survey issues

[Anonymous]

 Morning All and Happy Holidays

   I am having some issues with point data and translating it from land 2006 to civil 3d 2012? for whatever reason i cannot seem to get points from land into civil 3d without the coordinates changing? i have tried every combination of international, survey feet i can think of and it seems no matter what i cannot get matching coordinates. we use no datum no projection on everything. i think i got the coordinates worked out on this one, though it was not easy, it appears to me any old land drawing is going to default to international feet no matter what template etc, and if i change it to us survey then it is ok? if anyone knows anything about this i am listening.

    Also, this morning, i have this project that was not previously a topo and now is going to become one, so i edited the points in the survey database to remove the bogus elevations which the crew had from before and i inserted them into my new drawing, and guess what i got elevations, but not the same ones i had before, they too are different. please help, i am getting extremely frustrated as i dont know what else to try or what am i missing?

  When i edit points through the survey database it shows the correct coordinates with no elevations, as does prospector for my new drawing file. but when i export the points elevations show up?

Thanks in advance

[wfberry]

What format are you using to export these points?

Bill

[Anonymous]

prospector all points export points pnezd comma dekimited, i dont have the data collector in the field with the crew, if here i have to use the trimble link software

[KirkNoonan]

I would suggest defining the coordinate system in both the source drawing and the target drawing. Sometimes the software is too autonomous, but if you force it to use the systems that you want, it shouldn't translate anything. Also, be aware that the Civil 3D coordinate system needs to be defined in both the drawing and in teh survey database (if using). Right click on the name of the databasse and select 'edit survey database settings to change the database. What method are you using to export/import the points? Under the insert tab, there is a import from Land Desktop tool that is probably your best bet, if you have access to the LDD project.

I'm not sure what the point icons in your attached screen shot mean, but I suspect it has something to do with your elevation challenges. The usual point type icons are as below:

Notice that none of these symbols matches the one in your screen shot. How did you go about editing the elevations of the points? Are the points based on observations?

[rl_jackson]

Your best bet when going from LDD to C3D is to use the LDD *.MDB (project database if available) and import that into the SDB and only bring in the linework from the LDD drawing. The conversion routine gets a little buggy, and will have a tendancy to cause crashes down the road from my experience, like the older objects are never really gone from the drawing.

As far as any shift your seeing. If your working in US Survey FT then make sure that your template is set as such. If you dont project things then also set the Template and SDB to NO DATUM NO PROJECTION. These should match.

[kcobabe]

At any point was this in a Microstation format.  Because of the way MS interprets units this can cause problems when you take it to Autocad then to C3D.  It's something I recently came across.  Best bet I found is do the old copy base from the old drawing.  Then paste into a C3D drawing.  Works everytime 😉

[AllenJessup]

If you're doing the conversion of the LDD point to Civil 3D point in Civil 3D. You can run in to trouble if the points were moved or rotated in LDD. The LDD points can contain the original insertion coordinates and that is what Civil uses as the point location. It's best to import them from an ASCII or MDB file.

Allen

[Anonymous]

Well , it get trickier, see i am the only cadd person, whomever created all these LDD files, for one did not set the points to update the database, check points i believe it is called, so when i take points out of an ldd 2006 drawing i export them from the drawing which i know is correct and may be the only location of correct elevations and coordinates, and import them into civil 3d, either using a fieldbook file or a txt file. so i cannot rely on any of the ldd databases to be correct. no microstation has been used.

"use the LDD *.MDB (project database if available) and import that into the SDB" not even sure what this is?

i export the ldd2006 points, say to a text file, print out the point list, import it into civil3d, print out the civil3d point list and i get different coordinates, not by much talking a 100th to a tenth but still enough to be aggravating. my main concern is how to get rid of these elevations

[KirkNoonan · Accepted solution]

This isn't the recommended method, but why don't you just copy and paste the LDD points into your C3D drawing. Then you can use the Points -> Concert LDD Points to convert them into C3D points. When the points are in your C3D drawing, (and not yet in a survey database) select them all in the bottom half of the prospector window, right click on elevation, choose edit, and enter either 0 or a period. Then you can import the points into your C3D database and you're done.

[rl_jackson]

"not by much talking a 100th to a tenth but still enough to be aggravating. my main concern is how to get rid of these elevations"

Could this be a settings issue, were your not exporting enough significant digits. Just a guess, something worth looking at.

[wfberry]

prospector all points export points pnezd comma dekimited, 

Export using PNED.  You did not want elevations.

[Anonymous]

i have been using the old write block entire drawing method, who would have thought, then when i insert it into my new template i convert the points and have not had an issue since. none of the other methods worked, coordinates always off by a tenth to a hundreth. good old school ways still come in handy i guess.