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Custom color range for surface elevations

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Message 1 of 18
autoMick2
27627 Views, 17 Replies

Custom color range for surface elevations

Hi everyone.

 

I've got a number of scenario diagrams to produce where I want to show the volume of material to be dredged from a harbour. There will be no "fill" just cut. In some parts of the area of interest the existing ground is below the target depth, so these holes wouldn't need to dredged further.

 

Two question for you good folk out there:

 

1. Given that the area in question contains cut areas, but also other areas that I don't want to fill. What is the best way to get a good surface map and volume estimation? Currently, I create a feature line surrounding the entire area to be less than the target depth, set the elevation of the line at that depth, then grade to surface and add an infill. This gives me cut and fill volumes (for the deep holes), of which I ignore the fill number. Is there a better way??

 

2. I've created my TIN volume surface (comparison of EG with the graded depth surface). Now I want to present the maps with "range interval with datum", so the cut volumes are shaded increasing from (say) yellow to red, whereas for the "fill" areas I don't want to show anything (transparent would be ideal or maybe greys). Is there a way to create customised color ranges for the elevation analysis? As I'm doing numerous maps I don't want to be manually editing and re-editing the analysis range details. I'm using AutoCAD C3D 2012.

 

Thanks heaps

 

- Mick

 

Civil3D 2013 (infrastructure suite) ANZ & UKIE
Self-built i7-3930K, 16Gb RAM, P9X79 m/board
SSD(system), HDD(data), GTX680, Win7Pro64
17 REPLIES 17
Message 2 of 18
theminiguy
in reply to: autoMick2

Hey Mick

 

I have been asking for this since 2008. I think it was a bonus when we we given the option to set by range or by elevation.

 

We need to have a style option for the colours for pre-determined depths. I do elevation assessments day in - day out. It is a real let down that you have to manually change the colours.

 

I did see a post a few years back about hacking the system to change the limited range to show colours you want, but i have 300+ Civil 3D modellers that i support, i cant go around each PC and hack it.

 

It should be on the whish list for 2014, or better yet past of the sub pack?

 

I would like to know if anyone else has found a sollution, or if Autodesk is reading this to contact me for more info.....

 

Cheers

~~Laptop~~
Quad Core 2.3GHz Intel, 64-Bit, Win 7
16GB Ram, 2GB Graphics Card
256GB SSD

~~AU2009 Speaker~~
CV314-5: AutoCAD® Civil 3D® Design Straight Out of the Box: Going Where the Design Wizards Can't Always Go .....
Message 3 of 18
autoMick2
in reply to: theminiguy

OK thanks theminiguy, I guess that's exactly the answer I didn't want to hear. I searched for the post you mentioned but can't find it,could you post a link? What's annoying is that I could live with say the RED and the HYDRO sets, but when used together one is always in the wrong order:

 

e.g. -5.........................0..............................+5

......Bright.........Dark......Bright..................Dark

 

It would make a lot more sense to be able to have the darks both near zero and more vibrant colours at the extremes.

 

What about my first question? any comments?

 

thanks

 

- Mick

Civil3D 2013 (infrastructure suite) ANZ & UKIE
Self-built i7-3930K, 16Gb RAM, P9X79 m/board
SSD(system), HDD(data), GTX680, Win7Pro64
Message 4 of 18
theminiguy
in reply to: autoMick2

Mick,

This is from: http://www.aecsystems.com.au/Forums.html

 

"The first one is possible with a little bit of hacking.


You need to find a file called MapThematicRamps.arm (usually in C:\Program Files\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010).


This is an XML file so can be edited in a simple notepad or ideally a dedicated XML editor (notepad++ is a good free example). This will allow you to erase, edit or add to the colour schemes."

 

I have not done this.

 

And from what i can see in 2012, the option to change the "Scheme" has been removed..

 

I hope it is back in 2013..

 

Cheers

TMG



 

~~Laptop~~
Quad Core 2.3GHz Intel, 64-Bit, Win 7
16GB Ram, 2GB Graphics Card
256GB SSD

~~AU2009 Speaker~~
CV314-5: AutoCAD® Civil 3D® Design Straight Out of the Box: Going Where the Design Wizards Can't Always Go .....
Message 5 of 18
autoMick2
in reply to: theminiguy

Thanks TMG,

 

Well... I opened the mapthematicramps.arm file with xml notepad, it certainly looked straight forward. So as a test I just reversed the "Reds" entry from 10,12,14,16,18 to the reverse. Saved it and fireup up C3D. I reapplied the analysis on my surface, but nothing changed. I also tried adding another ramp theme, but once again it seems like C3D ignores what is in that file. 

 

I thought perhaps that the changed mapthematicramps.arm file might only be read when creating a new drawing, but once again, no change.

 

Looks like I'll have to dig deeper.

 

Cheers

 

- Mick

Civil3D 2013 (infrastructure suite) ANZ & UKIE
Self-built i7-3930K, 16Gb RAM, P9X79 m/board
SSD(system), HDD(data), GTX680, Win7Pro64
Message 6 of 18

If you set up your custom surface analysis you can export that to a text file using the "Surface Analysis - Export to a File" tool that is part of the Additional Tools, in the toolbox of the toolspace pallette, in the ANZ or UK country kits. (See the first attached image)

The file output is a text file that has the colour, min elevation and max elevation. (See the second attached image)

If you have see same elevation values each time, you can just run the "Surface Analysis - Import from a File" tool on each surface that you want it for. If the elevation values for the analysis it would be much easier to edit the values in the text file, save it and then import it into the drawing.

You can add the country kits, if you don't have the ANZ or UK Country kit already installed, on an individual computer through the programs and features -> Autocad Civil 3d 2012 -> Uninstall/Change -> Add/Remove Features. Unfortunately there is no installer for the country kit.

To get a surface analysis that only shows the cut, create your elevation analysis with renges starting at your maximum cut value up to zero for the volume surface. Anything that is fill, i.e. a positive value will have no value and colour set so will not be shown in the surface analysis. See the attached third screen shot which shows a volume surface that ranges from -40.158 to +20.120 (If you want you can even have seperate ranges in the analysis with gaps in between. e.g. -10 to -5, 0 to 2, 5 to 10)



If a post provides a fix for your issue, click on "Accept as Solution" to help other users find solutions to problems they might have that are similar to yours.

Andrew Puller
Maitland, NSW, Australia
Windows 10 Enterprise 64bit
Intel core i7 11800 @ 2.30 GHz with 32GB Ram
Civil 3d 2021
Message 7 of 18
907Trekker
in reply to: autoMick2

There is one other trick I know but it only works if you are always going to use the same colors for the same elevation ranges every time. 

1. Just make a surface (I always add something to it so it isn't empty)

2. Go into the analysis tab and setup your colors however you want.

3. Select the surface and export it to a block.

 

Now when you make a new drawing you can import the block, explode it, add your new data (delete the junk you put in it for step 1) and it will have your color scheme.  You also have to rename it.

 

I use this for things like cut / fill analysis where I just want to make sure I am within a tolerance.  I have also used it for excavation projects too.

 

I really wish Autodesk would just allow us to assign a gradient ramp where we could pick something like blue to brown to green and then let us say blue is elev -999, brown is 0 and green is 999 or something like that.

 

Mark

Message 8 of 18

Andrew, this is excellent information and worked perfectly for my application. It's amazing that the native functionality of AutoCAD is so poor in this respect, but your work around is certainly a practical solution. Thanks for taking the time to explain it so concisely too.

 

Regards

 

- Mick

 

 

Civil3D 2013 (infrastructure suite) ANZ & UKIE
Self-built i7-3930K, 16Gb RAM, P9X79 m/board
SSD(system), HDD(data), GTX680, Win7Pro64
Message 9 of 18
autoMick2
in reply to: 907Trekker

Trekker, thanks for the reply. I can see how this would work nicely too. I think in my instance I'll go with the other option, but I'll certainly keep your suggestion in mind. I'm a new user to AutoCAD, but I imagine your technique may have several applications, not just with surface analyses. Thanks again

 

- Mick

Civil3D 2013 (infrastructure suite) ANZ & UKIE
Self-built i7-3930K, 16Gb RAM, P9X79 m/board
SSD(system), HDD(data), GTX680, Win7Pro64
Message 10 of 18
Xelbi
in reply to: autoMick2

Is there any way of copying the Slope using the Additional tools method?

This works perfectly for Elevations however my company uses the same slope percentages and colours for the majority of our slope calculations.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Message 11 of 18
sbrasher2010
in reply to: autoMick2

Hey Andrew, I like your suggestion. I just installed the ANZ country kit, but when I open the 'Additional Tools' and click 'execute' on 'Surface Analysis - Export to a File', I get this in my command line: 

 

Command: (load "Surface elevation analysis.lsp") ; error: LOAD failed: "Surface
elevation analysis.lsp"
Command: ExportElevations Unknown command "EXPORTELEVATIONS". Press F1 for
help.

 

Any idea why this happened or how I can fix it..?

Message 12 of 18

On 2013, the "Surface elevation analysis.lsp" file is located in the folder "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013\Support" on my machine.

 

If the file is there, then you need to check your support paths in the options dialogue.

 

Did you run the installation as administrator? Do you have administration rights over you local machine?

 

Otherwise, you can extract it from the original location by opening the folder "Content\en\C3DCK_ANZ" on your installation media, you will find some cab files. You need to open the file "InstallDir.cab" using a compression utility (I use 7zip) then extract the files to a new folder. in the new folder, find the index.dat file and open it in notepad. Locate the item {29575192-CA35-42D8-8EAE-38ABF5B385AB}Support\Surface elevation analysis.LSP. this tells you that the file {29575192-CA35-42D8-8EAE-38ABF5B385AB} needs to be renamed to "Surface elevation analysis.LSP" and dropped in the folder "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013\Support" (for 2013)

 

Restart civil 3d and try again.

 

 



If a post provides a fix for your issue, click on "Accept as Solution" to help other users find solutions to problems they might have that are similar to yours.

Andrew Puller
Maitland, NSW, Australia
Windows 10 Enterprise 64bit
Intel core i7 11800 @ 2.30 GHz with 32GB Ram
Civil 3d 2021
Message 13 of 18
coastalgeology
in reply to: autoMick2

Hi Mick

 

I use Custom Colour Ranges quite a bit for my work. The easiest way that I have found for using customized colours for surface elevation banding (using the Range Interval with Datum option) is to create my own Colour Books with whatever customized range that I want.

 

This can be done by downloading (the free) Autodesk's ACBEditor application and running that. The files have an ACB extension and the Colour Books are saved in the "Program Files\Autodesk\...\Support\Color" folder. These Colour Books use RGB Colours, not Index Colours. C3D2013 can use a maximum 200 surface elevation bands.

 

One word of warning - the Colour Books work fine for surface banding in C3D2013 but do not work in C3D2014. That is why I started the thread on "Bug in Surface Rebuild" a few weeks back. Apparently, Autodesk are looking into fixing this problem.

 

Chris (coastalgeology) 

Message 14 of 18
autoMick
in reply to: coastalgeology

Hi Chris - thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look at it. Yes the index colours a pretty limiting, so it would be nice if they fixed that for 2014.
Regards
- Mick
Civil3d user in Australia since 2012.
Message 15 of 18
ceethreedee.com
in reply to: autoMick

I have tried all these methods and am willing to say they are all still very annoying. Best method been probably export to a text file and reimport.

 

With all the styles that are buit into Civil 3D it would be so much simpler if analysis color ramps could just be another style that can be kept inside the drawing. Not some random text file somewhere.

 

Kapanther

Civil 3D 2021 (Update 1), ACAD (SP1.3) MAP (HF0.4)
Infraworks 2021.1,
Win 10 -DELL Precision Notebook 7730

ceethreedee.com
Message 16 of 18

wow, I wish I had found this sooner, worked perfect and you can even manipulate the text file to get a different set of ranges and colours. Thanks 😄

Message 17 of 18

Just an update on post 13.

 

Autodesk’s ACB editor is no longer available as a downloadable application, having been replaced by an HTML utility. Just put ‘Autodesk ACB editor’ into your browser, and the link can be found. It is still easy to use, building up pages with 10 colours per page, up to a maximum of 20 pages of RGB colours with the added refinement of a page colour key; this colour key is the first colour of each page, and is very handy if you are building a book of 200 RGB colours.

 

Years ago I tried the UK country kit and the ‘MapThematicRamps.arm’ methods but these were restricted to Index Colours only. I don’t know whether they still have this restriction.

 

The bug in C3D2014 was fixed in SP1 for that release, and surface colour banding using Colour Books work fine in C3D2015 and C3D2016.

 

One tip if you are going to use Colour Books and have a large XYZ data file for surface elevation banding. The time taken for replacing a standard colour scheme with colour from a book is proportional to the size of the data file. Create a simple XYZ data file using the maximum and minimum elevations in the large data file and within the XY limits of that file (I normally use a simple square with the minimum data value at the corners and the maximum value in the centre). Create the surface and then use ‘Surface Properties – Analysis’ to change the standard colour scheme to colours from a Colour Book. Apply. Then, using ‘Surface Properties – Definition’, replace the simple XYZ file with the large data file. This procedure saves a lot of time.

 

Chris (coastalgeology)

Message 18 of 18
autoMick
in reply to: coastalgeology

That's an interesting contribution Chris - I'm keen to explore that.

I still wish Autodesk would provide a lot more OOTB colour ramps and better tools for editing/saving/templates, etc. in relation to surface analyses. I have a few ideas submitted already, but no action on them yet.

Cheers

- Mick

Civil3d user in Australia since 2012.

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