Locking Points - not working as it should?

[shelmer]

Hi,

I'm using Civil 3D 2011.

I've been reading through help on this one.  In this case, I'm using the Import Points from File (not using the survey database).  The help file says if I lock the points (either by right clicking in the prospector, or by using the COGO tab in the ribbon, or 'lockpoints' command)...

from help:

"A locked point cannot have any of its properties changed, including its point style and point label style. It cannot be edited, deleted, or overwritten."

In LDD, if I had duplicate points, I gennerally picked "overwrite" to handle them.  Usually there would only be a few control points that were duplicated, and they would be the same every time anyways.  I preferred that autocad didn't give these points a new number, so 'overwrite' worked.  Regardless, if a point was locked in my drawing, they could not be overwritten, which would prevent various oops's.  In Civil 3D, if I pick overwrite, my points get unlocked and overwritten.  I find this strange since the help file specifically says this wont happen. 

The points are definatly locked.  When locked I can not use a move command or make other modifications to the point, but if someone picks 'overwrite' when bringing in additional data, they do not stay locked.

Is there a way to make this locking feature behave more like the help file suggests it should?

Cheers,

Stefan

[AlmasSuljevic]

Hi Stefan,

This is an interesting question, which could probably be better answered by somebody in Product Design. I can tell that it generated a lot of discussions around here since it appears to be working as designed, but the question remained - what to do in the situation you described?

I guess, we agreed that it should be looked this way: When we insert and lock points they should remain locked unless we choose overwrite option during naming conflict on import. So, overwrite, well, overwrites all points no matter if they are locked or not, because that's what we asked it to. We tend to think that overwrite option in fact replaces the existing points with new points rather than updating the existing points. I suspect the survey points do the same thing for the same reason. On the other hand, we could argue that import should behave like any other edit operation honoring locked flag. 

In any case, it looks like a good question to be posted on Autodesk feedback page or making a wish list item out of this. If you choose to get this route please use thie following link: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1109794

[Sinc]

I agree with the OP, and believe that the lock should be honored, even when importing with the "overwrite" option.

If C3D honors the lock, then the user can always unlock points before importing a file to allow them to be overwritten.  On the other hand, if C3D doesn't honor the locks, then the user has no choice, and we lose functionality that can be useful in some situations.  That's not good.

As another option, you could always just throw up a prompt if the import operation hits locked points, and ask the user what to do.