For as much as everyone pays for civil 3d, it would be really nice if the surveying profession could just inverse between 2 points (and before anyone has any snide remarks, our company is ENGINEERING & SURVEYING). I guess I just find it surprising that with all the great features of Civil, this one, seemingly easy task, is such a hassle. I have been employed with this company for a while now and after my constant bragging about how great Civil 3D is, we finally made the switch from Carlson. First thing the boss asked was how he can inverse between points. After using the INV command (from LDD) and having it return an undesired effect, I tried looking in other places. Under the inquiry tool, there is a place for inverse between points, but it is really cumbersome, considering you have to enter the point number in box 1, scroll down to box 2, enter the number, then scroll to the very bottom of the dialogue box to see the bearing and distance. Or if you use the “DI” command, you have to input ‘_.pn for it to recognize the point numbers, but as soon as you do it once and the display is completed, you have to re-enter the same ‘_.pn. And the third way I have found is to create a survey network, go to the job, right click, select “survey command window”, select “point information” Inverse Points, then input….. Please tell me there is an easier way!! I have looked on the discussion group pages and have even posted, but I haven’t received any different responses from what I have already tried. I have already taken a look at the civil3drocks blog and tried yesterday to get a button to work, but being as I am somewhat unfamiliar with creating custom buttons, I only succeeded in messing up one of my other inquiry commands. I was trying to copy, paste, then modify one of the other buttons to inverse between points and I ended up having 2 buttons that don’t function at all ..… I will try again later. I guess I had better get it to work because I really don’t want to go with my tail tucked and tell the boss that Civil 3D is the wrong choice for surveying programs. And don't tell me I need to purchase "Syncpac" to run as an add-on... this stuff is expensive enough as it is.
There are a few of us old SDSK guys around, lurking, posting and writing C3D and custom CAD add-ons like this:
http://www.whitemountaincad.com/cogo.html