Export points to CSV file, add a "count" column, import the new CSV file.

[ginopalomo]

I'm new to Civil 3D and while I did most of my work on Land Desktop working with points, I'm hiting the learning curve and need some help. I would apreciate if someone in this forums could guide me a little.

I was giving this DWG file created in Civil 3D. I need to add a count number right next to some drainage structure symbols already in place. There are hundreds of them. I learned the symbols for these structures, are not blocks like before, but the "nodes" of the survey points already in the database. Now, each symbol (or point in this case) has a number. That number is not consistent through the drawing: Sometimes is a 2-digit number, sometimes is a 4-digit number. Now, I have an excel spreadsheet with the profile of each of these structures, where the first column is that corresponding point number as collected in the field.

My goal is to use the spreadsheet as a table on each page listing structure No. 1 to n, where "n" is the total number of structures visible in that page, say Sheet 1 has 123 structures,  Sheet 2 has 64 structures, Sheet 3 has 101, and so on. How do you do that? Is it possible to isolate the layers containing these structures (which are survey points), export them to a CSV file, open Excel, add a new first column for Sheet 1 where the first visible structure No. 1 is on the left and last visible sructure number n is on the right? I guess I would need to import that "new" file to the drawing so that the consecutive numbers APPEAR right on or next to the structures. But what is the process to do this?

[sboon]

It is certainly possible to export the points to csv,  but we need a little more information to determine the best way to do this.  Are the structure points the only ones in the drawing, or are there other points that you don't want to export?  Do any of the points appear on multiple sheets, or only one?

[antoniovinci]

You can easily accomplish your goal by shapefile:

1. _MAPEXPORT the survey points to .SHP with Object Data embedded
2. in Excel, open the .DBF of the shapeset, add the desired columns, and overwrite that .DBF
3. _MAPIMPORT back the changed shapeset

Beware!! Do NOT add rows in the .DBF file, otherwise the inner structure of the shapeset will be broken.

[sboon]

Antonio, I've been trying to follow your directions but I cannot select Civil 3D cogo points for export to SHP format.  Please clarify.

[antoniovinci]

I have no Civil 'cause I'm a Map2006 user, so I miss the Cogo notion.

The above method applies to Acad points having OD inside: I don't know if Civil allows the export from Cogo points to Gis ones, sorry.

[ginopalomo]

Thanks for the replies. Steve, to answer your questions, yes the drawing has other points I am not interested to export. In fact the Cogo Points defining the structures are compiled in two different layers. Following with your questions, yes, the drawing has ten 24x36 sheets. Perhaps the cleanest solution for the client would be to include 10 tables per sheet, all starting with structure No. 1 to “n” per sheet. If I go that route I would have to export Cogo Points 10 times. Now some of the structures at the edges might be overlapping viewports, which I will be studying now to see how many are shown in multiple viewports. There is one viewport per sheet.

In the meanwhile, I'll try to do some experimentation including Antonio's suggestion.

[dgordon]

Ginopalomo,

Civil 3d has entities caled pipes and structures which are more suited to accomplish this task then points are.

if you create a pipe network representing the storm sewer by placeing pipe network structures as the locations of the points in your drawing, they will be given new numbers as you place them in the drawing which will be sequencial in the order you place them.   they can even be renumbered after they are placed.   Once these structures are created there is a pipe network table in civil 3d that can quickly be created.   The style of the table may need to be manipulated to suit your company styles.   the point styles assigned to the points will need to be changed to none so that you don't have multiple objects in the same location.   This can be done after placement of the structures.

This proceedure not only helps with the creation of a structure table, but also in the creation of profiles representing the storm structures.

this is probably alot to throw at you since you've barely scratched the surface of what C3D is capable of.

Let me see if i can show a example of a storm structure table that I created.

I'll also include a profile using storm and sanitary pipe network objects.   The water main is just vanilla acad.

The road profiles existing and proposed are C3D objects.   all the labels, and linework for the storm and sanitary are C3D objects.

[sboon]

OK - I can see two possible ways to solve this.

The cogo points in your drawing have a NAME field which most people don't use.  What you could do is isolate the points you want to label, export them and sort them in Excel so that the point list matches the left to right layout of your profiles.  Then you could assign a sequential number to the points and reimport them back to Civil 3D.  Once all of that is done you would be able to set up a label and table style to display these sequential numbers.  The problem with this method is that the names must be unique, so you cannot reset to 1 for the second and third sheets etc.

The second option is to add User Defined Point Properties to your cogo points.  Basically what you can do is add a set of count fields, one for each sheet and then fill them in.  Most points would only have one counter, but the ones at the overlaps would have two.  It would then be possible to have point label and table styles to display the correct value for each sheet.  The problem with this method is that a point can only have one label style at a time, so you would have to manually switch your points to display the correct style for the sheet you're looking at.

Anyone else have a better option?

[Sinc]

If I had to do something like this, I'd probably use the UDP option that Steve mentioned.  Civil 3D and Map 3D basically can't see each other at all, despite the fact that both are in the same program, so you can't use things like shape files and Object Data on Cogo Points.