How styles, point groups, description keys and layers collide

[Pointdump]

In an effort to firm up my understanding of how styles, point groups, description keys and layers collide, I followed the recommendations of an article on Edward-James Surveying, Inc's website. (Did Sinc write these?) The particular article I read is Here. Very good article, but I can't yet wrap my mind around a complete understanding of how groups/deskeys function together for layer visibility. If I knew exactly what question to ask, I'd ask it. That's the problem of learning something new. But I keep trying. Over the last year I've read all the following books from cover to cover:

Harnessing Civil 3D by Zimmerman

Mastering Civil 3D by Wedding/McEachron

Procedures & Apps by Ward/Orem

Digging Into Civil 3D by Rick Ellis

Essentials by Autodesk

I've done all the tutorials, spent days on Autodesk's YouTube channel, even tried the Help Section. But in the end, when I need to stake a project, I use 2008 Land Desktop, for which I haven't a single book and have never even used the help section.

This process of Layer visibility that is supposed to make the program flexible makes it almost impossibly complicated. Sorry engineer dudes and dudettes, but for surveyors, progress peaked at 2008 Land Desktop.

Dave

Underground Carpenter (My Blog post on this subject)

[AlmasSuljevic]

WOW. That is a great reference material written by some of the brightest minds in civil industry. So I'll try to get the discussion rolling without making myself look dumber than what I already am.   But the common misunderstanding as far as layers and objects is so called "object layer vs. style layer setting paradigm" . The main issue here is that an object belong to a layer. Period. But because it can use different styles for its display, whch alreay have multiple layer settings in it - you may see some "unexpected" behavior.  I used to write an article trying to explain this: http://beingcivil.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/05/add-reset-user-settings-in-civil-3d-2012.html

Another thing that I found commony asked by customers is where the points are created if default layer is set, but it seems ignored during creation. Typically, the answer is "Check _All Points:" point group and check its settings. Other thing is someting called Primary Point Group. That is the group in charge of display. Anyone else?

[Pointdump]

Hi Almas,

Thanks for your reply. You're right about the styles controlling All_Points. Once I figured that one out it helped in my understanding.

The whole point of Civil 3D is ultimately paper drawings, and toward that end anything that makes layer visibility easier makes using the program easier. Greater flexibility is not greater ease. I find the circular, dog-chasing-its-tail logic of Groups, Deskeys, Layers, and Styles to be awkward and incomprehensible. The rest of Civil 3D is no problem, and setting styles for alignments, profiles, parcels, etc. is straightforward and easy. Just points are tough.

In 2008 LDT, if I wanted, say, some footing points on a layer called "Footing_Pts", it was a piece of cake, easy, intuitive. Now in Civil 3D 2010, if I want to do same, I've gotta think long and hard, check several styles, groups, deskeys, etc... Not easy. I think things should get easier. If a program gets more complicated, why bother buying it?

Just venting. Thanks for listening.

Dave

[_Hathaway]

It's all in the styles. Yes Civil3d is immeasurably less intuitive than LDD but is also immeasurably more powerful once all pieces to the puzzle are in place.  We've been using it for over a year now after spending several months in the style development stage and we still update and tweek our styles on almost every job. We still struggle on 'how to' do things in Civil3d that we know we could have done in half the time in LDD not unlike the example you posed.  However, with a good understanding (which takes alot of trial and error and forum correspondence) of Civil3d and it's innner-workings you will find that it can be much better then LDD.  IT IS A VERY STEEP LEARNING CURVE AND YOU CANNOT CARRY MUCH IF ANY OF YOUR LDD KNOWLEDGE FORWARD and expect it to work in Civil3d.  You must erase all you know of LDD, it is completely missing from Civil3d in most aspects.

[Pointdump]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply. I love this forum. 

I think that even if I finally understand everything about points, point groups, deskeys, styles, orphan/child styles and layers, I'll never be fully comfortable with them. One thing I think would be a big help is a flow chart showing what layer ends up on top in the slugfest of styles.

I'm learning, though. Reading about Layer 0 and ByLayer in the Edward-James Surveying article on Civil 3D Point Styles puts me a little closer.

Dave

[Sinc · Accepted solution]

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@Pointdump wrote:

This process of Layer visibility that is supposed to make the program flexible makes it almost impossibly complicated. Sorry engineer dudes and dudettes, but for surveyors, progress peaked at 2008 Land Desktop.

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Hang in there!  We had the same sort of issues, where Cogo Points in C3D were a huge stumbling block when we first started with C3D.  But this actually turned out to be the big thing that got people interested in switching...  Once they had enough "Aha!" moments and figured out how Cogo Points are working in C3D, they started having problems using LDD with it's version of Cogo Points.  After you get used to C3D, LDD's whole Point system becomes very frustrating, believe it or not.

There are some key points that help clear up the confusion. One of them is the "Style Application Hierarchy".  Keep in mind that you can set Styles in the Point Group, but you can also apply Styles directly to Cogo Points.  The hierarchy goes like this:

1) If Point/Point Label style is set in Point Group and the Override is turned ON (Point Group properties, Overrides tab), then the Style set in the Point Group is the one used.
2) Otherwise, if the Point itself has a Point/Point Label style, that is what is used.
3) Otherwise, it uses the Point/Point Label style assigned to the Point Group.

In the above list, when I say "the Point Group", I mean the top-level Point Group that contains the Cogo Point.  Each Cogo Point can be in multiple Point Groups, but only the highest-priorty group has any effect on Styles.  (In Prospector, right-click on the Point Groups collection and select Properties to change the priority of Point Groups).

Another key point is that when you create new Cogo Points, the Default Styles are ONLY used when you have "Disable Description Keys" set to TRUE.

If you have this set to False (the default), then C3D will try to apply Description Keys as you create the Cogo Points.  If it finds no match in the description keys for your points, then it will not assign any Styles directly to the Cogo Point.  This means that the Cogo Points will get their Styles from the top-level Point Group that contains the Points.  By default, this is probably the "_All Points" Point Group.  That's why a lot of people find newly-created Cogo Points taking on the Styles set in "_All Points".  And of course, for some unknown reason, the templates that ship with C3D have no Point Label Style set for this Point Group.  That's why many people find that when they createnew Cogo Points, they see only an "X" with no label.

If you set "Disable Description Keys" to TRUE in order to use the Default Styles, just remember that you'll probably need to switch it back to FALSE if you want to import field shots and process any field data.

[Pointdump]

Hi Sinc,

"Another key point is that when you create new Cogo Points, the Default Styles are ONLY used when you have "Disable Description Keys" set to TRUE."

Once again, I am in your debt. I thought that if the Deskeys didn't catch the point, then the Default Style would, even if it was grayed out. You zeroed in on a key distinction.

I've spent the last hour reading and re-reading your post. What a gold mine! I think I have enough info now to wade into the deep.

Sinc, if you wrote the Edward-James Surveying article on Civil 3D Point Styles, then I want to thank you. It answered my questions about Layer 0 and gave me some insight into ByLayer. Also a nice tip about the two text height styles.

Thanks for getting me closer.

Dave

[Sinc]

Yep, I put together everything on both the Edward-James and Quux Software websites.  Glad you could find it useful!

[rl_jackson]

Hay Sinc,

I have a question for you regarding that article.

"Note:  Since this article was originally written, we have moved toward a system where we set the Marker layer in the Point Style to Layer 0, and place the points on specific Point Layers using Description Keys.  This is slightly different from the setup specified in this section, and we've found it to work better for the most part, despite an annoying bug that prevents the correct Plot Style from being applied to Cogo Point leaders (this issue only appears when using Named Plot Styles, aka STB files).  This section is slated for a revision that will explain this alternate approach."

With the point on layer 0 how are you controling the display and layer with groups?

TIA

[Sinc · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

With the point on layer 0 how are you controling the display and layer with groups?

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I'm not sure I quite get what you're asking...  I think there might be some confusion.  We don't use groups to control the Point Layer.

In general, we don't use Groups to control display, either.  Typically, we assign Styles directly to the Cogo Points.  We use Point Groups more for logical grouping of related points.  And sometimes, we'll use a Point Group Override to temporarily "force" the display of Points to look different.

As an example, our Desc Keys will assign a variety of Label Styles to Survey Points.  We end up with something like this:

To make things easier to see, we don't display Point Num + Elev + Desc for every point.  For some things, like the sanitary manhole in the above image, we see all that data.  But for things like the Natural Ground (NG) shot in the lower-left, all we see is a minimal label, letting us know a ground shot was taken at that point.  For other things, we might see just Point Num + Desc, such as for edges of asphalt.  The basic idea is to show just the info that we find useful while processing the field data in C3D and producing the final drawing.

This setup gives us a nice, clean drawing that makes it easy to work in, but it creates a problem when we send data "to others" who aren't using C3D.  When we "Export to Autocad", all the Cogo Point labels get "frozen" the way they are shown on-screen.  So what we often do, prior to "Export to Autocad", is use a Point Group Override to change ALL our Cogo Points so that they show Point Num + Desc + Elev, so all that info is visible to "the others".  (We also usually give them a PNEZD CSV file of the Cogo Points, so they can also import all the points as "live points" in whatever software they happen to be using.)

So we typically only use Point Groups to "temporarily" override display, but not as our primary method of controlling display.  Some of our other uses for Point Groups:

1. Build Surfaces
2. Group related points, such as field shots taken on a specific day
3. Advanced analysis of data, where we use Point Groups to group Cogo Points in various ways in order to identify various issues of interest (a vague description, I know, but an example would take a while...)

Hopefully that gives you a little bit of an idea of how we use Point Groups.  Not sure if I answered your question or not, though...  You mention having the "point on Layer 0"...  We've actually changed the way we do things, and we now try to avoid ever having any Cogo Points on Layer 0.  That's why we have the layers in the Point Label Styles set to Layer 0, so they get their display characteristics either from the Point Layer or from the Label Layer in the Point Style.

[DeaconDave]

We typically utilize Point Groups in the same manner as Sinc but I have set up our point object and point label layering different.  We have several clients that are still using earlier versions of AutoCAD as well as Microstation and several are adamant about having the different label components, the block and node on separate layers.  We also have a few clients that just want the file exported to AutoCAD and the point blocks separated from the label.  So, basically, all our points get exploded.  Depending on how many times they get exploded could determine which layer they actually fall to.  After much trial and error I have found that allowing the Point Style to control the point block (marker) layer and the label layer the planets would align and all is well.  The point objects could then be exploded to their simplest form of lines, arcs and single line text.  The lines and arcs would reside on the Point Style marker layer and the label text would reside on the Point Style label layer.  A side note: I have my Description Key layers set to the same layer my Point Style marker layer is set to.

I hope this provides a different view and is helpful.  If there is anything that I could be doing differently, based on my reasoning, please let me know.

[Pointdump]

Sinc,

"Typically, we assign Styles directly to the Cogo Points.  We use Point Groups more for logical grouping of related points."

I thought I had to use groups for visibility, and that's where I bogged down. Almost all of my work is construction staking and layout. Footings one week, wall points the next, then deck embeds, etc. In Land Desktop 2008(Pinnacle of AutoDesk Products), I didn't use DesKeys or Styles. I just used Layers for visibility and Groups to Import/Export points from/to the data collector. I kept it simple. I'm thinking now I can do nearly the same with Civil 3D 2010. It would swell me with pride to master everything about Civil 3D, but since I am both the entire CAD department and the sole party chief for my company, it boils down to getting some points in the dirt. I am grateful for all the books out there and most especially this forum. I will keep hacking away at the jungle.

Sinc, thank you.

Dave

[rl_jackson]

Sinc / DeaconDave

Thanks for the advise on setup/groups,keys etc..

I am in a similar situation, where we transfer data between multiple clients with anything from LDD, ACAD, LT, and Carlson not to mention other ACAD verticles. This has been a struggle with the setup to get things to play nice with others. And one of the main downfalls with C3D and its backward compatiblity.

However, I am doing a setup of points similar to yours, although currently I have the point style layer set to the symbol layer and the point style label layer set at zero. Then I use desc. keys to specific the layer of the label. This allows me to turn those layers off. But I may give you setup a try and see how it reacts for me.

[cbaildon001]

I am in the process of overhauling our template and I think I will do the same as DeaconDave. If I did not have to provide survey data as plain Autocad blocks and text I would do as Sinc suggests. But if you control the point layer with the Description Key Set (which I believe you should) and you explode a point until the symbol and text are separate entities, the symbol is no longer a block on the right layer, but it constituent parts on layer 0.

Is it correct though that setting the point layer in the point style essentially makes setting the layer in the DKS redundant?

Would this also mean that the minimum number of point styles would be the number of layers that have point symbols on them? If point marker layer was set to 0 only point styles that had different symbols/sizes would be needed.

Regards

[rl_jackson]

Set everything in the drawing settings to layer 0, the let the desckeys control they layer for the block. After that it's gravy.

The only issue that really snags earlier versions is parcels, which have had little improvement since there development, I wish I wish

[troma]

If you need to explode points I have a lisp you might want.  The problem I had with points is that you want to explode them to blocks & mtext.  To get a block for the marker is two explodes.  To get mtext from the label is three explodes.  You don't want to run three explodes on everything, because then you explode all your blocks.  And you can't use select similar or quick select, because everything is anonymous blocks.

This lisp explodes all blocks in any selection set that begin with *U, and repeats the explode on any of the resulting blocks (that were nested blocks) that are still called *U, until there are none left.  It won't explode any other blocks, or anything else.  Typically I explode the cogo points first, then run the lisp (command XU) and then type ALL to select the whole drawing.  All the *U blocks will be exploded. Then be sure to purge all the *U blocks out.

Thanks to the guys over on the lisp forum for this one.

[cbaildon001]

Thanks Troma. The lisp works great.

rl_jackson I agree the ideal situation would be to have description keys control the layers of cogo points. It would work for many users, but for those of us who need to deliver drawings to clients that contain simple blocks and text we need to control the layers at the point style level.

Just throwing this out there and I'm assuming it won't work. What would happen if I nested all my point symbol blocks and set point style layer 0? The lisp routine that Troma posted would be no good, I assume that it would still keep exploding until the block is on layer 0. But I could manually explode until it was still a block on the correct layer with separate mtext. What if any problems would this method cause? Would it work?

Cheers

[cbaildon001]

No. My idea above does not work. The block still ends up on layer 0.

If there are any crafty ideas out there that would allow me to set the point style layer for the marker to 0 and still be able to end up with a block and mtext on the correct layers I'm open to sugestions.

[rl_jackson]

I have to do the same thing an have no issue, by having my drawing settings for everyting set to Layer 0, the Objects inherit the Layer within the style, this includes Points. And they I have the description keys also controling the layers that points/labels go to.

Drawing Settings = Layer 0

Point water Valve = Water

DSCKEY=Water

Explode the point and it is on Layer Water.

No issues.

Edit... See Image of Description Keys

[cbaildon001]

Hi rl_jackson

I'm trying to clarify what your setup is. Do you mean that:

1. Your Description Key Set specifies a layer eg. 'water'.

2. Your Point Style specifies a layer for the the marker component eg 'water'

I cannot find any default layer for points to set either in the drawing setting for object layers and the Feature settings for points only has default styles not layers. The only places I can find to control the layer that a point marker is on are the Description Keys and Point Styles. If you have a layer set in the Point Styles then it overrides the Description Keys. So if I understand you correctly then you could set your DKS for 'water' points to layer 'building' and they would still be on layer 'water'.

I'm sorry if I have misunderstood you. But I want to set the layer in the DKS, set the marker to '0' in the point style and be able to explode cogo points to block and mtext and have it all on the right layers.