best practices for point styles...

[rharries]

I am having some difficulty understanding "best practices" for using points, point styles, and desc. keys. The difficulty i am having is differentiating between points that do and do not display in our production drawings. For example, we have always (and i am willing to adapt) sorted utility points by type (pnts-water, pnts-telecom, etc.) Painted utility locates would naturally be placed on that utility's point layer. These points would be used to created utulity alignments, yet not displayed in plans. When i freeze the marker layer, the water nodes, (hydrants, valves, etc) also become frozen, which is bad.

I have toyed with the notion of creating utility paint layers, yet before i further complicate our Civil 3D layering system, i am interested to know how other's have dealt with this issue.

and Laurie C, your response is not necessary.

Thanks in advance.
rharries

[Anonymous]

Aren't any of you using point groups with the styles & layers?

Point goups will do this very simply. There is a tutorial for them as well.

John

wrote in message news:5837198@discussion.autodesk.com...
I am having some difficulty understanding "best practices" for using points,
point styles, and desc. keys. The difficulty i am having is differentiating
between points that do and do not display in our production drawings. For
example, we have always (and i am willing to adapt) sorted utility points by
type (pnts-water, pnts-telecom, etc.) Painted utility locates would
naturally be placed on that utility's point layer. These points would be
used to created utulity alignments, yet not displayed in plans. When i
freeze the marker layer, the water nodes, (hydrants, valves, etc) also
become frozen, which is bad.

I have toyed with the notion of creating utility paint layers, yet before i
further complicate our Civil 3D layering system, i am interested to know how
other's have dealt with this issue.

and Laurie C, your response is not necessary.

Thanks in advance.
rharries

[Sinc]

We use point groups regularly, but not to control the symbol of points imported from FBK.

We have tried to cut our default Point Groups down to the bare minimum, because it is so annoying adjusting the relative priority of groups in that little, tiny, un-resizable dialog box we get. It's just too much trouble having lots of Point Groups.

Now, we use Point Groups a lot for Calc points, and to add points to surfaces, and for things like that. But we do not use them to control the display of FBK shots - that can be done quite easily enough through the Desc Keys, without resorting to Point Groups.

[Anonymous]

I was just wondering Sinc. It seems the best fit answer, IMO of course to
the OP's,

"The difficulty i am having is differentiating between points that do and do
not display in our production drawings.

We have/are minimized/ing them as well. We have one set of groups for the
surveyors to do analysis & topo and one set of groups for plotting. We had
about 40 & reduced it to about a 15 or so. Still working on it but a quick
example for the OP is a group called UTL & a group called UTL-SHT which
would exclude the underground mains, markings, etc.

John

wrote in message news:5837527@discussion.autodesk.com...
We use point groups regularly, but not to control the symbol of points
imported from FBK.

We have tried to cut our default Point Groups down to the bare minimum,
because it is so annoying adjusting the relative priority of groups in that
little, tiny, un-resizable dialog box we get. It's just too much trouble
having lots of Point Groups.

Now, we use Point Groups a lot for Calc points, and to add points to
surfaces, and for things like that. But we do not use them to control the
display of FBK shots - that can be done quite easily enough through the Desc
Keys, without resorting to Point Groups.

[Anonymous]

>>Did you mean to say that without Stringer, you would have 1 day field = 4
>>hours office? That would make more sense.
I have to get a new proof reader.....

>>We have not yet been using Stringer, but I'd say if the field guy does a
>>good job,
>>we get 1 day in the field = 2 hours office WITHOUT Stringer. Where it
>>gets
>>different is if the field guy doesn't do a very good job of using the
>>linework
>>commands in the field, and I have to do a lot of cleanup to the FBK file
>>before
>>importing it. That can easily mean 1 day field will take me 4 hours
>>office, or
>>even longer if it's really bad.

Exactly right Sinc. If the field guys get all the coding right, then the
String editing features of Stringer are not even used (although we do have
templating, multiple codes for a single point, and continuous curves so
these features do speed up field work a little bit). As you say, when it
gets mangled in the field is when the office time can go through the roof
and THATs when Stringer comes into its own.

>>This whole "clean up the FBK and reimport" thing... well, no comment.
I have been expecting for Autodesk to realise the error of this method for
years, but each new release keeps the same methodology. I've actually
decided to implement a new Stringer that sits over the Survey database so
that you can edit breakline codes in the survey database and have the model
reflect the changes dynamically, which is exactly what C3D SHOULD do out of
the box.

Regards,

Jon

wrote in message news:5837523@discussion.autodesk.com...
>> If I didn't have Stringer I would say my office productivity would go
>> from 1day field=2 hours office to 1 day field=4 days office so not a
>> massive difference.


Did you mean to say that without Stringer, you would have 1 day field = 4
hours office? That would make more sense.

We have not yet been using Stringer, but I'd say if the field guy does a
good job, we get 1 day in the field = 2 hours office WITHOUT Stringer.
Where it gets different is if the field guy doesn't do a very good job of
using the linework commands in the field, and I have to do a lot of cleanup
to the FBK file before importing it. That can easily mean 1 day field will
take me 4 hours office, or even longer if it's really bad.

There was one survey where the field guy spent 2 days and got the linework
totally mangled; it took me about 2 days in the office to fix that one. But
that's an exception, caused when the field guy was new to linework commands.
Usually it goes much better.

I DO like your philosophy MUCH MUCH better than Autodesk's, however - get
that data in the drawing, and THEN worry about cleaning it up there.

[Anonymous]

By the way Sinc,

I have seen your posts and visited your web site: I'd say you are very
progressive in your massaging of c3d to cover its deficiencies and don't
even realise. Try doing a survey without any of your in house utilities: I'd
say you'd blow out to that 1day=4hours pretty darn quick. I know I would.
Actually, I'd probably just go to the pub for a beer and leave it to the CAD
guy and pretend it wasn't happening....

Jon
wrote in message news:5837523@discussion.autodesk.com...
>> If I didn't have Stringer I would say my office productivity would go
>> from 1day field=2 hours office to 1 day field=4 days office so not a
>> massive difference.


Did you mean to say that without Stringer, you would have 1 day field = 4
hours office? That would make more sense.

We have not yet been using Stringer, but I'd say if the field guy does a
good job, we get 1 day in the field = 2 hours office WITHOUT Stringer.
Where it gets different is if the field guy doesn't do a very good job of
using the linework commands in the field, and I have to do a lot of cleanup
to the FBK file before importing it. That can easily mean 1 day field will
take me 4 hours office, or even longer if it's really bad.

There was one survey where the field guy spent 2 days and got the linework
totally mangled; it took me about 2 days in the office to fix that one. But
that's an exception, caused when the field guy was new to linework commands.
Usually it goes much better.

I DO like your philosophy MUCH MUCH better than Autodesk's, however - get
that data in the drawing, and THEN worry about cleaning it up there. This
whole "clean up the FBK and reimport" thing... well, no comment.

[Anonymous]

I'm with Sinc 100%

Jon

"Abyss" wrote in message
news:5837573@discussion.autodesk.com...
I was just wondering Sinc. It seems the best fit answer, IMO of course to
the OP's,

"The difficulty i am having is differentiating between points that do and do
not display in our production drawings.

We have/are minimized/ing them as well. We have one set of groups for the
surveyors to do analysis & topo and one set of groups for plotting. We had
about 40 & reduced it to about a 15 or so. Still working on it but a quick
example for the OP is a group called UTL & a group called UTL-SHT which
would exclude the underground mains, markings, etc.

John

wrote in message news:5837527@discussion.autodesk.com...
We use point groups regularly, but not to control the symbol of points
imported from FBK.

We have tried to cut our default Point Groups down to the bare minimum,
because it is so annoying adjusting the relative priority of groups in that
little, tiny, un-resizable dialog box we get. It's just too much trouble
having lots of Point Groups.

Now, we use Point Groups a lot for Calc points, and to add points to
surfaces, and for things like that. But we do not use them to control the
display of FBK shots - that can be done quite easily enough through the Desc
Keys, without resorting to Point Groups.

[Anonymous]

Oh I think I am too. We do use desc keys for the symbols. I was talking
about turning point display on/off with groups. Sinc does this with his
calcs, we do it with the calcs & plan labeling.

John

wrote in message news:5837527@discussion.autodesk.com...
We use point groups regularly, but not to control the symbol of points
imported from FBK.

We have tried to cut our default Point Groups down to the bare minimum,
because it is so annoying adjusting the relative priority of groups in that
little, tiny, un-resizable dialog box we get. It's just too much trouble
having lots of Point Groups.

Now, we use Point Groups a lot for Calc points, and to add points to
surfaces, and for things like that. But we do not use them to control the
display of FBK shots - that can be done quite easily enough through the Desc
Keys, without resorting to Point Groups.

[Sinc]

For the situation the OP was talking about, we prefer using the Point Style to place the Marker and the Label on two different layers. This way, we can use the layer settings to control display. Normally, we leave the label layers set to "NOPLOT", so we can see the labels on-screen, but they don't show up when we plot, unless we want them to.

You can override the Point Label Style with "None" in the Point Group, and turn off labels for all points in the group. And we DO do that, sometimes. But for most things, I really do not like setting objects to a "None" display style. When you do that, if you want to turn the display back on, you have to remember which style this entity is supposed to be using, and find and apply the correct style. We don't like that. We like turning layers on and off MUCH better.

There's another respect in which we also get more flexibility this way. With points that use Desc Keys, we use the Desc Key to assign a "good" default label style to each point. There may be different label styles applied to points in the same group. In particular, we may turn off point numbers and elevations for many things, such as Natural Ground shots. It helps keep the drawing "clean", cutting down on "clutter". But then we may use a Point Group Override to cause all points to display with Point Number, Elev, and Description, whenever we need/want to see everything.

[Anonymous]

Interesting Sinc, thanks for the background info.

We have all the functionality you have mentoined as well with keys, layers &
groups. We don't have any isue with assigning a "none" label style to a
group by overide. Most users never really go into the groups properites
(toggling overrides & such) since they are setup for each task in each
template.

I am not trying to claim to have a better method. What we have works for us
& our tasks. I really do appreciate your detailed response. Knowing these
things helps us & I hope it helps others.

Now off to watch the Giants kick some cheater's* bottom... or so I hope. 🙂

John

* Oh just Google,"patriots cheaters" 🙂

wrote in message news:5837717@discussion.autodesk.com...
For the situation the OP was talking about, we prefer using the Point Style
to place the Marker and the Label on two different layers. This way, we can
use the layer settings to control display. Normally, we leave the label
layers set to "NOPLOT", so we can see the labels on-screen, but they don't
show up when we plot, unless we want them to.

You can override the Point Label Style with "None" in the Point Group, and
turn off labels for all points in the group. And we DO do that, sometimes.
But for most things, I really do not like setting objects to a "None"
display style. When you do that, if you want to turn the display back on,
you have to remember which style this entity is supposed to be using, and
find and apply the correct style. We don't like that. We like turning
layers on and off MUCH better.

There's another respect in which we also get more flexibility this way.
With points that use Desc Keys, we use the Desc Key to assign a "good"
default label style to each point. There may be different label styles
applied to points in the same group. In particular, we may turn off point
numbers and elevations for many things, such as Natural Ground shots. It
helps keep the drawing "clean", cutting down on "clutter". But then we may
use a Point Group Override to cause all points to display with Point Number,
Elev, and Description, whenever we need/want to see everything.

[Sinc]

Oh, yeah... I suppose the "None" style would apply to surfaces, not to point groups. I don't really like setting surfaces to a "None" display style. Instead, we use Object Layers to put each surface on a different layer, and just freeze the layer to turn off the surface.

But we typically leave our point labels turned on, and just set their layer to "No Plot". That way we can see any useful information we want to see on screen, but it won't show up on the plot, and we don't have to reconfigure point groups in order to plot. With point groups, since we can just use the layer to turn off Point Labels or set them to "No Plot", we have no real need to use point group overrides for the same thing.

And some of this might just be "old-school" thinking. I kind of like being able to see what's in a drawing by turning on and thawing all layers. If a bunch of objects are still "hidden" because they have plot styles set to "None", well, I just don't like that as much.

But this is one of those areas where you just need to get familiar with the options, then do whatever seems most-convenient to achieve your goal. I'm sure different methods will work better in different situations.