Points Elevations taking surface as a reference

[aalmeida22]

Hi,

I am new with Civil 3D, currently working on the 2013 version. I have a situation at work where we need to know the elevations of certain points taking the design surface as a reference.

The points we have are structural piles and we need to know how tall are they from the ground. We have like 500 piles. I have been doing some research and I've seen that many people just create a second surface above the design surface, but we don't want to do this, we want to work with points that we can attach to every pile, put a tag on it and now exactly how tall every pile is.

I would really appreciate your help on this.

Thanks!

[MilneJB]

If they are above the surface the same amount then select your points--> datum, then enter the height above the surface.

[aalmeida22]

The points already have their elevation set I'm not suppose to change it or anything, what I want is to label them and that the label shows the pile height, which should be the point elevation (which is above the surface) minus the surface elevation.

[MilneJB]

Ah ok, sorry that one is beyond me. My thought though is that it wouldn't be possible as you wouldn't be able to set which surface it needs to see for the math to be performed. Perhaps someone from the programming side would know what format an expression would need?

[Joe-Bouza]

Not wanting to make a surface for top of piles and we cannot make a surface for the top of piles are two different things. If you want to get the labels as efficently as the software will allow you then make the surface from the top of pile points (don't tell them and we wont either), create a volume surface {topOfPile - Ground}, add a reference component to the pile pointpoints and referece the volume surface to show the heigh. above gound, take a 2 hour break, print out the results. Tell them you did it by using Cole's Law and bill the 2 hours to the job.