AU Tip: Split Profile Vertical Curve Label Style

During my AU class, image"Best of the Blogs," I created a style for a Vertical Curve label that didn’t fall apart when the profile view was manually clipped in the middle of a vertical curve. The stock label for curves looks like this picture if you clip the view in its midst.

To fix the problem you’ll need to adjust the attachment points of some components.  I’ll show you where after the jump.

To fix this label style, I’m going to simply modify the style via the Settings tab of Toolspace. I find it easier to adjust labels this way because I can use the magic of the apply button to see what the heck I’m doing.

I found the label style in use, and then expanded to find it in the Profile-Label Styles-Curves label branch. I’m going to edit the Parent (Crest and Sag) label style because I want this change to effect all the children.image

Open up the Crest and Sag label style editor and jump to the layout tab. Another tip I mentioned in class is changing the COLOR of an individual component when you’re dealing with complex styles. This makes it easier to verify which piece you’re modifying. In this case, I’m changing the Start Line to yellow so I can see it. Change the Start Point Anchor Point and End Point Anchor Point to Anchor Curve Start in View and Anchor Curve Start In View Dimension respectively. The "In View" options are the key here!

I’ve repeated the process imagewith the End Line in this image, and clicked apply. Note that the PV in the drawing has updated, and we now have a properly placed (for my uses at least) line in the profile view. But the dimension line and text are still broken, so let’s fix that now.

imageChange to the Dimension Line component and change the Start and End point anchor points as shown in this final image.  Click Apply again to see the final result.

Once you have the components drawing as you need them, be sure to go back and fix the colors so that you’re dealing with the print characteristics you need!

Hope all of you that were in my class enjoyed it, and I hope to see most of you again at AU next year.

9 comments

  1. Randy McKee says:

    James, thanks for the tip. I appreciate it.

  2. C CARR says:

    Awesome!!! I have been fighting that one for awhile.

  3. C CARR says:

    James, I use the ‘one vertical curve for sag and crest’ method from civil 3d reminders. When I split a profile that has a high/low point I cant get it to label the high or low because technically the ‘view’ doesn’t have one. Any work arounds or something I’m missing? Or do I need a label style that has children (as you mentioned above) to pull it off?

  4. I’ve not found one yet. I tried getting cute using the HP Dimension, etc. but haven’t had any luck. It’s one of those things. I think I would simply create the children as you suggested.

  5. C CARR says:

    James, the h.p./l.p. data will show up on the next view/sheet, so not the end of the world. So much better than what I used to have.

  6. I saw that as well. It’s a bit wonky, but it works.

    One more fun note on dealing with split curves. If you want to drag the label up or down, you’ll have to make sure the midpoint of the curve is included in the view since that is the location of the label grip. Essentially you have to lengthen the view as needed, grip the label location, then adjust the view back. Not great, but not the end of the world either.

  7. Bryan Thomasy says:

    AWESOME, that is all that needs to be said

  8. C Carr, This post http://blog.civil3dreminders.com/2008/12/vertical-curve-hplp-split-profile.html should correct the issue you are having with the HP/LP for split view profiles.

    To adjust the height of the label you can go into the properties window and adjust the Dimension Anchor Value.

  9. There you go. Combine the Split Curve with the Text Size trick we posted a while back and you have a solution. Nice, Chris.