Feature Codes and Attributes.

[nmessina]

My wish for Civil 3D 2015 is for Autodesk to expand the Civil 3D Survey Database to include fully functional use of Feature Codes and Attributes of survey points. As GIS is becoming more popular for city, county and state agency it important to look  beyond describing survey points with a single Descriptor Code. Trimble Data Controllers and Spectra Precision Survey Pro data collector already have this capability.  Both of them use a program called Feature Definition Manager, which is XML (.fxl) based file format program which is fully customizable to add Survey/GIS data to a collected survey point. 

For example if the surveyor in the field locates a TREE, the data collector will automatically prompt the surveyor to enter the DBH (diameter at breast height", prompted to specify the Tree Species and the Canopy size.  While this data currently can be added to the descriptor code such as "TREE 18in BLACK OLIVE" can convert to the fully descriptor as " 18in BLACK OLIVE" it is not part of a data base that can easily added to a GIS database.

This would require expanding the Survey Database as follows:

PT#,NAME,NORTHING,EASTING,ELEVATION,DESC,FEATURE,ATTR1,ATTR2...........