Create Points on Contours

[Anonymous]

Quick question:

How can I create many points on contour lines? Do I have to manually create the points by osnaping on the contour? I need to then export these into a text file... Help. 

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

[pendean]

LT doesn't do all of that specialized functionality.
You can use DIVIDE or MEASURE commands if just need to equally space dots on your contour line, but to export to a table those dots needs to be replaced with smarter objects like blocks with attributes plus you need to set up a template for that table.

Are you ready to roll up your sleeves to start? You do you need to buy a variant of AutoCAD like Civil3D that has the ability I believe?

[Anonymous]

They don't necessarily have to be equal in spacing. A little background.. I am a project engineer on a large site development and my superintendant wants me to create a text file that can imported into our total station. Ultimately I need as many points on the contour lines so they can lay this out in the field to finish overlot grading. Will this be possibly with AutoCAD LT?

Definitely down to get this completed. Just a very complex project with a lot of contour lines. 

Thank you so much for your time!

[Anonymous]

If that's all you are looking for, it won't be too bad. AutoCAD LT is defiantly not meant to create points based off contours but you can make it happen. If it's a true contour, you may have to explode it once so it's a polyline. Once it's a polyline, do the list command and you should see X, Y & Z (if available) for each vertex. From here you can copy & paste the command line history into a document and start erasing everything but the X, Y & Z coordinates. You could also export out the history I believe instead of copy & paste. Either way, you have a document with all the X, Y & Z's that you will just need to format for importing.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Erik for the help! The contours are true contours and show the elevation, etc. The contours were entered in as polylines too. This may be a dumb question, but what did you mean when you said list command? When I click the contour line, it only gives me one northing and easting (x,y) for the entire contour line.

[Anonymous]

HAHA! Nevermind. Gotcha. "LIST" Command. 

[Anonymous]

There are probably other ways to do it but with me switching from 10+ years of Civil3D to LT.. that's the only way I can think of to accomplish what you asked. Good luck and hopefully it works for you.  

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately this looks like it only convering parts of the contour lines. I am noticing that is giving me the same amount of points for every contour?

[Anonymous]

Did you explode the contour so it's a polyline? You can do a quickselect to
isolate out everything but contours then explode them. My understanding of
contours is that if you do a list on them..it won't give vertex
coordinates...but you will polylines.

[steven-g]

Can you post an example drawing with a few contour lines, this is possible in LT you can use the divide command to place blocks onto your contour lines and then use the data extraction command to export the data to a CSV file to be read into excel, which can give you a listing with the point coordinates, I don't know how you need to present the information to your total station, but you can get a list with point X,Y (and Z) coordinates.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Steven! I have tried to post the file but it's too large. I am assuming with this method I would need to create a block to specify when I use the divide method? How do I go about create a block to read X, Y, and Z.

Thanks again!!

[Anonymous]

So I read the "Extract Block Attribute Data (Advanced)" tutorial. Still having a really hard getting the ATTEXT command to spit anything (X, Y, Z). 

BL:NAME DhmTick
BL:X N007001
BL:Y N007001
BL:Z N007001

My Block name is DhmTick... I am not exactly sure what to do on the X, Y, Z? 

[Anonymous]

So here is what I got so far....

I have got my Block created.

Command - DIVIDE

Select my contour line.

Command - BLOCK

Insert name of block, "DhmTick"

Align block with object, "Yes"

Enter the number of segments, "10"

The points are created on the contour line.

Command - ATTEXT

From here I select CDF, select all of the points on the contour line, insert template file, and output file.

My template file code is this following:

BL:X N009002
BL:Y N009002
BL:Z N007002

Here is where my problem lies... I am getting a blank output file. The message I am receiving is "** No attribute fields specified."

I am assuming there is something wrong with my Block, but after searching the forum here I can not find the answer to my problem. I am stuck. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[steven-g]

Ok, just a quick note, I'll put together a quick example, but in order for the attext command to work the block needs to have at least one attribute, which is just how the command works, so you're not doing anything wrong. Are you're contours 3D or just 2D.

[Anonymous]

They were probably created in 3D with full AutoCAD. I have AutoCAD LT which of course only allows me to see the contours in 2D. However the contours do have a Z coordinate attached. 

Hope this helps!

[steven-g · Accepted solution]

I use LT as well so no problem, attached is a drawing with a 3D spline and a block, and also a template extraction file. One little problem I didn't realise about is that using the divide command will insert the blocks along an object but it doesn't include the attributes, there are a couple of work arounds, I just used the divide command and then ran the attsync command which updates the blocks correctly, or you can insert a block at the end of an object and then use the array command, with the path option.

Then use the attext command with the example extraction template file, it only contains a single attribute (that does nothing) but it has to be there for attext to work. I hope this helps a bit.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much Steven!!

[steven-g]

You're welcome, glad I could help

[bwh5j]

Forgot my username password for ecisiteconstruction, but this is the same person.

Thanks again for the all the help steven-g, that solution has helped us out tremendously. 

I was wondering if there is a way to actually label each point separately using the DIVIDE command?

I want to be able to keep the same process of creating points, but is there a way to label each one (i.e., point1, point2, etc.). This will help when I export the points to a text file, the point will show up in the text file and on the plans.

Would I need to update my block to do this?