Snap Station Down

Typically a profile will have space to the left and to the right for datum labels as shown below:

Profile Datum Elevations

And typically whether your profile grid is placed on an 11×17, 22×34, or 24×36 sheet, you can configure the grid to be an even number of paper space units wide. For example, on an 11×17 sheet you can place a grid roughly 15 1/2″ wide, with two roughly 3/4″ wide bands to the left and to the right. Depending upon your title block configuration, this will allow you about 3/8″ to the right and left of the sheet for a border, about an inch for title information (if placed on the right side of the sheet), and about 14″ of clear span to show profile data – give or take. In any case, it will be tough to fit in an extra inch for a profile view in the center of the sheet, and the math is definitely important if you want the Plan Production tools to do the thinking.

Make your plan and profile viewports the same width (if you’re concerned about the “text box,” don’t be, it no longer plays a role), make them wide enough to land you on an even station, and add the widths of the two datum columns. When you finally run the plan production tools you’ll have a great chance of things working properly. But not if you don’t properly configure the “Snap station value down to the nearest” value. if you’re queasy, you may want to stop reading now…

In a 14″ viewport, with a scale of 1″=40′, you’ll fit about 504′ of profile and a couple of 3/4″ bands. But you’ll need match lines. Match lines are typically best at even stations, so in 504′ you’d like to place a match line at a 500′ interval, and common sense might prevail and you’ll set the snap value accordingly (50′ or 100′). But it won’t work. Why? Civil 3D will attempt to place a match line at 500′. But with a viewport 560′ wide, Civil 3D won’t know how to react to the slop, so it’ll throw the profile view somewhere in the middle (to the right), and I can guarantee it won’t be right (plan and profile views won’t line up). You’ll find the same result if you try to set the value to 100′ – again, Civil 3D won’t know how to react to the slop. But if you set the value to 80′, Civil 3D will snap back to a value divisible by 80, will add the distances for the datum columns, and will place profile views dead center of the viewports. Match lines at 0+00, 5+60, 11+20, 16+80 (not ideal, but workable) – add about 3/4″ on either side, toss the view in the middle of the frame. Perfect. Makes perfect sense.

If you’re a mathematician.

Try this: Make your plan and profile viewports the same width. Keep the clear span of the profile grid an even distance (to land on an even station, e.g. 10+00 or 10+50). Keep the datum columns (this is assuming you have them) an inch or less wide, and if you’re having trouble with placement like I did, double the scale of the drawing to set the “snap down” value. In a 40 scale drawing, try setting the value to 80. In an 80 scale drawing, try setting the value to 160, in a 100 scale drawing, try setting the value to 200, and so on. Civil 3D will back off the match line placement to an even station value that will fit in an evenly spaced viewport (14″, 15″, 16″, etc.).

If you’re wondering how to place the horizontal datum lines to the left and right of the profile view, they’re simply tick marks – long tick marks. There are no vertical lines on the datum columns in the profile views (wouldn’t that be nice – would be nice in section views as well), you’ll let the profile viewports take care of that.

Scott McEachron
www.121pcs.net

Civil 3D Tutorials*
Register Today to access to our comprehensive library of Civil 3D Tutorials for as low as $20.

*Access to the Library is a free service to our clients.

©2010 Paving the Way. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve seen several posts on SCALELISTEDIT, and I’ve seen images of the problem:

But how do you know whether or not you have the problem? You know what they say, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

I opened a drawing with several attached x’refs. The drawing was exceptionally slow to open. After 4-5 minutes of waiting, I was finally at the AutoCAD command prompt. But what took so long? Here are my typical thoughts:

I always look for Regapps first. Run the -PURGE command and use the R option to purge them.

I run the routine and notice the following:

1780 of them; that’s a problem. I was once told the company that created this other software put out a service pack to resolve this issue – it didn’t work.

Now that’s typically where I would stop, all the drawing files on the server need to be cleaned of Regapps. Each time an x’ref with Regapps is loaded, the base is infected again unless every drawing is cleaned. If you let this go, you’ll run the risk of trashing your Civil 3D drawing template without knowing it. If you’re not careful, you’ll wrongfully blame Civil 3D for being unstable (drawings crash, unable to open, files bloating) and that’s not the real problem at all.

I saved the drawing, exited, got back in – another 4 minutes to get to the Command prompt; Regapps wasn’t the problem.

I remember thinking back to the days of Land Desktop, there used to be a problem opening drawings that were started in a different environment (Architectural software, AutoCAD, etc.) in that the drawing settings wouldn’t sync properly. The solution was easy – initialize the Land Desktop environment by changing “Settings.”

Right click on the name of the drawing on the Settings tab of the Toolspace in Civil 3D. Look at the drawing settings, make sure the units are in feet, change the scale of the drawing – don’t accept what’s there, you’re trying to force a change in the environment. This is what I saw when I started:

This is what I saw after changing the scale:

Notice the difference? Click on the arrow next to the Annotation Scale and watch it scroll across dual monitors for days:

So that’s the problem. I researched a bit and found the answer apparently lies is resetting the scale list. _SCALELISTEDIT

I tried it, and just my luck, I got the following:

Crashed – you must be kidding… Now I’m ticked. I showed a co-worker (Matt) who reninded me to put the - in front of the SCALELISTEDIT command to supress the dialog:

Command: -scalelistedit
Enter option [?/Add/Delete/Reset/Exit] : r
Reset scale list to defaults? [Yes/No] : y
Scale list reset to default entries.
Enter option [?/Add/Delete/Reset/Exit] : e

It worked. I saved this drawing and created a new text file called ACADDOC.LSP. In the file, I placed the following 2 lines:

S::STARTUP
(command “-scalelistedit” “r” “y” “e”)

Acaddoc.lsp is intended to run each time a drawing is started. It wants to live in the root directory of your install (Program Files/AutoCAD…), but if you don’t find one, create your own – AutoCAD knows what to do with it. S::STARTUP tells AutoCAD to do something each time a drawing is opened, in this case, clean out the scale list.

Nice.

Civil 3D Tutorials*
Register Today to access to our comprehensive library of Civil 3D Tutorials for as low as $20.

*Access to the Library is a free service to our clients.

©2010 Paving the Way. All Rights Reserved.

You’re working on a sizable Corridor Model, you attempt a file save and receive the following error:

Command: _saveas
Document “C:\Engineering\Projects\2005\05-003 C3D Implementation r2.0\dwg\050912 AU 2006.dwg” has a command in progress.

Hit enter to cancel or [Retry]:

But you’re not in a command! You can’t escape, can’t cancel, can’t use any of the toolbuttons, can’t use the menus, you’re stuck in C3D lala land… good grief!

Try this instead:
Type the word “Save” on the command line, and when the dialog pops up, give the file a new name.

But if that doesn’t work, try this:
Express Menu>File Tools>Save All Drawings

.

Register Today to access to our comprehensive library of Civil 3D Tutorials for as low as $20.

*Access to the Library is a free service to our clients.

©2010 Paving the Way. All Rights Reserved.