Existing vs Proposed Pipes

[Anonymous]

I'm a bit of a Civil 3D newbie.  I've got a project that involves addition of storm drain to existing storm pipes.  I'd like to be able to use Civil 3D to include existing and proposed pipes in the networks, but be able to show existing pipes differently than proposed pipes on plans and profiles, i.e. screened.  However, I can't seem to figure out a way to do this--I can effect changes to all networks, but not invididual pipes.  Any ideas?  TIA.

[ccoles]

It's easy. I assume you have a pipe and structure styles built for existing and proposed. Build the network with the existing and proposed pipes, then change the pipe style and structure style on each of the elements.

[Anonymous]

Not quite clear what you mean.  Like I said I'm a newbie.  I can click Pipe Properties and click the Pipe Style button. I can change the Style, but the change gets applied to all pipes/structures in the drawing, not just the pipe I selected.  Is there something I'm missing?

[ccoles]

Click a single pipe, right click, and select pipe properties, and you can change each pipe individually. Same for the structures.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I do that and it still changes all pipes.

[ccoles]

It sounds like you're doing it right. Each pipe and structure should be individually adjustable unless you have some sort of global setting turned on. I don't even know where to look for something like that.

On the off chance it is a software bug, have you installed Service Pack 1 yet?

[Anonymous]

I'm using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 SP2.  Does that change any of your advice?

[ccoles]

We went from C3D-2011 to C3D-2013. I never used 2012, so unsure if it is the problem. I haven't had an issue with 2011 or 2013, and I've worked extensively in both.

[Charlie.Ogden]

jhuesmann,

Based on what you're describing it sounds like you may actually be editing the style - which will change it for all objects using the style.  What ccoles was describing was to switch to another style in the style list - if you have other styles available... so using this drop-down control, instead of the one to the right of it:

This is where you might have styles setup that represent existing objects vs propoed objects.

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Charlie, that did the trick.  I created an "Existing Pipes" style, using different layers than proposed and it worked.  Thank you so much!

[Anonymous]

This issue brings up another issue. Data reference versus Xreference?  To me it seems like redundant work to data reference a pipe netowrk into your sheets after you have set them in a master file. A few reasons:

1. Setting styles for existing versus proposed pipes (done once in master)
2. Naming network structures doesn't update in a data ref (in my experience) essentially making me have to name them again in the data reference.
3. Setting a prefix to the Pipe and structure layers in the drawing settings allows x-ref screening based on network.

So all that being said, which is better, x-references or data references? Please advise if you have ran across this issue.