c3d 2014 data reference question from student

[Anonymous]

hi,

when i data reference an alignment with existing and proposed profile information why doe the profile not automatically show up as the alignment does when i hit create reference?

Do you alwyas have to recreate the profile or is it not supposed to come into the new dwg in the position that it is in the original?

Thanks for yall help.

[Jay_B]

Welcome to the Forums!

"when i data reference an alignment with existing and proposed profile information why doe the profile not automatically show up as the alignment does when i hit create reference?"
Because a Profile View must be created in the new drawing containing the data referenced EG and FG Profiles.

"Do you alwyas have to recreate the profile or is it not supposed to come into the new dwg in the position that it is in the original?"
No, the profiles do not need to be recreated just have to be drawn in a Profile View in order to display them.
Unless your showing the profile view in a viewport etc, the positioning of the new Profile view is arbitrary. The profile view manages the
station and elevation information properly.
If you want the profile views in the same location then place the profile views insertion point at the same coordinates in each file.

The above assumes the data shortcuts are available under data shortcuts at bottom of prospector and a reference was created in the new
File for the alignment and both profiles.

[Anonymous]

the profiles have to be referenced in the new drawing. they do not come in when the alignment is referenced.

[Anonymous]

You d'refed your alignment. Do the same with the relevant profiles now as they are separate objects. They will then be available in your new file.

[C3D-Nash]

Be very careful with this... not saying don't do it, just be careful.  I've actually started asking our users to recreate surface profiles in the final plan production sheet files, as many times a D-refed surface profile is forgotten to be updated in the Utility Model file when the Surface Model file is revised.  In this case, your surface profiles will not update dynamically, nor will Civil 3D give you any warning that they are out of date.  This is very dangerous, as you can send out bad data on revised drawings without even knowing.  Let me explain:

1. Surface 'EG' is created in the existing base file, we'll call Drawing A.  EG data shortcut is created.
2. Surface 'PG' is created in grading file called Drawing B.  PG data shortcut is created.
3. A 'Storm' pipe network is created in Drawing C.  PG and EG are d-refed in.  Alignment 'Storm-1' is created from the pipe network parts with EG and PG surface profiles also created.  Data shortcuts are created for Alignment 'Storm-1' and its associated EG and PG surface profiles.
4. Drawing D is the final plan sheet produced that brings together the Storm-1 profiles with all the other pipe network, alignments, and surface d-refs.  Profile Views are set up and final annotation is completed; construction drawings are issued.
5. A grading revision is needed.  A new ditch is added somewhere over a pipe belonging to 'Storm-1.'  An engineer opens up Drawing B and revised surface PG.  Afterwards, he uses batch plotting in Sheet Set Manager to reprint his grading and drainage sheets, which also includes a sheet created in Drawing D.  After printing, it is found that the new ditch doesn't show up in the Storm-1 profiles, which were created in Drawing D.

Why didn't Civil 3D synchronize the surface and surface profiles when it opened Drawing D and printed? ...  It did!  The problem is that PG surface profile was create and lives in Drawing C, which was never opened in this process.  The PG surface profile looks just like it did before the PG revision was made, since Drawing C wasn't opened and the PG surface wasn't synchronized inside of Drawing C so that Drawing C could rebuild the PG profile.

Maybe you work on small projects and do not use quite so many drawing files to create final plan sheets, but we've encountered this issue multiple times in the last year.  In the past we would have checked these sorts of things, but we've grown to trust the dynamic abilities of Civil 3D so much that we move much faster and just expect things to work correctly most or all of the time.  It really can be avoided by simple awareness of the data reference configuration by all the users on a project, but if you use lots of reference files like we do it is highly likely that you will run into this situation sometime... I just hope you recognize it before the drawings go out the door.

[Anonymous]

thanks for all of your assistance