C3D coordinate Labels in Feet & Inches

[Anonymous]

Hello All!

I have recently started a new contract in the Oil & Gas Industry.  As expected, there are some things to get used to.  Today I need help trying to figure out how to label Coordinates (X,Y) in feet & inches output format.  Our projects are setup using a grid system so in this case, the X & Y in the coordinates have no ties to a particular Coordinate system such as State Plane or Grid.  They simply setup a grid starting at 100',100' and label all site features using that grid.  As far as I can tell, Civil 3D "note" labels or any labels for that matter, do not give an option to change it to feet & inches.  Does anyone know of a way to use an expression to convert my decimal feet?  ie....

ID a point at the beginning of a graded proposed swale, the coordinate tracker lists this point as

X=401.037  Y=623.815. 

As of right now we are manually typing all of our labels and this example would show as

E=401'-0"   N=623'-10"     (rounding to the nearest inch)

I need a label style/expression that converts this for me.  I have a feeling this is a really easy thing to accomplish and I am just missing it.

Please help me save my fingers! More importantly prevent my team and I from sending our plans out with bad coordinates due to typo's.

Thanks in advance! 

[Jeff_M · Accepted solution]

Only needing whole inches makes this job fairly simple. You will need 2 expressions, 1 each for Northings and Eastings. Here's the one for Eastings, the Northings is nearly identical:

(Easting-FLOOR(Easting))*12

Then, the label style is setup like so:

N-<[Northing(Uft|P4|RN|AP|GC|UN|Sn|OLD)]>-<[North Inches(P0|RN|AP|GC|UN|Sn|OF)]>"
E-<[Easting(Uft|P4|RN|AP|GC|UN|Sn|OLD)]>-<[Easting inches(P0|RN|AP|GC|UN|Sn|OF)]>"

where the Northing & Easting properties are set to output left of decimal point only, and the inches properties are set to use a precision without decimals.

Oh! And welcome to the forums!

[Murph_Map]

While you are waiting for someone to tell you how to create the label I'll just say in all my years of working with Civil Engineers, Surveyors, and different Power companies I never meat anyone that used INCHES in their dwgs other than detailed dwgs of the parts and spec sheets with size of fasteners and/or lumber used for platforms for equipment on poles. 

[Anonymous]

Jeff, you are the man!  thanks!!!

[Anonymous]

Murph, me neither.  UGH!  I was told the pipers are Gods here, and then Structural guys, and then us lowly civil guys at the bottom.  In other words what they want, we do.

[Anonymous]

Good morning Jeff, ok so that worked like a charm and I greatly appreciate that expression.  Quick question regarding that, what does the "FLOOR' function do exactly?

More importantly I have additional issues.  You wont believe this but these guys wont let me use this label style for a couple of reasons.  1 being that not everyone has C3D and they want others to be able to edit them when necessary.  The other issue is that they put all their labels in paper space. 

GRRRR!!!!! 

Do you have any suggestions as to how to get the information created using this amazing label style into a multileader or "ordinate" acad label.  Basically I need a lisp routine or a way to convert the C3D label style into a basic ACAD friendly label in paper space.  Please tell me there is hope!

Thanks in advance.

[Jeff_M]

One way, I know of: Make sure all of these labels are placed on a separate layer. Select them by that layer, Explode, Then Explode Previous, then CHSpace Previous. This will give you plain text objects in Paperspace. THere may be other, better, ways, but this is not something I've ever needed to do so have never investigated....

[Anonymous]

That was exactly my only thought as well. Of course then the complaint would be that the text, border & leader are separate entities not moving as one as in a multi leader. Thank you for the reply.

[Anonymous]

Jeff_M provided provided the perfect solution to the OP, but could the conversion to inches be done to display to the nearest 1/8 inch in fraction format?  

We have surveyed beam profiles on a large elevated plaza area and the decking contractor is insistant that the final deck grades be marked on the beams in inches rather than decimal feet and there are over a 1000 grade points.  I have the elevation data for existing top of beam and proposed top of deck in an excel spreadsheet as well as civil 3D points with a user defined property for the top of deck elevation.  An expression is used to calculate the vertical distance (Fill) between top of beam and top of deck.  I can use excel to convert the "Fill" values from decimal feet to fractional inches to the nearest 1/8" and add this value to the point as a user defined property.  However, when i use excel, i have to re-import the points which resets quite a bit of manual point label manipulation that i would rather not redo.  Thanks in advance for any input or assistance.  Forgive me if i should start another post instead of replying to the original... i dont post here very often.