One of the greatest things about AutoCAD products is that they are very customizable. Being that Civil 3D is a vertical product of AutoCAD, it too, is very customizable. I’m going to share with you one way you can customize your Civil 3D to improve your grading efficiency without having to know one bit of programming code.
Similar to the contextual ribbon appearing when a certain object is selected. We’re going to assign a command to a Civil 3D object when it is double-clicked. I’m going to show you one of my favorite ones, and that is evoking the Quick Elevation Edit or (AeccQuickEditFeatureElevs) command for Feature Lines.
This will surely save you some grading time. Do you want to see how to set this up?
- Open up the CUI (Customer User Interface) by typing CUI at the command prompt.
- Right-Click on the Double Click Actions in the left customize pane and select New Double Click Action as shown in the image below.
![clip_image002[4]](http://www.civil4d.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/clip_image0024.jpg)
3. Name the new Double-click action something relative to the object you’re assigning. Note: You can only have one command assigned per object. So this name will makes it easier for future edits.
4. Next, give the action a description (optional) and fill in the Object Name value. In this case a feature line’s true name is AECC_FEATURE_LINE. If you are unsure of an objects true name use the LIST command on an object to find out. You can’t just go by the name that shows in the Properties window.
5. Now you can assign the command by locating and selecting the command in the Command List and dragging it onto the new Double Click Action that you just created.
6. You should now see the command listed under your custom Double Click Action. If so, click apply and OK to exit out of the CUI dialog.
7. Now it’s time to try it out. Just double click on any feature line you have in your drawing and viola! You should get the Quick Edit Elevation command.
Hope you see the awesome benefit of this. It really does speed things up when you’re working with feature lines in your grading projects.
You can now think of so many other commands that you typically use per object and you’ll soon be double-clicking to new “Heights”.
Cheers!
Jonathan Stewart
P.S. The following system variable must be turned ON for any double click action to work.
Command: DBLCLKEDIT
Enter new value for DBLCLKEDIT <ON>:
I have that same action applied and i can’t live without it now. I have most of my objects set with a particular d-click. Yet another way to make yourself as efficient as possible.
Nice post.
That is exactly what I need. No more hunting thru the Ribbon to find it!