The question came up today-  I have a finished road surface.  I want to label that surface with spot elevations, but surface elevation labels are awkward to rotate.  How can I get a surface label that aligns with respect to the road centerline?

Remember- REFERENCE TEXT

Click more to find out how to make it.

A little while back, I wrote a post called One Station Hold the Offset Please that said… just because it’s a station offset label, doesn’t meant that is all it can be used for.

In this case, we are going to use the station offset label for the label’s OBJECT ORIENTATION only.  We don’t give a flip about the station and offset themselves- we just want our label to orient with the alignment direction.

Here’s how to compose the label.

Though you cannot automatically place these at even statons (yet) you could use the AutoCAD MEASURE or DIVIDE commands to break your line or give you a node every so many feet, then you could just zip down the line copying your labels snapping to those nodes.

Related post for more ideas:

Think Backwards for Smart Area Labels/