topic Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel in Civil 3D Forum

Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:36:22 GMT

Hi all

I have a set of coordinate data from excel with road conditions in another column.

I'm looking to import these into Civil 3D in their respective 100m sections and color coded as per condition of same.

All polylines are to be separate regardless of condition and the start of polyline 2 must be at the end of polyline 1 etc etc

Is there are lisp or workflow out there that can do this?

Photos attached

Thanks in advance

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

tcorey — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 21:48:28 GMT

You would make it easier to test if you would post the text file, not just the png. I want to help you but am not willing to sit here and type in the test data by hand. 😉

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 09:12:13 GMT

Hi Tim

Thanks for the reply

I suppose that would have been a good idea to start with!

Please find attached 😃

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Kyle-L — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 10:02:01 GMT

Funny enough I just helped someone with a similar request this morning. See this post: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/civil-3d-forum/drawing-multiple-lines-when-given-start-and-end-points/td-p/10131672

If you follow the other post and change the formula to the below it should work as you want.

Paste this formula in the last column (starting at the second point) and drag down (see image below):

=CONCAT("PL ", D2, ",",E2," ",D3,",",E3," ")

What you can do to account for the condition is set the active layer (or colour) to the condition you want in Civil 3D and then in excel filter the condition column and then copy and past just those entries into Civil 3D. You will need to do this for each rating, so only 5 times.

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Joe-Bouza — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 12:27:43 GMT

script file from excel

layer set condition1

pline x,y

x,y

x.y

layer set condition2

pline x,y

x,y

x.y

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 17:19:39 GMT

Hi all thanks for the help so far. Easy when you think outside the box!

Last bit I hope... How do I cancel out of the command in excel after setting the layer to the condition rating?

I've looked at the forums and tried command, exit, escape, ^c^c but nothing works. Operator error I fear!

I note that the conditions need a pair of odometer readings to work but I'll sort that out if I can get the right script.

Revised CSV attached

Thanks

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Kyle-L — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 18:02:26 GMT

Not sure of a simpler way, but try changing the command to this (without the square brackets):

[(command "-layer" "set" "VERY_GOOD")(command) PLINE 569309.712,836642.717 569408.593,836625.364 ]

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 20:46:34 GMT

Sorry... didn't work. Tried your text and multiple variations of it

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Joe-Bouza — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 23:00:03 GMT

Not sure who you are replying to; you replied to yourself

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

tcorey — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 01:03:56 GMT

Firstly, if the layer doesn't exist, you can't "Set" it, you have to "Make" it. That will create the layer and set it current.

Your other line, about (command) Pline... Proper syntax would be (command "pline"......)

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 07:25:09 GMT

The layers do exist in the drawing. The first bit of the code works to set the required layer in the drawing. The second bit works to draw the individual polylines. Its when joining the codes , civil 3d wont read the intention to cancel out of setting and new layer current and proceed with polyline command.

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 07:29:52 GMT

Sorry hit wrong reply button.. In an case, civil 3d doesn't recognise the intention to cancel out of the layer command.

Both bits of code work independently of each other but when I join them, it doesn't work

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Joe-Bouza — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 07:32:03 GMT

The script has do exactly what would be done at the keyboard. You most likely need two blank lines in the script to end the layer and pline command each time.

to better understand the required format of the script do a simple layer set followed by a pline (two point will suffice) DO NOT USE THE ESCAPE KEY command line commands only

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 07:58:23 GMT

Yes I have that so... my code would look like this for command line entries:

-LA S VERY_GOOD (COMMAND) (COMMAND) PL "COORDINATES REQUIRED" (COMMAND) (COMMAND)

REPEAT

Command is needed twice for me for some reason to cancel out of commands.

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

tcorey — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 18:48:34 GMT

I thought you were going for LISP. You're building a script. My bad.

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 19:41:18 GMT

No probs. I just want to be able to have 5 concatenated formulae in the csv that I can copy and paste into Civil 3d to replicate the condition and length of each segment tested.

I'm not having much success!

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Kyle-L — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 06:33:58 GMT

I just tried my previous suggestion and it works for me, but maybe I am not understanding what you want to achieve. So to clarify, you want to draw a polyline between 2 points (say Odometer reading 0 and 100) and you want that polyline to go on an existing layer with the same name as the Rating column. If that is correct, below is the formula you can use in excel:

=CONCAT("(command ""-layer"" ""set"" """,B3,""")(command) PLINE ",D2,",",E2," ",D3,",",E3," ")

It results in this text (without the square brackets. The square brackets are there so you can see the final blank space in the line):

[(command "-layer" "set" "NA")(command) PLINE 569309.712,836642.717 569408.593,836625.364 ]

I will break down the line.

[(command "-layer" "set" "NA")] - Sets the current layer to B3, which is the Rating.

[(command) ] - Escapes out of the layer command

[PLINE 569309.712,836642.717 569408.593,836625.364 ] - draws the polyline and escapes the polyline command (could also be written as [(command "pline" "569309.712,836642.717" "569408.593,836625.364") ]

Below is the formula in Excel and the result in Civil 3D

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 07:34:52 GMT

That my friend is what I was looking for... Thanks so much!!

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Pointdump — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 14:48:05 GMT

James,
I've been following this with interest. The Solution from @Kyle-L is definitely first choice.

Another way would be to turn that CSV into a Shapefile in QGIS, then use MAPIMPORT to put "Rating" into different layers.

Dave

Re: Consecutive (but not joined) polylines from excel

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 15:19:52 GMT

Hi Dave

Thanks for the reply. That is a good solution too with less room for error (potentially).

One question though... in your shapefile, when I mapimport it, it is strung.

When I try to do this on the main contract information, it comes in as points only.

Is there a setting in the shapefile generation or import that I can force it to string?