AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

Hi there! 

I'm wondering how I would replace the Elevation label on a point with Alphanumeric text on certain points in a point group (or if it can be done at all)

Some background info:

I work with site diagrams that have monitoring wells and each one has a groundwater elevation value that gets updated every year according to field data. Our current setup is that the monitor well name and elevation values are displayed using point labels and looks like:

x 12-1 (Monitoring well name)

   788.432 (Groundwater elevation value)

However, sometimes the monitoring well is dry and we need to display 'DRY' instead of a numeric elevation value. Autocad won't let me put 'DRY' as an elevation because it's not a number. Is there a way to override this, or somehow make the label display 'DRY' if elevation of 0 is entered? 

Another use to overriding point label elevation is that sometimes the groundwater elevation that we get from the monitoring well is so far off from the general contour pattern that we will put the elevation value of that well in brackets such as (788.432) and indicate that this means the elevation was not included in the groundwater contour flow map. 

Is there a way to do this override, or is there another method I should be using to label my monitoring well elevations?  I know I could just MTEXT everything, but that's double the time to update the point elevations for the contours and then updating the mtext to display the numerical elevation values.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! 

[#2]

Yes, this is possible. Not very straightforward, but possible. It will use two expressions for the text height of your labels.

1. Place 2 label compontnets exactly on top of one another; one says "DRY" the other is the point eleveation.
2. Make an expression called "elevation height" the formula being - if point elevation is greater than 0, return 2 (this 2 is your label height, make it what you want), else equals 0.001.
3. Make another expression called "DRY" height the formula - if poitn elevation equals 0, return 2, else 0.001
4. Edit your label style and select the elevation component and for the text height, select the appropriate expression.
5. Do the same for the DRY label.

[#3]

Matt's method is much better. Especially if you're going to be updating points. I just wanted to mention another method that could be used for a one time change.

If you select a point you want to edit, right-click and select Edit Label Text. You can then select the elevation component. Once the Text Component Editor opens you can select the component that displays the point elevation in the right hand pane and replace it with DRY.

This is only good for a one time edit. I usually us this to change something for a plot and then undo it. The major exception is when I use it to replace a bearing like N 00° 00' 00" E with NORTH.

[#4]

As for the brackets, I would make a seperate style to put brackets around the elevation.  Then I would put these points in a group ( called 'ignored' or something) and use the point group to override the label style to the one with brackets.  Make sure this point group is high enough in the priority to force the points to display that way.

[#5]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I posted this before I left for winter break and kinda forgot about this. I'm gonna try out Matt's method.