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Dref Surface labels ???

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Message 1 of 30
Jeff_M
1447 Views, 29 Replies

Dref Surface labels ???

I've added spot elevation labels for a dref'ed surface in a number of drawing for a project. Some drawings open and display fine, others open but fail to update the labels with the surface elevation, leaving the label with ???'s in place of the elevation. If I force the Surface to Synchronize (even though it shows as being in-sync), THEN the labels will display correctly. I don't recall having seen this issue in the past, and I am not finding any previous posts about it, either. What's strange is that a drawing which exhibits this issue, will sometimes load and display correctly. So it's not a consistent problem, but enough so that I now know I will never be able to Publish these sheets. 

 

Has anyone else seen this? Know what to do about it?

 

Thanks!

C3D2012, SP2.1

 

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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29 REPLIES 29
Message 2 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: Jeff_M

Oh, one other thing that I don't recall happenning before. When I do issue the call to synchronize the surface, if I am in PaperSpace I get taken back to ModelSpace. Really annoying....

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 3 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: Jeff_M

I've just semi-verified this as being an issue with C3D2012 SP2.1. I do most (ok, almost all, as in I hadn't fired up C3D on my desktop in ~6 months) of my work on my trusty laptop. This means that my office PC still has the Original install of C3D on it.

 

So I opened one of the problem drawings on it. Huh, what do you know, it opened just fine with the Dref surface labels displayed correctly.

 

Next step, close C3D and install SP1. Open same drawing, labels still appear just fine.

 

Next step, close C3D and install SP2.1. Open same drawing, labels now fail to update until a manual synchornize is performed. It should be noted that all of the Dref'ed alignmnets, profiles, pipes, and structures all get their labels updated when the drawing is opened, just the Dref'ed surface labels fail to do so.

 

Back on my laptop, the first drawing I noticed this in is no longer displaying the problem. But it is the only one to have apparenetly corrected itself. Also on my laptop, I can take the same drawings that do not get the labels updated in 2012 and open them in 2013 without any issue. But I cannot work in 2013 due to the need to share with others still on 2012.

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 4 of 30
neilyj666
in reply to: Jeff_M

Gotta love Civil3D...

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 5 of 30
Lisa_Pohlmeyer
in reply to: Jeff_M

Jeff,

I've been trying to replicate your issue and I don't seem to be able to, also running SP 2.1.  My sync seems to occur as needed.  I see the ??? prior to sync, but it resolves.  I tried several dwgs with several projects, spot elevations.  What does Adesk say?



Lisa Pohlmeyer
Civil 3D User
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Message 6 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: Lisa_Pohlmeyer

I haven't yet opened a support ticket for this,Lisa, so the only rsponses are what you see here. I have another project setup exactly the same as this one, whose drawings opens just fine. So I know it's not a consistently reproducible item. But I have confirmed that it's consistent on 2 pc's for at least this one project.

 

Here's how the project is setup:

Topo.dwg with EG surface shortcut created

Corridor.dwg, all alignments and profiles created in this dwg. Corridor surface pasted into a CorridorPlus surface in which I add valley gutters and parking bays via featurelines. Shortcuts created for all objects.

Grading.dwg in which I dref the CorridorPlus surface which is pasted into mey FG surface which includes pads and lot grading. Create shortcut for FG.

Pipes.dwg which has all the pipe networks which have shortciuts created. All alignments and the FG surface are dref'ed in.

Production dwgs have the Corridor and Grading dwgs Xref'ed. The alignments & profiles pertinent to each dwg, as well as the pipe networks, EG and FG surfaces are Dref'ed. All the labels which refence Dref'ed objects have the ??'s as the drawing loads then convert to the correct content, excet for the FG data which remains at ??? until a manual sync is invoked.

 

I've tried auditing which finds nothing wrong. I can add new labels, which allows me to select the FG surface, but they get added with thhe ???'s unless I sync first. Of course, this project is in "hurry up and get it submited" mode so I'm torn between troubkeshooting and just trying to work around it.

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 7 of 30
Lisa_Pohlmeyer
in reply to: Jeff_M

Jeff,

That's an involved workflow, which I totally get and agree with, even though I don't do Pipes.  One thing I can offer, maybe in support, is that even though objects are supposed to sync automatically, I've always had problems with the corridor drawing.  Although no changes have been made to the corridor, when I open the drawing it shows that the corridor is out of date, which means that the corridor surface would be out of date as well (supposedly).

There is a command called AeccUpdateAllCorridors that in my Acad lisp file that loads with all drawings, to get around this issue.  Perhaps there's one for Syncing drefs that would work in a similar fashion like AeccSynchronizeReferences that could be loaded at drawing startup for force the sync.



Lisa Pohlmeyer
Civil 3D User
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Message 8 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: Jeff_M

As a follow up... I uninstalled C3D2012. I then installed C3D2012 without any SP's (since I can't select the exe file I already downloaded), then installed SP1. Drawings open correctly now with all DRef data displayed as expected.

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 9 of 30
TCARCAMO78
in reply to: Lisa_Pohlmeyer

John I agree with Lisa that's a pretty long workflow for grading. I did something similar with one of my drawing and I had nothing but problems. We have all our grading done in one grading base drawing. I build my corridor surface. Then I build a PG surface. I past my corridor surface into my PG surface. In addition, I do all my proposed design in my PG surface such as ditches, pad grading and fine grading. Then I data shortcut my PG surface into my overall base drawing. The whole time I only have 3 surface, EG surface, Corridor Surface and PG surface.  So far I have not had the problem you are face but hopefully this helps.

 

Tony 

CAD Manage

www.tonyscivil3dworld.blogspot.com

 

Tony Carcamo
CAD Manager
www.tonyscivil3dworld.blogspot.com
Message 10 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: TCARCAMO78

Thanks for the response, Tony. This not merely for grading, it is a complete set of plans for a 135 lot subdivision with 12 streets, 22 intersections, and 4 park sites. It includes all grading, surface & underground improvements. What I described above is just 1 more surface than you use, and that is only because I placed the grading in a different drawing than the corridor due to the size of the dwg file.

 

This is the same workflow I've used in the past, with no problems at all. The only time I've seen a problem was after intsalling C3D2012's SP2.1. Going back to SP1 has solved the immediate issue for me, while leaving the other stuff not working correctly that 2.1 fixed.

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 11 of 30
neilyj666
in reply to: Jeff_M

Jeff - just hijacking this thread to ask a question....do you just use several corridors for the model i.e. each street has a  corridor and each intersection has its own corridor or do you just have one corridor for everything??

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 12 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: neilyj666

All in 1 corridor, Neil.

 

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 13 of 30
neilyj666
in reply to: Jeff_M

Thanks Jeff - Are there any stability issues (crashing etc) having all the data in one corridor as this is not something I've ever done??

 

(Thes questions are related to the following http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Civil-3D/Extract-Featurelines-from-Corridor-one-by-one/td-p/36...

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 14 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: neilyj666

I have never... *knock on wood* ...had a corridor drawing get corrupted to where I couldn't fix it. And nary an issue at all with them since c. C3D2010. There are issues with corridors that creep up (see Steve Boon's recent posts regarding odd featurelines), but these occur in any corridor, be it one alignment or many.

 

I much prefer having 1 corridor and 1 corridor surface to work with vs many of each.

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 15 of 30
neilyj666
in reply to: Jeff_M

Thanks - I can certainly see the advantages of just having one corridor, one formation surface and one finished surface in a drawing.

 

I'll try this method when I next have to use corridors etcSmiley Happy

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 16 of 30
C3D-Nash
in reply to: Jeff_M

I can confirm, I've had similar problems with Civil 3D 2012.  Unfortunately the last two times I've seen the problem occured were after I had already signed and sealed the drawing and sent out in a hurry, only to later notice that there are no contours shown on my Drainage Plan or no alignment station labels on a storm structure!  We Dref all of our C3D objects from the design files into sheet files and annotate in the sheet file. So far I have seen synchronization issues in pipe networks and surfaces.

 

In SP1 I had a quirk with a Pipe Network not synchronizing properly when a file was reopenned, and if my CAD tech did not synch the network prior to plotting, the station value on a structure label read ???.  I think this problem had to do with reference alignment overrides in the sheet file, as the two structures shared multiple alignments in the design file and I didn't assign an alignment to them.  This problem seems to have been fixed in SP2.1. But now, in SP2.1, I have two drawing files that will not display my proposed surface contours unless I click synchronize after opening the file.  It doesn't matter how many times I synch and resave, it still will not display upon reopenning the file.  I've heard from 1 other engineer in my group who's had a similar problem on a large 500 acre site he's working on... I feel bad for the guy, because those surfaces take some time to synchronize.


I've been rather busy and haven't had time to bring this up with Autodesk support, but I will try to keep a look out for any additional information on this.  We're planning to move up to 2013 in the near future, so it may become a moot point and fall off our radar.

Message 17 of 30
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: neilyj666

Hi Neil,

Thought I'd chime in: I also do multiple street grading 3,000- 18,000 ft of improvements and do it all in one corridor without any issue.

 

Quite honestly, I wouldn't know how to do it in seperate corridors; tieing everytnig together and all.

Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
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12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

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Message 18 of 30
neilyj666
in reply to: Joe-Bouza


@Joe-Bouza wrote:

Hi Neil,

Thought I'd chime in: I also do multiple street grading 3,000- 18,000 ft of improvements and do it all in one corridor without any issue.

 

Quite honestly, I wouldn't know how to do it in seperate corridors; tieing everytnig together and all.


Thanks for this Joe - I'll certainly be giving this workflow a go:smileyhappy

 

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
Message 19 of 30
Jeff_M
in reply to: C3D-Nash

Well this is now beyond frustrating. Having uninstalled C3D2012, then reinstalling with SP1, I've been working along just fine. Until today, that is. I'm now finding that I need to include the sections for all of the streets, which must include the pipe networks. The labels for the pipes/structures in the sections magically disappear when the drawing is synched with the pipes drawings. Oh joy of joys! However, my good friend (who doesn't like to auto-update my surface labels) SP2.1 is supposed to have fixed that problem. So now I'm in a position of needing to reinstall SP2.1, which means I must manually open, synchronize, and plot each sheet of the 40 page set when it's time to publish.

 

 

Of course, support could not duplicate the issues I've mentioned with Sp2.1, even when I gave them a portion of my data set that does display the issues for me on 3 different pc's. <sigh> 

 

No, there's no question here. Just venting. Off to reinstall 2.1.....

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
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Message 20 of 30
sboon
in reply to: Jeff_M

Autodesk was able to duplicate my issue with SP 2.1 and it's now an acknowledged bug.  If I recall correctly there were other reports of people with DRef'd pipes that had similar issues to yours - can't remember the details though.

Steve
Expert Elite Alumnus

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