The "From Plan" Transparent Commands

We all have figured out the standard transparent commands by now for drawing lines by direction, etc.,  but there are a few buttons on this very handy toolbar that most people don’t take advantage of (myself included). 

I thought it would be worthwhile to take a short breather from the exciting world of 2008 previews and review some of these “From Plan to Profile” Transparent commands.

(I also have a little time to kill as I just sent a fly-through to render using WAAAY too many frames per second.)

Click more to learn about each command…. 

PROFILE STATION FROM PLAN

Scenario: You are actively drawing a profile layout.  You would like to start your profile at a certain station, but maybe you forgot to label that station and you don’t feel like leaving the command to inqury it.  Never fear!  Just click the   button and follow the prompts.  It will have you choose the location and plan and automatically match that station in your profile.

PROFILE STATION AND ELEVATION FROM PLAN

Same scenario as above, only this time, you also forgot what elevation you needed.  If you have a surface in your drawing, you can inherit both the surface elevation and the station at the same time using this button. 

PROFILE STATION AND ELEVATION FROM COGO POINT

Perhaps your surveyors picked up some points out there and you want to match that station and elevation exactly.  Here is your chance to use this button.

Tips:

As with all transparent commands, and everything else, go slowly the first few times you use them and PAY ATTENTION to the command line.  It takes a few times to get the picks and clicks together. 

Remember that transparent commands are like osnaps.  You must be ACTIVE IN A COMMAND to use them.  Just like you can’t press endpoint osnap and expect anything to happen when you aren’t actually drawing anything, you can’t press this button and expect it to know what you want it to do.

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