Community
Civil 3D Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Civil 3D Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular AutoCAD Civil 3D topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Offset Problem 2013

16 REPLIES 16
Reply
Message 1 of 17
Cadguru42
7016 Views, 16 Replies

Offset Problem 2013

Has anyone else noticed a problem with offsetting polylines in 2013?  I constantly have polylines that when I try to offset them I get the "Cannot offset that object", yet it shows a preview of the object as if it was offset.  

 

This isn't consistant and I haven't found anything to duplicate it every time.  But it happens on polylines that have arcs in them most of the time.  This is very frustrating when trying to offset the edge of pavement in order to get face of curb and back of curb.

 

I have attached a sample of one that is causing me issues.  Just to make sure it wasn't my template, I took the 2012 out-of-the-box acad.dwt and pasted the polyline in question into it, then saved as a 2013 dwg.  Try to offset it 0.5 to the inside and it won't work. If you try the outside, you'll get the preview of it, but it still won't offset.  This is a simple polyline with two lines and two arcs.  I've never had this kind of problem from any version of Autocad since R12 like I have with 2013.

 

I can explode the polyline and offset each individual part, but when you're dealing with around 50 polylines and probably close to 500+ lines & arcs, this becomes a huge problem.

C3D 2022-2024
Windows 10 Pro
32GB RAM
16 REPLIES 16
Message 2 of 17
jmayo-EE
in reply to: Cadguru42

Remove the vertex at the mid point of the line and the pline will offset.

 

John Mayo

EESignature

Message 3 of 17
Jeff_M
in reply to: Cadguru42

As John mentioned, remove the in-line vertex. For some reason, Autodesk changed how AutoCAD offsets polylines. I saved the drawing as a R2010 format and was able to offset it fine in 2010, but in 2012 & 2013 that vertex must be removed in order to offset.

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
EESignature
Message 4 of 17
jmayo-EE
in reply to: Jeff_M

Odd huh? Even though the vertex is redundant it shouldn't effect the offset geometry. I mean even if you removed the end tangent the resulting curve still fits/computes. Better yet, remove the last vertex and leave the shorter tangent. Try the offset command and the error icon appears but the offset is created.

John Mayo

EESignature

Message 5 of 17
jmayo-EE
in reply to: jmayo-EE

One more thing to note is that offsetting issues due to large coordinates did not seem to ba an issue with this.

John Mayo

EESignature

Message 6 of 17
Cadguru42
in reply to: Cadguru42

Thanks for looking it it for me.  That would be a solution to this one polyline, but what about all my other ones?  I don't have time to track down which vertex of every polyline is causing the offset command to fail.  I've just been exploding the polyline and just offsetting every single piece of it in order to get it to work.  

 

Basically, 2013 is costing us more money doing mundane edits that previous versions didn't require simply because Autodesk changed something that worked before with no issues.

C3D 2022-2024
Windows 10 Pro
32GB RAM
Message 7 of 17
AllenJessup
in reply to: Cadguru42

Have you opened an SR with Autodesk?

 

Allen



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 8 of 17
mathewkol
in reply to: Cadguru42

Maybe try the C3D stepped offset command instead of AutoCAD's offset.
Matt Kolberg
SolidCAD Professional Services
http://www.solidcad.ca /
Message 9 of 17
Cadguru42
in reply to: AllenJessup


@AllenJessup wrote:

Have you opened an SR with Autodesk?

 

Allen


Not sure what good it will do.  I can't reproduce it intentionally.  I guess I could try and see what happens.

 

I attached another DWG that has the previous edge of pavement as well as a curb island that's farther north for this same project.  Look at what happens when you offset the closed polyline that's up north by 0.5' for the back of curb.  It makes two polylines in the upper right corner that don't even match the original!

 

This is what is causing me so much headache.

C3D 2022-2024
Windows 10 Pro
32GB RAM
Message 10 of 17
Cadguru42
in reply to: mathewkol


@mathewkol wrote:
Maybe try the C3D stepped offset command instead of AutoCAD's offset.

It still does the thing. I thought of that, too, when I started having this issue.

C3D 2022-2024
Windows 10 Pro
32GB RAM
Message 11 of 17
AllenJessup
in reply to: Cadguru42

Well.... It might alert them to the problem. You can attach a small drawing or ask for a link to upload a larger on, so they'll be able to see your examples. I've had mixed results with SRs, but it's worth a try.

 

BTW. I don't have 2013 so I can't look at your examples.

 

Allen



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 12 of 17
caddmandew
in reply to: Cadguru42

You might try using the Express Tools Offset command.  EXOFFSET

 

Jim Haglund
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood"
 
Jim Haglund
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood"
Message 13 of 17
george.skinner
in reply to: Cadguru42

Were the lines you are having trouble with imported from survey data? I usually explode those feature lines, convert them to 2d polylines and flatten them to zero elevation. Then I don't have problems with offsets of curb lines, etc.

Message 14 of 17
Cadguru42
in reply to: george.skinner


@george.skinner wrote:

Were the lines you are having trouble with imported from survey data? I usually explode those feature lines, convert them to 2d polylines and flatten them to zero elevation. Then I don't have problems with offsets of curb lines, etc.


I was trying to draw new medians in an existing road.  I drew a polyline on top of the survey figure for the edge of pavement, snapping to the end points of the figure(s). I then set the polyline to 0 elevation. Then I offset each side inward by 13.5' for my outside lanes and that told me what the outside edges of my new median would be. The problem was that after I connected the two edges together and made a single polyline that when I'd go to offset it 0.5' inward to create the BOC that I ran into the problems. 

 

To get the existing edge of pavement, face of curb, and back of curb we use the survey codes to do that automatically so we don't have to draw them. Works great and makes it much faster to get a surface. We never explode a survey figure as that leads to problems later on for us.

 

 

C3D 2022-2024
Windows 10 Pro
32GB RAM
Message 15 of 17
SMiddick
in reply to: AllenJessup

I know this thread is a little old but I just had the same problem and found it. I didn't get much help from any of the results I was finding so I went back to try some more things on my own. When I used the OVERKILL command and ran it on the two lines I was having problems with, BAM. Now I can offset them. Just wanted to share this since it may help someone in the future.

Message 16 of 17
gservis
in reply to: SMiddick

I had a pretty complex closed polyline of a river.  It had over 7000 verticies.  I used OVERKILL on it but it finally worked with I used WEEDFEATURES.  I had to try a couple of times to get it simplified enough.

Message 17 of 17
tcorey
in reply to: gservis

Another option would be to use Map Drawing Cleanup to remove pseudo nodes.



Tim Corey
MicroCAD Training and Consulting, Inc.
Redding, CA
Autodesk Gold Reseller

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. -- Kurt Vonnegut

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Rail Community


Autodesk Design & Make Report