ROWs…Right Now!

Well, this is it. My inaugural post here on Civil3d.com. I’m Matt Kolberg. Some of you may remember me from such self-help films such as “Smoke Yourself Thin” and “Get Confident Stupid”. It has been decided that my role here is “Guest Contributor, or “Special Poster”.  What that means is that I won’t be posting 24 hours a day like some of the other geeks in here. I’ll post when the wind is right or when Mercury is in retrograde. Ed: Or when James hits the publish button. Nothing like a smartass.

Enough about my life.  If you’re like me, you have used Land Desktop for many years, but dumped it faster than a one night stand when you discovered the wonders of the new kid on the block that is Civil 3D.  Except you want to see those little ROW lines in your cross sections that show you where your property lines are.  Where IS that toggle that turns then on?  There isn’t one. Read on for the details.

As a reseller with Global CADD Systems I get this question quite often.  I have finally put it into words…and images.

Land Desktop gives you this:

Civil

Civil 3D can give us this with a little work:

 Or this:

Not exactly the same, but pretty good I think. Here’s how to accomplish image B:

1.  Create your assembly as usual.

2.  Add a LinkOffsetOnSurface on both the left and right sides.  The offset is not important.  We DO NOT want to see this link in our cross sections so we  have to turn it off.  “Omit Link” = true will do this.  Also, we certainly don’t want this link to be used for our Top of Datum surfaces.  Delete all of the Link Codes.  Finally delete the Point Codes and Add “RW”..  We’re going to create a label style and attach it to this marker.   It should look like this:

3.  Create alignments for the left and right ROW’s.

4.  Create your corridor and set the following targets.
Surfaces:
    LinkOffsetonSurface – Left    Set to your existing ground
    LinkOffsetonSurface – Right   Set to your existing ground
Alignments
    LinkOffsetonSurface – Left    Set to your left ROW
    LinkOffsetonSurface – Right   Set to your right ROW

5.  Create your sample lines and sections views like normal.  Pay close attention to which style is being applied to your corridor.  This is a “Code Set Style”.  We are going to edit this style so that we can the label “RW” code we added in step 2.  In the image below, it is “All Codes”.

6.  Create your section views.  See the ROW lines?  No?  We’re not quite done.

The next section deals with Code Set and Marker Label Styles.

 

5.  Create a new marker label style called “RW”.  This label style will have two components:
a)  a vertical line that extends below and above the anchor.
b)  a text component attached to the end point of that line “ROW”.
If you need help on how to create styles, there is a document on the Autodesk website with some great info.

Autodesk Civil 3D 2007 Styles: An Updated Guide to the Fundamentals

 

6.  Remember that code set style from step 5?  We now need to edit it.
a)  Right click the “Point” tree and choose “Add”.
b)  Select a Marker Style (I use _No Markers). 
c)  The new point code will be called “NEW CODE”, rename it to…you guessed it “RW”.  This MUST be the same as the code you type for the LinkOffsetonSurface in step 2.
d)  Change this code’s label style to “RW”.  Same as the marker label style in step 5.

7.  Look at your cross sections.  You are now the proud owner of a pair of ROW labels 

And that’s it.  It sounds like many steps that will take you a long time, but it’s not as bad as it may look.  I started with a dwg that already had a corridor and section views and followed step by step.  I was done in 6 minutes.

7 comments

  1. Jason Hickey says:

    I like your style! Great post, Matt!

    Now, James didn’t tell you, but the new guy buys the beer. Get extra, I’m thirsty this week 😉

  2. Steve Boon says:

    Excellent post Matt!

    Send Jason a case of REAL BEER – say Sleeman’s or Granville Island Honey Lager.

  3. Matt Kolberg says:

    Ok, Jason. You seem like a reasonably well adjusted person, so I’ll assume you have this on paper somewhere. Look me up at bootcamp and I’ll hook you guys up. Not sure if I’ll be able to bring any Sleeman’s across the border.

  4. I’m looking for some Wildcat Strong, Nanaimo Bars and a Double leg dinner with fries and sauce from Swiss Chalet… oh yeah and a six pack of kindersurprise, a bag of fuzzy peach and a case of KD.

  5. T_Bernhard says:

    Nice post, Matt! Good topic to kick off on. Welcome aboard the C3D.com boat. (Can someone who isn’t actually onboard say that? Hmm…)

    It’s fairly obvious to me that none of you people have heard of Boag’s Premium… I tell ya, being an Antipodean has its perks.

    Trevor

  6. Matt Kolberg says:

    You know, I had to look up everything you said in Google. You know, when you hear something and you have that blank look on your face? That was me just then.\

    Thanks for making my brain hurt.

    Matt

  7. T_Bernhard says:

    Sorry. Good post though…