.
In my case, below, I get only a few Arrows. That's because we get one Arrow per Triangle.
If we add more Points to the Feature lines, preferable after we have given them proper elevations, grades, mid/low/high points etc, we can get more triangles.
Use the button with the Yellow triangle "Insert PI". Then select the Feature line, and type "I". Set a distance that will divide the Feature line in to more segments. In my case I use 15 meters. See the small grey triangles presented.
This gives a more dense triangulation as the Feature lines gets more segments. See the orange Triangles below that correspond to the Slope Arrows.
Of course you don't present the Triangles in YOUR Style... ;-)
Now I am really looking forward to AU next week.
Hope to see some of you there!
Best regards / Ove Cervin
-
Editable ground profile
Posted 10/22/08 by Jack Strongitharm
Sometimes we may want to work closely to the existing ground, but not want to retrace all the existing ground profile to get a design profile.
Of course there is a little trick that you can pull off to get this desired effect.
What you can do, is draw the ground profile
Click on profile view properties and profile tab.
Then change the status to 'Static'
You know you have a Static profile, when you select it as it will display lots of grips
Then what you can do is edit the profile, with the grid panorama window, grip edit or in this case I will raise it 100mm up, just so you can see the result.
Also maybe change the name of the profile and change the style so it will look different to the original ground.
'Raise VIPs/PVIs'
You also probably want the original ground back, so just go back to 'Profile from surface' and add the existing ground surface again and click ok, not draw
Final result
Could be handy
Jack Strongitharm
-
Points where Lines intersect
Posted 07/04/08 by Ove Cervin
Hello everyone
Last week we got the question if it is possible to create Points where Lines intersect with each other.
After some thinking we came up with this solution, and it is possible right out of the box.
This might be used for several reasons. You might want to create COGOs or just to get Points for Surface creation etc.
If we use the Map command, "Drawing Cleanup" we can get markers where Lines intersect.
This is the way to do it:
- Start the command "_mapclean"
- Use "Select all" (or select manually, a Layer etc)
- For Cleanup Actions, select "Break Crossing Objects"
- In the same dialog, select "Interactive" at the bottom.
- For Cleanup Methods, select "Modify original objects"
- For Error Markers, select "Maintain markers when command ends" (Necessary!!). Choose a symbol.
- After Finish, you get this dialog. Don't miss to choose "Mark All"...
- ...and in the end you get a series of Blocks presented where the Lines intersect.
...and as you can see they are Blocks...
I guess similar methods using MapCleanup might help also in other cases.
Good luck cleaning! Cheers // Ove
-
Surface Labels - Slope and Grade
Posted 06/24/08 by Ove Cervin
Hello friends!
Have you driven on Manhattan - or in Tokyo ? I have - now!
Why don't you try it out here...?
http://geoquake.jp/en/webgame/DrivingSimulatorGM/
and you might also want to try driving a truck/trailer...
I had some fun there ,-)
Our friendly colleague, Tomas Lendvorsky has created a few tips&tricks I'd like to share here.
The first one is on "How to set up a Surface Slope Label Style using Expressions" that makes it possible to present "0:0" on Horizontal Surfaces. Might seem easy, and you might try it out - getting "0:0" on a Run:Rise Label ;-)
Here's how Tomas did it:
As you can see in the following image the Labels on the upper right part present Horizontal areas as text "Horizontal" and on the other side of the Surface it present the grade with % (-5.7% in that case).
On the bottom left side the same data is presented with a new Label, presenting a Run:Rise info on the flat area (0:0).
To get this; follow the below steps.
Edit the Label Style.
Here it has the name "Slope 1: "
To make a short explanation on the following; What is done here is a Labels with three parts. A slope arrow, a text containing "0:0" and a text containing the actual Surface Grade.
Depending on the value of the grade (Expression) the Text Height for these Label parts are shown as really small, or normal. That way it LOOKS like it is presenting 0:0 on flat areas only, even if that text IS there also on non-flat areas - but VERY small. And the other way around; The text presenting the correct grade (value from the Surface) IS there all the time, but if the grade is flat, that text part of the Label is really small. That is the reason you will see double data on top of each other in the dialogs here.
Detailed: The Surface Label here has three parts (below):
The "Slope Text" contains information from the Surface but has a Text Height from an Expression (below) called "SlopeNotZero".
For the part of the Label presenting "Text Horizontal" the content is "0:0".
The Text Height is here (below) set to the Expression "SlopeZero".
The Expressions used in the Labels to get the proper Text height is done like this:
We have two Expressions.
Create these two Expressions.
Named: "SlopeZero"
...and named "SlopeNonZero"
Then use them as described above in the Surface Label.
Hope you'll get the idea. ;-)
Thanks Tomas for sharing this!
We have a few more nice tips from Tomas that will be shared here soon.
Cheers / Ove Cervin
-
Sorting Point Groups
Posted 02/22/08 by Ove Cervin
Hello again,
Sorry I have been a bit quite... There is a lot coming up soon, which has been my focus for some time ;-)
Here in Sweden I can actually say now that it is not "pitch black" anymore in the morning when I head for office or airport. Nice! Spring will be here within a month, finally... one day with snow this "winter" in Gothenburg. Too bad.
Below I want to mention a way to handle Survey Points stored in Point Groups.
When I import a Survey .FBK and sort the Points in to several Point Groups I might want to use some Point Groups for my creation of a TIN, but not all.
As I have several Point Groups in the drawing I have to pick which one to be used for my Surface.
Include Point Groups for the Surface.
Selecting which Groups to get there. Imagine selecting ten, thirty or more Point Groups - not great...
Instead - create a separate Point Group first.
Call it "TIN", "TIN data" or something.
Under the Tab "Point Groups" you can select the Point Groups that will go in to this "major" Point Group.
Then it is much easier to select only one Point Group for the Surface.
Have a nice weekend! Cheers / Ove -
User Contours
Posted 02/01/08 by Ove Cervin
Hello again,
Now back again from the Gunslinger Jack mentioned. That WAS an exiting week. I'm REALLY looking forward to all new things coming up... ;-)
I'm also looking forward to the Easter Holiday as I am a big fan of skiing downhill. I will go to my brothers place in Zermatt in Switzerland.
Anyway - here's a tip on something I didn't find myself. There's always tools and settings in C3D which is a little more hidden than others... A colleague mentioned where to find this. Thanks Peter Funk ;-)
If you have a Volume Surface (or general Surface as well) where you want to present custom/user defined contours to use for area calculations etc, here's a way to do that.
In this case the customer wanted to calculate the area for some volumes within a range.
Sample below shows a Volume TIN Surface.
As you can see this is presented with a Surface Style for Color analysis with a range.
To show also the contours for the very same range/interval you can do like this.
Go to the Surface Style for this Surface and turn on "User Contours" under the Tab "Display".
Then go to the Surface Properties and the Tab "Analysis".
Choose Analysis type "Elevations" - set color range.
Then select the Analysis type "User-defined contours" and set the interval where you want the contours to display.
Set range/interval
This will present your Volume Surface with also a Contour between the color ranges in the analysis.
Then you can use (Surface menu - Utilities), Extract Objects from Surface.
All Contours are now available for area calculation.
Have a nice weekend!
Cheers / Ove Cervin
-
Online Blocks
Posted 01/03/08 by Ove Cervin
Ohla !
Hope you all had a REALLY GREAT Christmas !!
This will be a short tip on another part from Design Center that I'd like you all to be aware of.
Open up Design Center.
Starting up Design Center - as we did just before Christmas...
Select the last tab - DC Online
Browse down and check what categories you find in the list.
If we select, for example, 3D Architectural - Landscaping, we will see this:
As you can see there is an option to "Save this symbol as...."
You can also drag and drop the symbol straight in to the drawing.
It is an 3D object that can be nicely orbited.
...and another sample might be..
Put it in...
Now we have two new symbols for Landscaping drawings.
...and they are all for free.
Now we´re just about to go for a week in Munich - testing out next version, Civil 3D 2009. Looking forward to that... !!
Cheers / Ove
-
Tool Palette
Posted 12/20/07 by Ove Cervin
Hello again,
HAPPY HOLIDAYS to ALL !!!
I found this little thing interesting and I hope you'll like it ;-)
We have our familiar Tool Palettes as seen below.
Open up Design Center.
In Design Center we have this interface. It's an excellent tool to get data in from other drawings.
Select the Tab "Folders" to the upper left.
Browse to a folder where you have a drawing containing a number of Blocks/Symbols. I will use a drawing that has several ground- base map symbols.
Mark the drawing and you get a preview.
If you then, on the left part of the window, mark the sub-item "Blocks", as I have done, you'll see the Blocks in that drawing.
If you want a Block in to your drawing now - just drag-drop it in to the design.
Better - try this!
Select all nice Blocks that you might want to use more frequently. (Use CTRL and Shift to get more at a time)
Right click and select "Create Tool Palette".
This gives you all symbols/Blocks as a separate Tab on the Tool Palette.
Great - isn't it!? ...and of course you can also rename all things in the Tool Palette.
Have a great Christmas, all of you!
Cheers / Ove Cervin -
Enhance your search for help
Posted 12/18/07 by Ove Cervin
Hello!
I think a lot of the Civil 3D users are missing this Search tool when they are trying to find written help/support etc.
In Civil 3D there is a search tool, found at the upper right. Yep - you have touched it I guess. It actually brings up a lot of information when you use it.
If I try a search on Gradings I get this:
But to get all that, more than from a "standard" search, you need to tweak the settings a bit.
Use the "Star" to access the settings.
Select "Settings".
Here you can select what Help Files that are searched when you use the Search tool. Tick mark all that applies.
Used it before? ;-)
Cheers / Ove C
-
Coordinates to ASCII
Posted 12/13/07 by Ove Cervin
Hi everyone.
I have been a bit quite the last couple of weeks due to several reasons...
Here in Scandinavia it is totally pitch black - complete darkness has come as it is late December. What we do have regarding lights is - Lucia. December 13:th (today) is the day for celebrating Lucia.
It's a tradition here in Scandinavia. (Read about it here if you want more feeling for it...)
This topic will be about how to use a function that are within AutoCAD Map 3D 2008, which you have also in Civil 3D. If you have a set of objects, Polylines in this example, and want the coordinates for them out to a file, this is one way. I have saved the Polylines in one drawing called "Polylines input to Map.dwg". They look like this:
Save that drawing and close it.
Open a new drawing and use the Map Query to get the data. To do that I will explain how to get the "Tools" available.
On the command line, use:
Command: _mapwspace
Task Pane [On/oFf]:
Task Pane is visible.
Then select the Tab "Map Explorer".
Right click on "Drawings" and select "Attach".
If your drawing is located anywhere else than locally on "C:\" you need to set up an "Alias" for that drive/folder.
Click the button to access the Alias dialog.
Type in an alias and browse to the folder - use ADD.
After that you can use the alias and browse to and select the source drawing.
Once the link is established you can see it in the workspace.
To get the data in to this drawing you can right click on the link and select "Quick View".
Use Zoom Extents to see the objects as a "Preview". Note that you can't access the objects. They are only shown as one object.
Now we know that data is connected, and we do see it.
Create a Map Query. Right click on "Current Query", as below, and select "Define".
Now we need to tell what to get/select in that attached drawing. (It could also be from a dwg containing loads of different data).
Select "Location".
Select "All". This will select all data from any location in the dwg.
Then select "Property".
To make sure we don't get any "hidden" objects we specify that we also have the condition "Layer". Here you set "Value to match the Layer where the Polylines are stored.
Value will be "Exported-Polylines" which is the Layer in the source drawing.
As we don't (in this case) want the graphics in, only a Report, we select "Report" instead of "Draw".
Hit "Options" and then "Expression..."
Use "Properties" and scroll down to "X1,Y1,Z1"
Type in a path and report name. Also use "Process Sub-Objects".
Click "OK" and then in the main dialog - "Execute Query".
As seen on command line - the query found some data.
It is now stored in the .txt as below. X, Y and Z value.
I hope it can help in some way. Note that you also get all data as "one string". Just to be aware...
It might be enhanced in several ways in the Report and Expression.
Cheers / Ove C