Ground Stationing? How can I station along a surface and not horizontally?

[klesika]

I have a major client that wants an alignment stationed along the ground (slope distances).  I have a surface and a route for an alignment.  Is there a way to have Civil 3D station along the ground and not use horizontal distances?

Thanks

Kevin

[Sinc]

That sounds very odd.  Why do they want that?  I can't imaging a "station along the ground" to be useful in any way...

I know that in some cases, people want pipes labeled using the pipe length for station.  But stationing that follows the undulations of a TIN...?  That sounds very strange indeed....

And no, there's no way to get C3D to do that.

[klesika]

I agree with you.  It is very odd and I do not agree with the practice but this is what we must supply. 

The client uses this type of stationing for piping.  The pipe is installed 4' below grade in all areas.  Stationing along the ground gives them a pipe length.  It also aides in future pipe maintenance.   During pipe inspection a "PIG" is run down the pipe that tracks and records any wear, breaks, or dents in the system.   Each anomaly is logged at a distance down the pipe.  This distance in theory corresponds to the same distance along the ground and will be used to stake out and repair the damaged area. 

[Sinc]

As far as I know, C3D doesn't currently have any options for labeling an Alignment like that.  Maybe somebody has a good "trick" they'd like to share...  I'm at a loss.

You might be able to manage something with third-party tools...  For example, I created the image below in a matter of minutes with the Sincpac-C3D:

The white stationing is the Alignment (or "2D") stationing we get by default on C3D Alignments.  The orange stationing is created from the ground lengths, and is essentially the "3D Stationing".

I actually used Cogo Points to do this...  The orange stationing in the image above is actually created from Cogo Points.  To do it, I first created my Alignment and Profile, using the ground surface.  Then I used the "Create Feature Lines from Alignment" tool in C3D to generate a Feature Line from the Alignment/Profile.  Then I exploded the Feature Line, turning it into a 3D Polyline.

Now is where I started using the Sincpac-C3D tools.  I generated Cogo Points every 100' along the 3D polyline, then used the Sincpac-C3D's Dynamic Point Links to link the Cogo Points to the 3D Polyline.  I configured the Dynamic Link to stick the 3D Polyline's station in a UDP on the Cogo Point.  (When linked to a 3D Polyline, the Sincpac-C3D Dynamic Links return the 3D stationing instead of 2D stationing, due to some quirks of the way Autocad works internally...  In this case, it gives us exactly what we want.)  Then I created a Point Label Style that displayed the UDP value.  I also used the RotateAligned command in the Sincpac-C3D to rotate all the Cogo Points, so that they are aligned with the Alignment.  In a matter of a few minutes, I had an Alignment and Profile labeled with both "2D" and "3D" stationing.

There's still some caveats...  For example, all the Profile Views still use the "2D stationing".

[lsimms1]

I just had a look at some of the expression options for line labels.

Someone may be able to set something up for you if you use a feature line instead of alignment.

Maybe post in the customization forum?

Sorry I can't help, but thought an idea would be better than nothing.

[RickGraham]

It's convoluted, but what about the Create Feature Line From Alignment and then draping the feature line onto the surface. And then explode the feature line so that it's a 3D Polyline. Use the MEASURE command, specifying the distance you want to place nodes. But after that, I'm lost (or sleepy). Maybe this will get some more creative juices flowing. Rick

[dnl999]

I like this idea, cool !

[Sinc]

It sounds like there's an echo in here... 

Your post is virtually identical to the first half of my last post.