Expression Example

Expressions are one of those tools that you never know how you might use them until you need them.
Yesterday I found myself wanting to check to make sure some figures I created were truly at elevation. I wanted to see both the slope distance and the horizontal distance in the label. However, horizontal distance is not an option in the native list of components.

I created this expression under Settings > General > Label Styles > Line.

Right-click on the Expressions and select New. You'll see the dialog at left.

Here's the "math" that you can use to copy and paste into your expression window:

SQRT({General Segment Length}^2-(ABS({General Segment Start Z}-{General Segment End Z})^2))

Once the expression was created I made a copy of the style Bearing Over distance by right-clicking and selecting Copy. On the copy, I right-clicked and selected Edit. On the Information tab, I renamed the style to "Bearing over Distance (Horiz Dist)". On the Layout tab, I set my active component to Distance, and gave the component name a quick rename.

Then I clicked the ellipsis to get into the text component editor.

Your expression should now show up in the list of available Properties. Select Horizontal Distance, set precision and how you'd like the number to show up - then click the blue arrow to add it to the right side of the box.

Once you click OK, OK, and complete the label you can use it on lines, polylines, figures and feature lines.

However, it does not work on Alignments, Parcel Segments or 3D polylines.

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.

Anatomy of a Cross-Section

Enjoy! Click the image for a link to my little PDF.