AEC Tin Surface - Not showing after attached in Xref

[Wes_S]

My issue is with a survey file that has a Civil 3D surface (AEC tin) in it not being visible after it's xref-attached through multiple files.

In our office, we do our work in a design file that has the survey file xref-attached into it. We then attach our design file CAD base to a plot sheet so all of our sub-consultant files are carried through via the single design file.

The issue is the tin surface is entirely visible in the design base after the first xref-attach, but then as we xref the design base to the plot file, the tin is not carried through. All other linework associated with the survey file carries through. I have verified this with different survey files with AEC Tins and the same thing happens, so it does not appear to be an isolated issue.

I have not experienced this issue with other versions of CAD.

-I am working in ACAD 2019 with recent updates that were sent out. I have 2019 Object Enablers installed.

-I have verified the plot sheet SHOWS the TIN surface while viewed in Civil 3D 2019 (w/ recent update installed).

Can I get this investigated further? Could there be a need for a new object enabler release?

Thanks.

[jwhite]

We have the same issue here. We just run exporttoautocad in the C3D file and use the new file as our xref. It's annoying but it is a work around.

[Wes_S]

Normally I can handle just exploding the surface, but I just re-checked the drawing and noticed the AECC_Pipe in the survey is not showing up now. There was some COGO_Point labels that did show up, however. So it's all over the map with regards to what is carried over. I can view the plot file just fine in C3D of course, even toggling to normal drafting mode.

This can often have some implications on annotative scales, etc. I do often like to keep the AECC objects in-tact in the drawing. Additionally, getting new drawings creates a workflow hassle. 

Please escalate this issue Autodesk!

[john.vellek]

HI @Wes_S,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.  It sounds like something in the OE is not working correctly.  Can you provide some stripped down sample drawings that display this issue so i can try to document what I see and bring it to development?

I am going to move this thread to the Civil 3D forum as the Civil team writes the OE and I hope this might get their attention as well.

@copper.chadwick - any ideas on this? have you seen this mentioned before?

[Wes_S]

john.velleck:

Thanks so much for the quick response.

I have attached an example drawings(s) for you to look at (please note the two separate folder conditions below). It has a survey, that's attached to DBASE.dwg, that is then attached to PLOT_FILE.dwg.

What's interesting is that I tried a blank file starting in Civil 3D and attached all the way to the PLOT_FILE. I then saved in Civil 3D and closed the program. I then opened in AutoCAD 2019 (and also saved and added line) and the surface file was visible in the plot file.

If I start the drawing in AutoCAD 2019 and go all the way setting up the plot file xref attaching, the surface is not visible. I have not tested other AECC objects with this scenario so please note that, so it's only TIN in this example.

So it seems that setting up drawings in Civil 3D and then working in vanilla CAD from that point on is also a potential workaround. It seems Civil 3D is inserting necessary information that regular CAD is not possibly?

Please see my screenshots of the surface visible and not visible when viewed in the respective plot files in ACAD 2019. I have also given the example of these two setups -- one in C3D the other in ACAD as described above -- in their own folders within the .zip file attached.

Thanks much for the escalation of this issue.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Wes_S,

I am starting by looking at the AutoCAD folder.  I don't have Civil 3D installed and I am using AutoCAD 2019.

I noticed that the survey file had 58 AUDIT errors and perhaps that is part of this issue.  Many of the items could not be repaired and are erased during the AUDIT

Please explain how you are referencing the files? (order of attaching?).  In the AutoCAD folder I see the TIN in the Survey and DBASE files but not the Plot_file unless I xref the survey file before the DBASE one.

The Dbase Civil dwg shows 4 proxy objects and the file size is considerably larger than the Dbase AutoCAD file which shows only 2 proxy objects.

[Wes_S]

The survey had some audit issues but is not part of the problem. I have gone in and audited the survey and then re-setup from scratch and confirmed the issue is still present. My order of operation is I start with clean template file, attach the survey.dwg (audited in this case). I save this as the DBASE.dwg file. I then create a new template file and attach the DBASE.dwg and then save as PLOT file. The survey is nested in the DBASE and comes along -- so I only need to attach once. Subsequently, new files only need to be attached into the DBASE one time and they are carried on thru to the xrefs and plot files we've setup seamlessly rather than having to overlay each instance to design files and plot files which can be overwhelming. 

As described above, attaching the survey to the PLOT file will not work with our office CAD system. It generally seems the "nesting" feature of xrefs is not working for some AEC objects. We need to utilize the nesting abilities of CAD for our setup. Nesting has never been a problem before for OE installations through the years, so this is a new one.

Hopefully it's understood this issue is more than just a TIN AEC object issue. I am having issues on other files showing pipes, etc. so the title of this thread is a bit misleading. 

You can see the audited CAD version described above that is attached to verify auditing is not the culprit.

Thanks for the help.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Wes_S

Thanks for the additional information and data.

I am still playing with this to see if there are any other issues that might be preventing this from behaving properly

[BrianHailey]

John and any other Deskers looking at this,

You can recreate the issue using the default tutorial files that come with Civil 3D.

I've attached the tutorial file I used in the video so you can try it yourself without having to find the file.

[john.vellek]

Thank you - I am actively digging into the issue and thank you all for your patience and participation!

[copper.chadwick]

@Wes_S,

Welcome to the Civil 3d forums! Great post with relative content to the community. The symptoms you are describing, in this case the Triangular Irregular Network surface types seems to "disappear" in drawings. I too could reproduce the issue as @BrianHailey well described in the screencast he made. Thanks @BrianHailey! This issue is only present in Civil 3D 2019 / AutoCAD 2019

I'll log this issue with the development team for their review.

---

Temporary Solution:

I also want to confirm that the temporary solution is to attach the External Referencing in Civil 3D rather than rely on the Object Enablers in AutoCAD. After using Civil 3D to attach the External References the drawing can be opened in AutoCAD and the behavior seems to correct itself. Another temporary solution is to do the External Referencing in 2018 as the issue is not present in that version.

[Wes_S]

Thanks to everyone for helping out so quickly! This is great and working in C3D to setup drawings presents a viable workaround for now.

[copper.chadwick]

@Wes_S, 

Well I have started to log this with development and ran into something I would like for you to test, VISRETAIN as it returned the correct behavior to me, in truth I had considered this and dismissed it as I assumed that Layers were not involved, however, in discussing  with the Civil KDE, he mentioned to try it before logging the issue with development and it did fix the files and returned the missing objects.

Another note of a change I made, I also cleaned the survey file in Civil 3D as it looks like a legacy template did create some unused objects and there were several 'Sites' that were extraneous and not present in the drawing. I used the Prospector to delete the sites. Then (-PURGE [All], <*>, <n>) -> (-PURGE [Regapps] <*>, <n>) finally (AUDIT, <y>).

The below section describes the VISRETAIN setting in greater detail for reference. I hope this helps. There were some legacy template based corruption that were drawing specific, but I don't know that it was a direct correlation to the issue we were experiencing.

I hope this helps, its not as straight forward as the known issue, but as it "repaired" the behavior I can't escalate it to the development team. Let us know how it/ if works for you!

---

VISRETAIN (System Variable)

Controls the properties of xref-dependent layers.

Type:	Integer
Saved in:	Drawing
Initial value:	1

Controls visibility, color, linetype, lineweight, and plot styles.

0	The layer table, as stored in the reference drawing (xref), takes precedence. Changes made to xref-dependent layers in the current drawing are valid in the current session only and are not saved with the drawing. When the current drawing is reopened, the layer table is reloaded from the reference drawing, and the current drawing reflects all of those layer property settings.
1	Xref-dependent layer changes made in the current drawing take precedence. Layer settings are saved with the current drawing's layer table and persist from session to session.

Related Concepts

• About Attaching and Detaching Referenced Drawings (Xrefs)

Related Reference

• XREFOVERRIDE (System Variable)
• Commands for Customizing the Drawing Environment
• Commands for Working With External References

[Wes_S]

@copper.chadwick

I understand my file that I gave as an example was not the best in terms of quality and we need to reduce the variables. I think it's a distraction at this point to use that one. I have noticed this occurs to me on ANY file so it's not just this one. I did the purge and audit and toggled with visretain and still no luck.

I have provided a brand new, very simple file structure attached in this reply in .zip file. The first file is made in Civil 3D  2019 and I plunked down some objects, including a surface, pipe, labels, profile, etc. I then opened ACAD 2019, attached the first C3D file and called named it "Second_File_DBASE." I then opened a brand new file in ACAD 2019 and attached the "Second_File_DBASE" and named it "Third_File_PLOT." This represents the xref structure I am trying to obtain with nesting to the plot sheets.

The results are the same. The second file (made in ACAD 2019) can see AEC objects just fine, the third file with the nested relationship cannot see the AEC objects. Visretain does not fix the issue.

Additionally, viewing the third file in Civil 3D fixes any and all visibility issues. To me that definitely proves it's not a layer issue of the file. 

Thanks again for the help. 

[copper.chadwick]

@Wes_S,

I went to recreate the issue from scratch, like you said, those files you had sent, were distracting from a point of behavior in gross affect (I was more concerned with getting you back to operation on them for you to get the project out, perhaps an old reflex perspective).

While I went to create from scratch files, the base from Civil 3D 2019.1, and the remaining two from AutoCAD 2019.1, I caught the difference between my two workflows, with differing results.

When the VISRETAIN fixed it, it was while creating in Civil 3D as AutoCAD. When I created the workflow in a pure AutoCAD 2019.1 environment, the erroneous behavior persisted just as you described. Sorry for dragging this out, but I have finally come into congruence with your environment. The objects affected are AEC Civil Objects so I am going to reconfirm the issue with the Civil development team. Thanks for your patience.

[Wes_S]

@copper.chadwick

What's the current status of this issue?

What's interesting is there was an AutoCAD update I installed that fixed my problem entirely of nested xref AECC object display issues. In other words, I could attach a survey or civil file made in Civil 3D (inside AutoCAD 2019) with lots of C3D objects and have them nested through to other drawings with no issues.

I am now back to square. The fix from the last update has magically vanished and now I cannot attach a Civil 3D drawing in AutoCAD 2019 and have it nest through to other drawings.

A further vexing symptom is drawings that I have set up in the last +2 weeks in AutoCAD 2019 with nested AECC objects view just fine.

TLDR: This issue was fixed +2 weeks ago and now it's not. Any ideas?

[copper.chadwick]

@Wes_S,

I checked on the status of this known issue and the development team is still working on it. I don't have any more information on the issue than it appears to still be open and actively worked on. Any results beyond that, ( I see you had perhaps had seen different behavior regarding it) would be outside of my knowledge. Thanks for checking back in on this issue.

[Anonymous]

Any update on this?  I'm having the same issue and cannot correct it with all the recommendations above.  

Attached are my files.  Its one xref deep and can't see any of the AEC objects with Object Enablers for 2019 installed.

Thanks!

Mike

[Anonymous]

Hey, I have also been having this exact problem.  I found a work-around solution, its not ideal if you are trying to import many plans...however its better than not being able to keep moving forward with your project. 

1. Open the file you want to export for an XREF.
2. Type in “exporttoautocad2013”, "save as" in the appropriate folder.
3. In the same file, before closing go to the prospector tab, open surfaces and right click on the surface associated with this plan (there should only be one, unless there is multiple alignments). Once you right click on the surface, go to “export LandXML”. Save this in the same folder as your drawing export (the extension should be .xml).
4. Open the file where you are importing all your B&C plans into, click the “insert tab” on the top ribbon.
5. Under the insert go to the “import” section (should be the first section on the left under the insert tab). Click “LandXML”.
6. Click on the XML file you exported in step 3.
7. This new window will prompt: make sure all boxes are check and click “ok”.

8. After clicking okay, in your working file (not the file from which you exported the surface from) go to prospector tab and expand surfaces. Your new surface should be now listed.

[ArchD]

I've reported this issue after I upgraded from 2017 to 2019. One work around that we found was to set XLOADCTL to 0. This seemed to work for the most part, but even still, this issue is wonky and I cannot find an exact solution.

You lose the speed boost to clipping xrefs, but if you do not clip xrefs, then you may not even notice a change.