AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

I am using C3D 2010 and brought in some survey data I shot in last week.  I want to decrease the text size of these points so that I can read them easier when I print the layout out.  However, I tried regular properties and also attempted to change the scale factor in the point group properties but had no success.  Could someone please advise?

[#2]

The size of text is controlled in the Point Label Style.

Civil 3D Point Labels scale dynamically, based on your viewport scale.  So you set the height in the Style to the height you want your text on the printed output.  The label will automatically scale so that, regardless of the zoom factor of your viewport, the text will always be the height specified in your Point Label Style.

[#3]

Be that as it may, how do you change it within model space?  I dont know the location of "Point Labels" specifically.

[#4]

Just change your drawing scale to whatever works with the points.

[#5]

I have attached the drawing of the intersection which has been zoomed in the scale I need it to be.  However, with this dynamic scaling mentioned earlier, the points are too big.  But i need the intersection to physically look lilke this because that is the work area.  How can I get the survey data points to be smaller without changing the viewport scale?

[#6 · Accepted solution]

Dave,

The label styles can be created or edited in a couple of different ways.  In your case the quickest might be to select one of the labels and then right click on it.  You'll be able to then "edit style".  This will affect all the points with that style.  When you bring up the edit dialog box, look for the "Layout" tab.  You can change the text height there.  That text height is tied to the drawing scale in model space.  Another place you can invoke the style edit is in the settings tab of Toolspace.  Look for the specific entity you want to edit (general, point, parcel, etc), and keep woking down the list till you find the label style you need.  (you can also create styles here).

Styles are extremely powerful, and complex.  If you haven't had a chance to work with them much, it would be a good idea to do the tutorials for styles as soon as you can.

Reid

[#7]

Dave, here are my assumptions:

1)      Your points are not be controlled by description keys

2)      Your points are all in the default “_All Points” point group

If this is true go to your toolspace and under the prospector tab go to point groups _All Points; right click on  _All Points and click properties; under the information tab see what Point label style is being called for.

Now go to settings tab under toolspace, expand point, expand label styles, find the point label style that was being called for right click on it and click edit; under the layout tab adjust the text height for all the components.

[#8]

Here's a couple of things to mull over...

You can take advantage of the Styles to change the appearance of your points, as in the following image.  For example, you can have points display in different colors, and you can selectively have some points display only a description, or only a description and point number, if you don't particularly need to see a full PTNO-ELEV-DESC label for that point.  That makes it easier to see what's going on, even when everything is at full size.

But even then, some areas can get really hard to see.  So if you need to work in some of the "blobs", you can temporarily change your scale in modelspace (using the Scale selector in the Status Bar) to make everything smaller while you're working.  Then you can set the scale back to your desired scale when you're done with the "detail work".  The image below is the same as the one above, except at a different scale, making it easier to work in the crowded areas.

[#9]

Thanks for the help!  I was able to change everything within the label style editor under layout, and learned a few things along the way.

[#10]

Styles are one of the most powerful tools in C3d, and can be a bit of a brain bender at first.  The more you play with them, you'll see thier advantages, but it takes some mucking about with them, even after doing the tutorials to find their (and your) limits.

Advice is, play with them as much as you can so you don't forget how they work, and when you get styles to where you like them, make sure they get added to the appropriate template file (dwt), so you don't have to keep mucking about with them.  Styles are really a never ending, changing target.

So, now you have point LABELS figured out, its time to play with POINT marker styles (yippee)!

Reid