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posted 06/26/08 by Jack Strongitharm A tool for the job - 2D to 3D

No a 2D flat drawing again!!!!

Yes I am sure you hate when this happens.
You are given a job to design and the data for the survey is 2D. There is nothing you can do as this is what the client has provided and to them, that is a survey has it has spot levels etc.

As we know there are some tools in Civil 3D to deal with the problem such as

Surface menu, Utilities and 'Move Text to Level'
This does simply read the text string and move it to that level. When you create a surface the point is the grip point of the text string.

Ok, so in the Map tools we can do a query on the drawing and aswell as doing the same task you can also move the text a specific distance.

But problem is that the survey drawing has had a number of manual edits such as moved text and rotation so that the drawing looks better.
This could be hours of going through the drawing trying to sort out the problem.

Luckily, as you know AutoCAD Civil 3D can be programmed by everyone and a large number of you make little macros and tools to deal with tasks like these.

A fellow user Will Forty has done such a task and has kindly given this tool to everyone on the Civil Community.
So I have loaded it up and here is the link

Link to the Utility

How does it work

Download the file from the link above 'NewExportPoints.dvb' to a location of your choosing

You can only do one type of block at the same time, so select a block and a text string near to it, right click and hit select similar, then go to Isolate and isolate selection

Type VBAMAN and click on load and find the file



Once loaded, highlight the tool in the list and click on VB Editor
This loads the VB editor and all you need to do is click on the play button



Select the block and hit 'Auto Associate'



You will see that is will draw a simple line in graphics to show which text string will be associated with each block.
You then need to confirm which ones you are happy with. Generally you will accept them all, so you can just select everything in display.

From this you will get a message to say that AutoCAD points have been generated.

So you now will have AutoCAD points in the position of the shot at the correct level.

Create your surface then from drawing objects and AutoCAD points!



Could be a huge time saver and ease the pain of poor survey files that are thrown on your desk (digitally of course!)

Have a good week

Jack Strongitharm

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