Text to Point Alternative

[ksorsby]

Morning all,

I know the 'move text to elevation' tool works quite well but the elevation is purely assigned to the insert point of the text object, which in some cases could be metres away from the point it refers to depending on how the text is formatted.

Does anybody know of a tool, lisp or otherwise, that will read the text elevation and assign it to the nearest point/block adjacent to the object?

Any ideas appreciated!

Kevin

[dasindog]

Maybe this post will help you find a solution. 

http://c3dpeanuts.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/importing-autocad-objects-as-surface-data-points/

Good Luck

[neilyj666]

This is only a valid solution if the text insertion is at the required level point, however ,this tool will do the job http://howtoautocad.com/autocad-civil-3d-survey-fix-2013-update/ for the 2013 release at least.

Mapworks from Dotsoft also has a tool that does a similar thing although both tools have limitations if there is a clutter of text and possible points but both work very well if the points are well spaced e.g. spot levels/detail features in open country.

[ksorsby]

Hi Dustin,

Not quite - I'm familiar with the text to level tool but what I need is a tool that will read the text and allocate that figure as an elevation to the nearest adjacent point. We often receive rubbish surveys which have been flattened or badly drawn and all the text justifications are on the left, say, but the points to which they refer to are on the right, or diagonal. Depending on the textsize, the distance between them could be a couple of metres.

I'm sure I saw a lisp for this many years ago?

Kevin

[AllenJessup]

If the text is all the same direction and distance from the points. Select all the text and move it so the insertion point of the text is at the point location.

Allen

[ksorsby]

Not all the same, usually. When they are, that's what I do first off.

is there a way of doing this within the survey functionality in Civil 3D as suggested by Neilyj?

[tcorey]

Hi Kevin,

Can you tell us what your end-use purpose is? Are you truly using Text objects? In your attachment it looks like Civil 3D COGO Points.

Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, you might consider creating a block with an attribute. There is a routine that will move the block to the attribute elevation, even if you have moved the attribute.

Tim

[neilyj666]

Just to be clear - my suggestion has nothing to do with the Survey functionality in Civil 3D - the author of the tool called it Surveyfix and it looks like it work reasonably well on your dataset - I may have earlier versions around somewhre for 2011 and 2012 or try emailing the author

[ksorsby]

Hi Tim,

In this case (and plenty of others), we receive a topographical survey as part of a masterplan pack. More often than not, the topo has been flattened or has been through various other consultants' design, graphic or architectural packages so has no elevation info, coordiates or such like.

What you are looking at here is a dwg with raw text with the insert at bottom left, next to blocks where the insertion point of the block is at the central intersection of the cross within the block. There are some 10,000 points in total so manually moving text or individual attribute creation is out of the question.

I can build basic surfaces quite happily out of the text using the elevation tool but, as an end use, when I want to get a more detailed for design purposes, this method falls apart because the point levels are not where I want them to be ie. at the point/block locations along road edges, ditches, retaining walls, buildings etc.

So I'm looking for a method to translate the level info read from an item of text and apply that to an adjacent point. I appreciate there may be errors in point clusters etc. but it'd be better than nothing!

Thanks!

Kevin

[MikeEvansUK]

Kevin, as others have said before. This tool is the only one avaliable which will accurately do this in Civil3d.

I use this tool (a customised version of) very often due to the lack of 3d Data and it works very well. The only thing is that you do need to either accept all points knowing you'll get errors with mistaken points or check and adjust the setting for each point. Otherwise the only other option is an incorrect surface created from text entities.

I'm not sure how the new tool works now as I re-wrote mine ages ago from vba to .Net3.5 and tweaked for cogo point creation but I did supply the code back to the author for tweaking - I don't think he uses Civil3D though.

I do however have some Sudgestions/tips as to how to speed this up and reduce problems wth errors & large datasets.

1.  Scan through the drawing and relocate points and text which are close to one annother to a new layer prior to running the tool (Kerb upstands etc).

2.  Break up large surveys into chunks of data (seporate files or layers) to speed up things and do a large survey in stages rather than one hit.

3.  Isolate layers to only work on the items on that layer to reduce problems in incorrect selections.

Once you have created the points and surface drape all the lineart onto the surface but do not create intermediate elevation points. Add the lineart to the surface moving to the top of the list.

Mike