How can I set a default SITE when creating new featurelines?

[Anonymous]

This is a fairly new issue for me - as of the last month or so I belive, so I'm thinking that maybe something has changed in a service pack, or some other kind of update.

Before, when I would create a new featureline, using the "_AeccDrawFeatureLine" command (clicking the button from the ribbon), the Site would default to one of the Sites in my drawing (I think it would default to the last site used when creating a featurline), but now it defaults to <None>. I now have to click the dropdown and choose a Site every single time a create a new featureline (which is extremely often). Occasionally, I'll forget to choose a site, which wreaks havoc when I end up with half of my featurelines in the correct site, and half of them in <None>.

Is it possible to make AutoCad not default to the <None> site?


I've had several similar issues creep up in the same timeframe as this one. For example, in some of my drawings, when I create a new pipe in an existing pipe network, it defaults to a blank pipe style, i.e. newly drawn pipes are invisible until I go to the Pipe Network Vista and change the pipe style. Is it possible that something has gotten corrupted that would cause a lot of "blank" default settings?

[neilyj666]

SP2 for 2016 introduced the concept of siteless feature lines but I've not looked too closely at this yet.

[phil_ferguson_tkg]

Yeah...I'd like some enlightenement on this new "feature" too.  I haven't been able to find much information about it.

Happy New Year!

[Jeff_M]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yeah...I'd like some enlightenement on this new "feature" too.  I haven't been able to find much information about it.

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I have not seen any method to set the default site, this would be a nice feature. From the Readme for SP2 (this was updated a week, or so, after the initial release of SP2):

A change in behavior has been introduced which enables you to create feature lines without specifying a site for them. To create feature lines outside of a site, select the <None> option from the site selection list when you are creating feature lines. Selecting the <None> option adds the feature lines to their own top-level collection on the Prospector tab in Toolspace, underneath the drawing name.

Feature lines that are created outside of a site do not interact with each other, so you do not need to specify the style priority for them like you do with feature lines that exist in the same site. They also do not interact with other objects that they cross, such as alignments, parcels, or survey figures.

There are some restrictions on using these feature lines in previous versions of the software:

• These feature lines cannot be moved or copied to a site.
• In a drawing that contains such feature lines, you must create a new site for any new feature lines that you want to add to a site.

[phil_ferguson_tkg]

Thanks for adding the information from the Readme here, Jeff_M. I had read that, but didn't fully appreciate the ramifications at the time.

I, also, would like to have the ability to set a Site as default -vs- the default being <None>.  Our grading workflow typically involves using feature lines that interact with each other (we try to create PIs at the intersections though). To continue with this method, users will need to move feature lines to a site (adding a step). In addition, in legacy drawings, we will have new feature lines that don't interact with old feature lines (as would be expected) until these new feature lines are moved to a site.

As a side note...In the past, we have had issues with moving items from one site to another creating instability in Civil 3D. While I think we've fixed that issue, I hope this doesn't revive the problem.

[Jeff_M]

Phil, the dev team has been made aware of this. Hopefully they will come up with a solution soon.

[phil_ferguson_tkg]

I was looking around on 'another forum site' for any additional experiences with this.  I came across a novel concept...  Could "Siteless" feature lines be one step closer to being able to data reference feature lines?  Hmmm...

[LabradorGuy]

Hey all.  I am just commenting to get on the thread hoping that somebody posts a resolution.  I hate that it doesn't stick with the same Site that was just selected.  It's a huge pain and can cause several grading issues. How do I get rid of SP 2...ha!  

[Anonymous]

Until there's a better solution, I've just been using QSELECT to select featurelines that are inadvertently assigned the to <NONE> site, and then using MOVE TO SITE to move them to the correct site.

[LabradorGuy]

Hey Matt.  How are you getting it to select the <NONE> feature lines?

[Jeff_M]

I select the Featureline node on Prospector and right-click. Can Move all of them to a site directly from there.

[LabradorGuy]

That worked good.  I'm sure I'll have to use that a few times.  Or at least until we get a fix for this issue.  Thank you!

[Anonymous]

In most of my drawings, I will have a site named "Proposed" and all of the feature lines that are SUPPOSED to be in that site will be on the layer C-TOPO-FEAT. I isolate the C-TOPO-FEAT layer, select all of the visible featurelines (which SHOULD select all of the featurelines on the "Proposed" site and the <none> site), do a QSELECT from this selection for featurelines where "site" is "Not Equal To" "Proposed", and there you have it.

I isolate the C-TOPO-FEAT layer first because I usually have featurelines in multiple sites. If your drawing only has one site and you want all of your featurelines on that one site, then you can skip the layer isolation step and just do a "Where Not Equal To" QSELECT.

I'm not in front of AutoCAD right now, so I'm not sure if it's possible to do a QSELECT where "site" is "Equal To" "" or "none" or "<none>", but that might work too... I'll check next week and update.

[b.stark]

Please see this thread as it relates to the feature lines behaving as you discussed and what possible ramifications having feature lines in sites might have on your drawing:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-civil-3d-general/feature-line-behavior-problems-civil-3d-2016-...

[phil_ferguson_tkg]

Thank you for linking to the other thread.  Obviously, there are other issues to be resolved here.  As stated in the other thread...the more support cases Autodesk receives on this issue, the more likely they are to focus on it soon(er).

I am seriously considering uninstalling SP2.  Unfortunately, the addition of a new "feature" in a service pack caught me off guard.  Also unfortunately, the other issues that were fixed with SP2 may go wanting until Autodesk does something about this.

[Timothy_Sean_Hulbert · Accepted solution]

Here is the official Hot Fix
Civil 3D 2016 SP 2 - Feature Line errors and issues
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-civil-3d/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticl...

[phil_ferguson_tkg]

Thanks Sean!

[claytonh]

I was going absolutely crazy this morning trying to figure out what was going on. How on earth could a feature line not share its elevation? Wasted the morning chasing this down. So if you are finding that your feature lines are not sharing elevations - you have a SITE problem - get them all on the same site - and not the <NONE> site. If you have 2016 with SP2, Autodesk created your site problem - get the Hot Fix.

[Anonymous]

Awesome! That did it for me. Thanks, Sean. Now how about my pipes that are being created without styles?

[cfabre]

This solution did NOT work for me. I did not have the 2 UI files to replace, and when I copied them to that correct folder, I got errors when restarting Civil 3D. When I only replaced the other two files, the same problem occured with the SITE.

Major pain having to change the site of every feature line created. Also this can cause grading design errors when features lines are not on same site and dont inherit elevations needed!!  Big flaw in software

Please offer solution !!

Thanks,

Chad Fabre

Fabre Engineering Inc