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Drawing Setup - Orientation (North Rotation)

21 REPLIES 21
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Message 1 of 22
strah
3962 Views, 21 Replies

Drawing Setup - Orientation (North Rotation)

Hi,

Does anyone know what is Civil3D's equivalent for LDT's
Drawing Setup - Orientation?

I've been researching this for few days on and off and could
not find it. I received survey data in one coord system, but
would like to inquiry them in other. In other words I’d like to
read bearings in alternate coordinate system without rotating
objects themselves.

In LDT this is easily achievable and is demonstrated in LDT
tutorial, Lesson 2: Changing Project Settings, step 10 and 11
to be exact.

If I inquiry entities in LDT (e.g. find bearing for a line) before
step 10 and 11 are applied, I get bearing and distance in
current coord system. If I do the same thing after steps 10
and 11 are applied, that is, after the North Orientation is
changed, I get bearing in such modified coordinate system.
This is exactly what I would like to replicate in Civil3D, and I
could not.

I thought that Drawing Settings Transformation tab is the
Civil3D equivalent I was looking for, but in Civil 3D I always get
same bearing no matter what settings I apply in the
Transformation tab.

Anyone has any suggestions? Thanks

Strah
21 REPLIES 21
Message 2 of 22
Anonymous
in reply to: strah

Have you tried a UCS?

wrote in message news:5013224@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi,

Does anyone know what is Civil3D's equivalent for LDT's
Drawing Setup - Orientation?

I've been researching this for few days on and off and could
not find it. I received survey data in one coord system, but
would like to inquiry them in other. In other words I'd like to
read bearings in alternate coordinate system without rotating
objects themselves.

In LDT this is easily achievable and is demonstrated in LDT
tutorial, Lesson 2: Changing Project Settings, step 10 and 11
to be exact.

If I inquiry entities in LDT (e.g. find bearing for a line) before
step 10 and 11 are applied, I get bearing and distance in
current coord system. If I do the same thing after steps 10
and 11 are applied, that is, after the North Orientation is
changed, I get bearing in such modified coordinate system.
This is exactly what I would like to replicate in Civil3D, and I
could not.

I thought that Drawing Settings Transformation tab is the
Civil3D equivalent I was looking for, but in Civil 3D I always get
same bearing no matter what settings I apply in the
Transformation tab.

Anyone has any suggestions? Thanks

Strah
Message 3 of 22
strah
in reply to: strah

sure. it does not help.
Message 4 of 22
SageRoot
in reply to: strah

Up is North, always. At least that's what my retailer's support says. I struggled with this for a while before I called the help desk. I am still not sure what that setting does in the transformation tab either.
As a side note, they also said that the transformation in land desktop doesn't import into C3D either. ????

Seems strange to me

Sage
Message 5 of 22
strah
in reply to: strah

Hi Sage,

to my experience very few people knows "what that setting does in the transformation tab". I talked to some surveyors and they also said "up is North, always". And it does make sense. I have been struggling myself to figure out why North would not be up, but I did not need it so I did not care that much.... until now, when I have real world scenario for it, and it would be great help to me in Civil 3D if I can achieve what is available in LDT - rotate North to something else then up.

Here is my scenario, and if there is a better way to handle it than rotating North, I'd appreciate to know.

As I said, I received recent boundary (and topo) survey in State Plane. However, original plat book was created as paper drawing only, 30 years ago. And plat book labels are not shown in State Plane, but some other coord system. So we completely recreated plat book in Civil 3D, and then fitted in surveyed boundary. Now, when you label parcel segments, they show different bearings in State Plane, than what is shown on original paper drawing. This is very confusing to many people involved in the project. So how you handle that?

You may have two sets of the same drawings, one in State Plane to do design, and one in the plat book’s coord system to show labels. I think it would be far more elegant if I could maintain only one set of drawings, and then shift North arrow as I please and depending on the purpose I need it for. It is much easier to go to settings, and change North orientation once in a while, then maintaining two sets of drawings that have to be synchronized all the time... at least it looks to me easier. I am curious how your retailer would handle this.

Strah
Message 6 of 22
SageRoot
in reply to: strah

Basically that is the workaround they suggested, other that just rotating the parcels. I had a slightly different problem but I needed to do the same thing you are looking for. I ended up with 2 drawings and imported linework from a rotated drawing into my final drawing.

Sage
Message 7 of 22
strah
in reply to: strah

Well ... if it is not possible right now, let's make it a wishlist
Message 8 of 22
mmccall
in reply to: strah

Sounds like what you want to be able to rotate the project on your screen without actually changing it's orientation to north by rotating everything, including the coordinate system, basically just changing your perspective on the project. You can do this. The command you want to use is Dview with the TWist option. You'll be prompted to pick some objects to use as a guide in the twist. I personally grab the property boundary and then manually enter a rotation angle based on one of the property lines I wish to have horizontal or vertical on my screen. (note: the rotation angle is in decimal degrees!) This does a two dimensional horzontal rotation of everything.

Another option is to use the express tools 'align space' and align the model space, through the view port, to your drawing sheet (paper space).

I personally do both then set the UCS to the view port and finish the drawing working mostly through the view port.
Message 9 of 22
strah
in reply to: strah

No, it should sound as it reads:
I do want to rotate coordinate system, which will affect all the coordinates and north; North will not point up any longer. What you are suggesting is a plain change of view, not the coordinate system.

I do understand that not many have used that feature in LDT, so it is confusing for them. I have not either, and I often asked myself why would anyone ever need to rotate coordinate system in the drawing. To my knowledge, out of few LDT users who knew about that option, many of them were reluctant to use it, because it may look scary messing around with your coordinates and north orientation.

Again, if you do not know what I mean, I suggest you step through Lesson 2 of LDT tutorial as I mentioned in my original post. Draw a line, find its bearing (inquiry set of tools), then set North Rotation to something else than zero. Then find the line's bearing again. It is different now! If you change a view only (Dview) you are not affecting bearings (and coordinates).

But now, I would greatly appreciate having that ability of changing North orientation in Civil 3D as it is available in LDT. I have two coordinate systems to work in for the project, one is State Plane (in which survey is done), and one of the plat book (which is not State Plane). Most of the work will be done in State Plane, but if I start labeling parcels in State Plane, they will not read as they read in the plat book, which is not acceptable for our case. Therefore, I am forced to have two sets of drawing, one in State Plane coord system (used for design), and the other, coordinate system of the plat book (used for labeling parcels and alignments).

I think it would be very elegant if I could change coordinate system (north orientation) as I please for the purpose at hand, so I need to maintain only one set of drawings.

I cannot seem to achieve the same thing in Civil 3D, and I do not think that I am asking to much by looking for something in Civil 3D what was (is) available in LDT.

Again, if this is not currently possible, I would be glad to find out that option in the future release of Civil 3D. By the way, I use Civil 3D 2006, SP2.
Message 10 of 22
mmccall
in reply to: strah

Ahh, now I see. And no, its not something you see everyday. Luckily in 20 yrs. I've never had to do it but it doesn't surprise me with some of the bizarre requirements when dealing with projects for submittal to different goner agencies.

I don't think C3D currently has a way to deal with that issue. Parcel labels seem to be tied to the coordinate system of the file they're in and you can't label a parcel line that exists in an xref. I toyed around with the drawing setting where you can set the current coordinate zone and then apply transformation info but it didn't seem to have any effect.
Message 11 of 22
strah
in reply to: strah

>I toyed around with the drawing setting where you
>can set the current coordinate zone and then apply
>transformation info but it didn't seem to have any effect.

Yeah... that was my first instinct too, but transformation settings did not help me either.
Message 12 of 22
SageRoot
in reply to: strah

Does anyone know what that setting does??

Sage
Message 13 of 22
Anonymous
in reply to: strah

It's actually quite common, at least in the Northeast, dealing with property
work. Many deeds have varying orientations. When putting them together, it
is typically nice to be able to label the bearings to different rotations,
while the lines are actually oriented to the field work.

To the OP: If you'd be interested in a VBA/Lisp, I think the VBA macro I
wrote handles UCS's, though it sounded like you were not at all interested
in such a solution.

wrote in message news:5014449@discussion.autodesk.com...
Ahh, now I see. And no, its not something you see everyday. Luckily in 20
yrs. I've never had to do it but it doesn't surprise me with some of the
bizarre requirements when dealing with projects for submittal to different
goner agencies.
Message 14 of 22
strah
in reply to: strah

I am interested to hear out any solution, including UCS. However I still do not see connection between the two. However the UCS is oriented labels always give the same bearings.... unless I am misunderstanding you completely?... are you willing the share your macro so I can try what you mean?
Message 15 of 22
Anonymous
in reply to: strah

Don't limit your thinking to what Land/C3D do. If you have a UCS defined
for the desired orientation, then you inherently have the data you need.
You just need the tool to create the label. I'll look over what I have and
try to re-post sometime this afternoon. I haven't dealt with bearings much
in over two years, so my memory is a little hazy on exactly what my routines
do and I certainly don't want to mislead you on what they can/cannot do.

I'm swamped, so I hope you'll bear with me on the delay.

wrote in message news:5014593@discussion.autodesk.com...
I am interested to hear out any solution, including UCS. However I still do
not see connection between the two. However the UCS is oriented labels
always give the same bearings.... unless I am misunderstanding you
completely?... are you willing the share your macro so I can try what you
mean?
Message 16 of 22
strah
in reply to: strah

I do appreciate your effort, but you do not have to bother posting the routines... not for my sake anyway. What you are suggesting has been available for years now, in so called Toolpac from dotsoft... and it has served the purpose well. You do not need neither LDT nor C3D for that at all, but just plain vanilla AutoCAD and fairly inexpensive, but very powerful Toolpac.

I agree that one should not limit themselves to what LDT or C3D can do, but this is Civil 3D users group, and for Civil 3D related questions, I do not know more competent place to go. Yes, I can find workaround, and I did, but I just pointed out what would be, IMHO, more elegant solution.

There is one huge advantage of Civil3D, and that is smart labels, self-rotating, self-scaling, and easily fixable (via styles) to get large number of them handled in smart way. I have created 1800 parcels and labeled all of them. With C3D I labeled them in no time as compared to LDT or routine you suggested. If I messed up something with labels I go to my label style, modify it and all the labels update... thousands of them. That is what I consider power in software.

If I have done that in LDT, or AutoCAD.... yes there are some means via QuickSelect do something semi automatic... I do not know, maybe it is only me, but it does not come close to Civil 3D power.
Message 17 of 22
Anonymous
in reply to: strah

I misinterpreted your situation.

.........and totaly agree with you on the need for this capability, built-in
to C3D.

wrote in message news:5015200@discussion.autodesk.com...

I agree that one should not limit themselves to what LDT or C3D can do, but
this is Civil 3D users group, and for Civil 3D related questions, I do not
know more competent place to go. Yes, I can find workaround, and I did, but
I just pointed out what would be, IMHO, more elegant solution.
Message 18 of 22
lctilley
in reply to: strah

Personally, I set a new UCS based upon the line I want to be horizontal in my view. Then you can figure the angle between the UCS and the previously mentioned line, rotate about the Z axis to that angle, hit plan and your view should be horizontal. At least it works for me. I don't see any kind of allowance in Civil 3D to allow you to dictate the north rotation. As others have already said, North is always straight up.
Message 19 of 22
lctilley
in reply to: strah

Excuse me for not reading all of the post before putting my 2 bits in. Setting a new UCS works great for me but apparently would not be what some of you are looking for. I also tried DView but found it too cumbersome and imperfect for someone as anal retentive as I am. Good Luck.
Message 20 of 22
meenodeano
in reply to: strah

It seems to me that the only way to get Autodesks' attention to the need for this to be added to C3d, as it was in LDT, is to stop buying licensing to there programs and move on to a survey package that will slove the issue.

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