Design Profile Customisation

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I am currently undergoing a review of Civil3D for the company I work for and over the last few months have been attempting to teach myself how to use Civil3d to produce a project so that the finished documents look exactly like how we would currently produce (along with some added benefits that Civil3d has over our current software).  I am having some trouble with getting a design profile looking the same and would love some advice.  As per my attached JPEG, the profile at the top is what I have Civil3d currently producing, and the bottom is how I would love to have it looking if possible.  As you can see, the main issues I am having are getting the grid lines to show vertical design points from top to bottom, and getting the staggers to work as shown.  Currently if I attempt to use the stagger labels option in "Bands" all I get is a tick coming down inside the top of the band and the relevant data doesn't even move to align with it.

It would be fantastic if someone could help me out with some advice on how to build the profile view better.

Thanks in advance.

Michael

[Anonymous]

I haven't played very much with profile views because we find them to be insufficient for our plotting purposes so I am not going to be able to answer your question directly. However, I think it is incredibly important to consider all drafting standards up for grabs when switching to a product like Civil 3D. That isn't to mean that you should change everything. Civil 3D will be capable of matching a lot of what you already have. However, workflow changes may inspire new production changes. For us, profiles need to look a certain way (agency requirements) that Civil 3D just does not do. At all. So we end up not plotting the Civil 3D grid and simply line up the profile with our own that is in paper space. This takes time. If we did this for everything, we'd never get anything done. All of the super revision power of Civil 3D would be lost on plan production tweaks. So, if it turns out you are SOL, I would consider why you are showing the information you are. Is it important? If so, can you display it another way? Probably. Does that other way convey the same meaning in a clear fashion? If so, maybe that should become a new production standard.

[andrewpuller3811 · Accepted solution]

You can certainly achieve what you want.

The desired profile view is virtually the same as the format we use.

For your Vertical lines on your Design gradelines, you need to edit the profile label style that is being used for that label and set the line component to have the Start point anchor component to <Feature>, the Start point anchor point to Anchor Station, set the Use End Point Anchor to True, the End point anchor component to <Feature> and the End point anchor station to Anchor Station Extension. Also set the Length Type to Percentage Length and set the Percentage Length to 100%.

For your vertical curves, you will need to edit the profile label style that is being used for vertical curves and set the line component for the start line to have the Start point anchor component to <Feature>, the Start point anchor point to Anchor Curve Start In View, set the Use End Point Anchor to True, the End point anchor component to <Feature> and the End point anchor station to Anchor Curve Start In View Dimension. Also set the Length Type to Percentage Length and set the Percentage Length to 100%.

You will also need to set the Dim anchor opt in the Profile label properties to Graph view bottom.

I did try setting the jogs up above the datum line, but it proved much easier to set them up in the top band. I never solved how to have them above the datum.

The trick with jogging the band labels is to have a line component and a text component in the band style, set the line component Start point anchor component to <Feature>, the Start point anchor point to Band Top, the End point anchor component to <Feature>, the End point anchor point to Band Bottom, the Length Type to Percentage Length and set the Percentage Length to 100%.

For the Text component set the Anchor component to <Feature>, the Anchor Point to Band Bottom and the text Rotation angle to 90 degrees, attachment to Bottom Center and the Y Offset to 1/2 your band height. The text has to be set up this way as the jog lines shorten the lines and make the text step up and down if you anchor to the middle of the line.

You also need to set the Dragged state leader visibility to false, the leader colour to the same colour as your line component and the Dragged State Components Display to As Composed. This last bit is due to the jogged labels using the leader settings for the jog line.

It's probably a lot to take in. I will post a drawing later with a profile view set up the way we use so you can have a look at the styles involved.

Once you have the styles set up, you copy them to your template and they are ready to go for all drawings created from that template.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Todd & Andrew,

I have indeed been able to get Civil 3D to look exactly how I want it, ALMOST as displayed (all but the design gradeline extending into the VC's - if you know whether or not it can actually do this I'd like to know!).  As pointed out, what I was trying to do using Band Sets, I should have been doing with the profile labels...  Pretty much common sense really!  Anyway, hoping to learn how to get even more info on there now, so back to having a bit more of a play with it!

[andrewpuller3811]

Not sure what you mean about the "design gradeline extending into the VC's".

Can you post a picture of what you have versus what you want?

[Jeff_M]

I think that the instructions HERE are what you are looking for.

[Anonymous]

Hi Andrew,

I've got it looking pretty **** good now.  Extremely happy to the point where if it came to the crunch, what it is now producing is more than acceptable.  But just to see if it is possible I've attached two JPEG's to show what I mean.  The "Civil3D Direct.JPG" is exactly what I have Civil 3D producing, untouched.  "Civil 3D Desired.JPG" is how I would prefer it to look if possible, but at the end of the day if it can't do it I'll still be happy.

Regards,

Michael

[andrewpuller3811]

The line you have for the grade needs to have the Start point anchor point set to Anchor PVI Start In View Dimension and the End point anchor point needs to be set to Anchor PVI End In View Dimension. That should fix your problem.

I know I'm being lazy, but can I ask how you got the jogs to appear above the bands?

[Anonymous]

Awesome Andrew, looking schmick now!

In answer to your question, as show in the attached JPG, I created a "Stagger" Band.  The top 4 bands are 10/10/10 & 15 (the stagger band) high, hence the -45.00mm "Gap" on the H-G band.  This sits the Stagger band on top of the datum.  (The top three bands only contain the title text, not the labels).  My Profile View Style shows no grid at all, these are made up of the vertical linework in the labelling, which all have an End point Y offset equal to the height of the Stagger band, plus the linework in the stagger band.  Also keep in mind you wont get a stagger if there is no text, hence I created a "fake" text component for the major & minor increments (a space) - which all have to have the same x & y offsets, etc as your other bands text components otherwise the stagger will not line up correctly.

I hope this helps and I haven't confused you!

Michael

[Anonymous]

PS  You wouldn't happen to know why the end of my bands are extending past the last lot of data when it's staggered would you???

[andrewpuller3811]

Thanks for posting the stagger solution.

As far as I know, the end stagger is an issue with the implementation of the staggering in the software.

When it occurs, I work around it by extending my alignment and profile view or shorten the profile view.