Civil 3D and Layers

When I teach Civil 3D, I like to get people in the habit of using Styles to control display of surfaces and points. Some objects, such as corridors, are displayed based on a few different styles and it's just plain quicker to use layers to turn it on or off.

When it comes to point display, leverage your Point Groups. One of my favorite tricks with point groups is manipulating their display order. If you understand point groups, you know that a point can belong to more than one group. For instance, you might have a benchmark point that is part of a "Control Points" group and is also part of a "Surface Data" group. Additionally, whether you like it or not, the point is automatically part of _All Points.

So, what the heck? How does civil 3D know what style to apply to the point?

In my example here, I'm going to hijack _All Points as my no display group. In other words, I just jumped into the properties of _All Points and set Point Style and Label Style to "None".

Next, I went to the Overrides tab to make sure that points that are controlled by description keys for styles also follow this group. I toggled on Point Style and Point Label Style.

Now that I have a "no display" group set up I need to reorder the groups.

The style the point takes all depends on the order of the point groups as displayed in Properties.

Right-click on Point Groups and select Properties.

You will see the listing of your point groups. From the top down, the order in which the group shows up in here is what determines what style takes over. Use the blue arrows to move a group up or down and manipulate this listing. In this case, with _All Points at the top of the listing, no points will be visible. If I wanted just Utilities points to show, I would bump the Utilities group above _All Points.

When it comes to Surfaces, changing the display is something you will end up doing constantly through the design process. To turn a surface "off" use the style! If you have started a project from one of the default templates, you already have a Surface Style called "_No Display." Right-click on the name of the surface in Prospector and hit Properties. (You can also left-click, then right-click the surface graphically to get into Surface Properties, but for pure newbies I stick to prospector - less confusing.)

In the information tab set your surface style to _No Display and click OK.

SQOTD: That Wagon Wheel Looking Thing in My Drawing

If you have a coordinate system turned on in Civil 3D 2009 or Map 2009 you will see this goofy-looking symbol in your drawing. It can't be selected and can't be deleted but you can just turn it off.

At the cad command line, type GEOMARKERVISIBILITY hit enter, then set the value to 0.

Goodbye wagon-wheel thingy.

Profile Style Weirdness

I have so much on my mind this week, I'm so glad I finally have some time to blog.

This first post is regarding a funny "gotcha" in the profile styles.

It all started when I was doing some one-on-one training on P&P sheets for a client and he wanted all of his profile views to have a vertical exaggeration of 5x, rather than the default found in the OOTB templates of 10x.

To change this I went to the profile view style by right-clicking on the view.

I jumped to the Graph tab and set the vertical exaggeration to 5 and thought I was home free. In theory, I'm changing the style that is active for all the profiles. The funny thing was that all the profiles changed except for the one I had right-clicked on.

After tinkering and repressing my curse reflex in front of a client I discovered that even though the profile in question was not being split, it was grabbing the style as if it were.

To fix it, I went to the Profile View Properties and unchecked the Split Profile View option.

A different way to solve it, if you are always going to have a 5x exaggeration anyway is to change all of your styles to be the scale you want. Just make sure to go into them via the Settings tab - 'cuz right-clicking the object won't get you to the correct style!

The same info applies to both 2008 and 2009 Civil 3D. Hope this saves someone some grief.

SQOTD: Layer Toolbar Empty and Other Weirdness

Q: Hello,
I am having a few problems with my CAD right now.
1. When I click on any item in my drawings the layer manager does not tell
me what layer that item is on.
2. I can not edit the text in a Civil 3D general note that was just added to a
drawing.

A:
There are a few things to check:

1. Type PICKADD at the command line. The default value for Civil 3D should be 1. Generally people like this on, but if you are used to working with it off it would throw you off. If more than one object is selected, your layer toolbar will not show the object's layer (it will just be blank). It also would prevent you from editing a Civil 3D general note. If it is set to 1, hit ESC a few times and try again.
2. If that doesn't do it, check the PICKFIRST setting. The value for this should be 1.
3. If that isn't it, go into the full Layer manager and click Settings. Turn off the toggle for "Apply Layer Filter to Layer Toolbar". What this means is if you have a layer filter active and you click on something that is not part of the filter, your toolbar will be blank.
4. Next, check the Noun/Verb selection setting. In Options > Selection Tab make sure there is a check mark next to Noun/Verb Selection.
5. Lastly, if none of the above is the answer, run a repair install.

Note: In this situation the PICKFIRST variable was the answer.

How to Rename Your Tool Palettes

There's a story behind this post. So last Wednesday at our user group meeting I was demoing the new features of Civil 3D 2009. I was showing the group the new assemblies that are ready-made and how easy it is to drag and drop assemblies into the tool palette now. So I'm on the screen as shown at left and Rick L. (hi, Rick if you are reading this!) notices the second tab down is truncating itself in an unfortunate way.

Honest, I created this tab to read "My Assemblies."

So it might be a good idea to show people how to create new palettes and rename them.

All you need to do is right-click on any existing tab. You'll see New Palette in there as well as Rename Palette. Pretty simple.

One of these days I'll create a 4-star post on how to network tool palettes such that users can have thier own but a CAD manager-type can dish out read-only, company-wide ones.

For now, I'll keep it mellow.

Installing Raster Design 2009 on 64 Bit Machines

After yesterday's trouble with inserting raster images I decided to install full-blown Raster Design 2009. However, there was a tiny bit of finagling I had to do to make it work. My OS is 64 bit, but Civil 3D is 32bit - which confused the default install.

When you install Raster 2009 on a 64 bit machine, explore the DVD, go to the X86 folder and run ARD.msi from there.

...that's it.

AutoCAD Quiz

I teach a lot of base Autocad in addition to Civil 3D. The people who take AutoCAD classes tend to fall in 2 categories: 1) New, younger people getting training from an employer. 2)Older employees getting re-purposed.

The latter tend to be harder to teach/reach. The older folks (and they tend to be fellas) did not grow up with computers - which makes them gunshy. Generally, they don't like to click or explore or try something just for the heck of it. When one of these guys leaves my class confused and frustrated, I take it very personally. I feel that I have failed them.

In an effort to combat this issue, I have made a quiz based off of the Ascent (I fondly call it "ass-scent") materials that we use.

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AutoCAD Self-Assessment – Day 1

Match the letter of the screen component with its correct name

A. Layer Control

B. Drawing area

C. Tool Palette

D. Modify Toolbar

E. Command line

F. Status Bar

G. Draw Toolbar

H. File Name

I. Workspaces Pull-down

J. Menus

K. UCS Icon

L. Cursor with Dynamic input

M. Layout Tabs

Most AutoCAD commands can be executed in the following ways, except:

1. Key-in on command line
2. Select the command from the pulldown menu.
3. Yell the name of the command at the screen.
4. Clicking the icon for the command from a toolbar.

When performing a Save-As command, what is the oldest AutoCAD DWG format you can choose?

1. AutoCAD 2007
2. AutoCAD 2004
3. DWT
4. AutoCAD 14

When Dynamic input is on, what keys will work to switch between input fields?

1. Tab or Comma
2. Esc or Spacebar
3. Enter or Tab
4. Esc or F3

How many different methods can you use to draw a circle in Autocad?

1. 2
2. 4
3. 3
4. 6

What is the correct term for the blue squares shown above?

1. a Blue Squares
2. b Grips
3. c Grabbers
4. d Selection indicators

   

In the screen capture above, when the user clicks a second corner of the selection window, which objects will become selected?

1. The rectangle only.
2. The rectangle and the line.
3. The circle only.
4. None of the above.

In the screen capture above, when the user clicks a second corner of the selection window, which objects will become selected?

1. The rectangle only.
2. The rectangle and the line.
3. The circle only.
4. None of the above.

Match the Object Snap Symbol to the name of the object snap:

1. Quadrant
2. Endpoint
3. Intersection
4. Tangent
5. Center
6. Midpoint
   

What graphic cue tells you that polar tracking is activated?

1. A dotted line appears over the cursor.
2. The screen blinks twice.
3. A message appears in the command line.
4. There are no graphic cues for Polar Tracking.

Which of the following is not a valid key-in at the Select Objects prompt?

1. CP
2. L
3. A
4. P
5. F

In what situation will AutoCAD skip the Select Objects prompt?

1. When using the Copy command.
2. When an object or objects is already selected before the command is started.
3. If there is more than one drawing open.
4. If the shift key is held down at the time of starting the command.
5. Never, AutoCAD will always prompt a user to Select Objects.

Which modify commands require you to specify a base point?

a. Move

b. Copy

c. Rotate

d. Scale

e. All of the above

True or False: You can Copy an object by holding down ctrl key while you select its grip.

True or False: Snap overrides can be accessed by pressing shift and right-click at the same time.

True or False: You must exit a command before using Snap overrides.

True or False: Polar tracking can only happen at 45º angles.

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Day 2 coming soon.