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Cartogramma extension

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Message 1 of 2
tcorey
1358 Views, 1 Reply

Cartogramma extension

Hello all,

 

I have been evaluating the Cartogramma extension for Civil 3D 2013 and have some changes that would be helpful. I understand this is a rough draft, so maybe these modifications can be added before this is released as part of Civil 3D, not as an extension.

 

1. When you change settings in the Create Cartogramma dialog, those settings are not saved. I would think most users would probably set their Cut hatch style and Fill hatch style and would like those to remain as defaults. Same for Ground and Design surfaces.

 

2. There is no way to set hatch scale in the dialog, so you have to go to the drawing, pick one, Select Similar, and change the scale. This takes time, especially on a large Cartogramma area.

 

3. If I do change the scale, but then modify the FG surface in any way, the hatch scale gets set back to 0.5. That's very annoying.

 

4. I would prefer to set my own layers, but don't find any settings available. I might have missed them. I looked on Settings tab and under Surfaces and Grading on Settings tab.

 

5. The elevations that are placed on the corners and the volume in the middle of the Cartogramma cells are text objects. Yikes. These should definitely be labels, not text.

 

6. The volumes being reported are in Cu. Ft. Cartogramma does not recognize that I have set my Ambient Settings to show volumes in Cu. Yd. and neither does it respect my precision setting.

 

This is an okay first pass, but it can be made much more usable.

 

Has anyone else looked at this extension. Any opinions?



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

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. -- Kurt Vonnegut
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Message 2 of 2
el_nath
in reply to: tcorey

I've just checked Cartogramma, and while it looks nice I have some issues with it, namely that it is not intelligent. Texts and lines and hatches? Is this Civil 3D or Autocad?

 

Here's a Civil 3D solution (I created a cartogram using surface styles and spot labels, save for the volumes, a couple of years back, so the functionality is there within Civil 3D, no need for AutoCAD objects!).

 

Under Surface Style>Grid Tab, there should be: Primary Grid Origin; Default=0, Secondary Grid Origin; Default=0, Surface Grid Vertex Label Style, Surface Grid Area Label Style, Grid Legend Style, Split Grid at Datum; Default=yes, Datum; Default=0.

 

Under Surface Style> Analysis Tab>Elevations, there should be: Number of Ranges Above and Below Datum (each); Default=1, Datum; Default=0.

 

Under Surface Label Style, there should be: Grid Vertex Labels with Label Component properties including but not limited to Comparison Surface Elevation, Base Surface Elevation. (these properties should actually be available to other labels.

 

Under Surface Label Style, there should be: Grid Area Labels with Label Component properties including but not limited to Volume.

 

Under Surface Table Style, there should be: Volume Grid Table

 

That's it and that's what I thought Cartogramma would be. The texts for spot and volume data, lines for tables and the hatches took me completely by surprise, because the area hatches and grid are done by surface style and elevation analysis, the spot elevations by spot label styles. Why use AutoCAD objects to extract Civil 3D data?

 

Civil 3D was half way there with a volume cartogram, so why go backwards, when you can go all the way?

 

 

Nathan Selles-Alvarez, P.E.
Senior Civil Engineer

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