Plan Production - Layers and Styles on Sheets

[ashroads]

I'm using the Plan Production feature of Civil3D 2012 (x64). Here's my scenario:

I have a base file with all company style and layer standards. I have an alignment and profile in this base file, which I am creating sheets for (plan and profile, same sheet). I create my VFG and generate the sheets from this base file. My sheet template creation .dwt file only has a couple layers in it (nice and clean).

Is it normal behavior for the sheet files being created to have ALL the company layers and styles associated with the base drawing where the VFG and sheets were created from? I would think only the layers/styles used for the alignment, profile, and profile view would be transfered to each sheet. It seems like a lot of unneccesary stuff.

Am I missing something or is this normal? 

Thanks,
Andrew

[Jay_B]

"Is it normal behavior for the sheet files being created to have ALL the company layers and styles associated with the base drawing where the VFG and sheets were created from? I would think only the layers/styles used for the alignment, profile, and profile view would be transfered to each sheet. It seems like a lot of unneccesary stuff."

You're on the right track here, we only have the G-ANNO-* layers in our Plan Production dwt's.

The Styles will get copied over from the base dwt the sheets are created from as well.

We don't have all our styles in the Plan Prod. dwt's as it's not needed.

The one addition I made was to add our Pipe Network Parts lists in the Plan Prod dwt's because those unfortunately don't go along for the ride, at least in 2012 version. When a Dref of a Pipe Network is added the proper parts lists can be chosen as opposed to "Basic" being the only option if Parts lists aren't present.

We also added our layer filters as we have a lengthy layer structure with a multiple base file overlay workflow.

Hope this helps.

[ashroads]

Thanks for the info Jay.

I ended up creating a new "plan production" template per your recommendations. It just has the layers/styles needed to create the sheets. Sheets turned out fine with only the styles/layers from the "plan production" template + sheet creation template.

Andrew

[Joe-Bouza]

Hi Jay, if I may hi-jack the thread to ask a PP question I have not figured out. Sometime we need to make sheets for the different plan types like "Alignment an Materials", "Grading and Drainage", "Utilities" etc. do you need a seperate VFG for each? I had issues re-running the same VFG into Sheet set with the nubering and match line references

[Jay_B]

Hi Joe,

I like to get the design as far along as possible before cutting the sheets. once I've created the View Frames (only once is needed) rename them all to standard file names via SSM.

Now I have one series such as sanitary sewer and water main (utilities) for a particular alignment.

Set the layers close to the way we want them and do any redundant cleanup, labeling etc.

Next go to windows explorer and create as many copies as I need of a given sheet and rename the copied files and then import layouts into SSM. Our workflow is 1 Layout per dwg.

XX#######UT.dwg "utilities"

XX#######ST.dwg "storm sewer"

XX#######GR.dwg "grading"

(these are all plan profile examples)

Most alignments have several sheets but you get the idea.

When it comes to Plan over Plan I find it just as efficient to go old school but have learned an entire viewport can be copy / pasted with ease sheet to sheet, so I often use the plan viewports this way copied from the C3d Plan Prof to create removals or traffic control plans etc.

Don't really use the match lines too much so the VF's don't serve much purpose once the sheets have been created.

For alignments we do these at 1"=100 so we create a separate alignment tab drawing starting from a clean dwt, dref in all align's create all align tables and then use multiple viewports per sheet for displaying the tables 1 per VP etc.

[Joe-Bouza]

Thanks Jay

I did as simple test and found that creating multiple VFG I can get what we need for our work flow using matchlines. For this test all sheet are in 1 file but, checking the box for single will work too.