Howto quickly create a legend?

[camptech]

How do you quickly create a legend for a plat showing the various items measured in the field?

I have read about the "Legend" tool, but that seems geared towards surfaces and area (e.g. hatches) applications.

Has anyone created a freely available legend-tool where one simply types "createlegend" (or something similar), then goes about picking items on the drawing --OR-- inserting blocks and then typing a description?  The tool would then create a block that could be placed wherever you wanted it to go.

Otherwise, it seems such a chore:  create a table, or an array of points (to anchor stuff), insert blocks at points, insert text (or mtext) at corresponding point etc etc.  Or is the trick to create a legend once, as part of the template drawing, then you simply "update" or add to it?

If you have important survey data that needs to be part of the legend, but the survey points use a Point Style - Custom Marker, not a custom block, how do you place the custom marker in the legend?  The only way that occurs to me is to create the legend in model space, off to the side, and then create or place a dummy COGO point at the legend location to get the Description Keys to put the appropriate point marker at the legend location.  That seems rather cumbersome, and would seem to drive one towards using only custom blocks (so the block could be  placed separately) thus defeating the idea of using Point Style - Custom Markers.

Advice / best practices welcomed.  Thx in advance.

[camptech]

Has anyone experience with the $275 Dotsoft ToolPac legend  functionality?  Am guessing it does what I want.  Not sure I am ready to spend $275 for a legend tool, but it looks like ToolPac includes a lot of other doofers and gizmos.

[Apex-Solutions · Accepted solution]

Hello

I can relate to your issue, but unfortunately there is not a tool like that.  If you had some programming experience then you could probably get it right.

I would not suggest adding additional (dummy) points to your drawing as this could adversely affect your surface calculations (accidents do happen).  What I would suggest is that you create a default (as mentioned in your post) template that you post on all your drawings.   This will probably contain your most used styles over all your projects and it can be saved as a block or create a xref from it.

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The idea to create dummy points does tickle the imagination a bit though... 

You could create a .txt file with preset import locations that will place the points within the title block area,  this would (with description keys or point styles) automatically update the block or style used within the drawing.  This with additional items such us displaying the point label would make for a neat legend table.

Just noting that the codes in this separate text file should match with the codes used in the survey file and that the points should be contained in their own group. 

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Regards 

Marnus van Staden

[TerryDotson]

Request the full working 60-day evaluation of C3DTools and find out for yourself.  It's symbol legend also evaluates CogoPoints and shows symbols used in styles and can be regenerated with a single click.  There are dozens of useful tools and we're constantly adding more.

 

[camptech]

Marnus,

I understand your concern about dummy points  causing surface problems.  I typically put "NOZ" somewhere in my point descriptor when a point is NOT to be used in surface generation.  Then in my point group to be used for the surface, I exclude  all points with "NOZ" in their description by specifying "*NOZ*" in the exclude tab on the "With raw descriptions matching:" line.  But I'd have to remember to put "NOZ" on any dummy point line.  Something similar could be done with LEGEND, I suppose.

I like your idea of an XREF.

I'm going to look into creating several different Legend points files.  The coordinates will all be around the 0,0 region and Northward;  possibly Eastward if I need a separate column for a larger legend.  A separate Legend drawing will be created solely to use this dummy Legend points file.  This drawing will use a modified Description Key Set  created to insert simple Legend descriptions.  Combined with a Legend point-label-style and some table-esque line work, this should create a customizable Legend that I can use in many different drawings.  As I have performed field work for a number of different surveyors along the Colorado Front Range (Denver area + foothills), this approach would enable me to easily create different legends for the different surveyors.  Also, it will isolate the Legends point data from the field data.

With clever choices of Legend points and linework commands (e.g. B,E,RT,RECT) , I may also be able to create linework (e.g. fences, overhead power lines) and area fillwork (e.g. concrete hatch) legend entries.

Lastly, I will note that by creating a Legend drawing to be XREF'd into the "work drawing" (e.g. an Improvement Suvey Plat), I can still use the Civil3D custom markers for the point-style in the Description Key Set.

This XREF idea I had read of somewhere else, but it has potential.  It is going to require some up-front work, but once complete should be easily re-usable and modifiable.  I will update this thread with my results, and mark your idea, Marnus, as the solution if this works out.

Thanks for the reply.

[camptech]

Hi Terry,

I saw the Legend  command or tool in the ToolPac, but evidently did not see it in the C3DTools collection.  Can you briefly compare / contrast ToolPac to C3DTools?  Does C3DTools include everything in the ToolPac?  Or is there just overlap in a few areas (e.g. Legend)?

As a surveyor / field guy / engineer, would I want *only* the C3DTools, then?

Thanks in advance.

[TerryDotson]

The intent of ToolPac is a massive collection of generic tools (blocks, attributes, annotations, dimensions, hatches, layouts,, tables, xrefs, etc,  for all disciplines.  All the little things that eat away at your time and cause you to be late for dinner.  ToolPac runs inside plain CAD engines and does not take advantage of any vertical functionality.  There is about a 5% overlap of similar tools but those overlaps in C3DTools are better for a Civil3D user because it does try to use it's functionality (like finding the symbols used inside CogoPoint styles, support for FeatureLines across all it's Figure Tools, etc).  We would be happy to offer deep discounts to anyone wanting both.  Feel free to email me dotson [at] dotsoft [dot] com.

[Anonymous]

hello,

interesting ideal,

I have always seen Legends as a block, inserted into a drawing.

and if the legend needs to be revised - you can use the block editor and just update the block.

and all the drawings that use that Legend block will update when opened. 

very simple and almost failsafe (yes, i know NO SUCH THING!!!)

good luck,

nonbeard13

[MMcCall402]

We have legends already in the sheet tabs in our template files with all the anticipated items that could appear for that tab's type of drawing.  There's nothing for us to do really, unless some get picky and doesn't want something in the legend if its not on the plan.  Even so, deleting things from a pre-built legend is easier than putting one together from scratch.