Issue with feature lines as corridor baseline

[Anonymous]

I created a site grading base file for a high school project in December 2017. The project is made with Civil 3d 2018.  In my workflow, I find it best to create separate dwgs for grading and pipe networks and then reference and data shortcut the civil 3d objects to a base file and create layouts for the base file. 

On this project, I used feature lines primarily as corridor baselines.  My feature lines were created from objects (polylines) and either assigned elevation by matching the existing ground surface or by manually inputting elevation data or a combination of the two. Many elevation points were entered on many feature lines. I made three or four corridors and each had a number of baselines to ultimately create a site grading plan.  

When I go to open the drawing now, I've noticed that some of the PIs and elevation points have changed to zero elevation. It appears seemingly random except for the fact that it is happening to only the feature lines that have been used as corridor baselines. The corridor and corridor surface are not affected by these zero points.  However, if I go to edit the feature line and then rebuild the corridor I see the "holes" in the surface. At this point, I'm stuck with the surface that was originally generated from the feature line creations. 

I'm attaching the dwg.  Would love to hear anyone's feedback.  Has anyone else experienced feature lines changing elevation without any input? How can this be resolved now?  How can I manage the dwg so this doesn't happen?

Thanks.

[jameshitt · Accepted solution]

I posted a reply on my thread about this as I'm sure you saw.

Basically, the only common factor that I have found on the forums to these anomalous behaviors of feature lines in corridors has been using a template that was not based of an actual civil 3d "NCS" template. So, like in my case, the company's template was started on regular AutoCAD years and years ago, and when they started using Civil 3D, instead of creating a template from the Civil 3D Standard NCS template, they just saved the old template in Civil 3D, created their styles and went on from there...only for people to experience these crazy feature line problems. I made my "workaround" Civil 3d NCS template (see my reply in the other thread), and use that for grading drawings, and I haven't had any problems yet (at least not those anomalous feature line problems).

I would like to see this issue get a little bit more attention from Autodesk. This is definitely worth an official warning from them to people starting out on Civil 3D. As much of a pain as it is creating a new template, its really important to start with the standard civil 3d NCS template file.

Now, hopefully, this is actually the solution to your problem! I don't know that I've encountered this specific problem myself (mine was the feature-lines-as-baselines just up and disappearing with no chance of recovering them); but it definitely seems to behave like its part of this family of problems (feature lines in corridors).

[Anonymous]

I had not thought about the template being the root issue.  

Here at my company, our template has evolved from a standard CAD template and been copied into more and more developed CAD versions. 

I was able to get my feature lines to represent correctly with this job, but I do intend to take time to create a template beginning with the stardard Civil 3d template that comes with the program.

Thanks for your feedback.

I'll keep this post updated once I have time to test out the new approach.

[ODO18]

This post has been the only one I have seen on this issue that remotely had a solution.  Both of your issues are exactly what out company has had a problem with since 2017 when they first started the corridor grading.  We do not even use the corridor grading because of these issues.  Do either of you know how I can determine if our Company template was created from the NCS template?  Our template was started from scratch in 2013 with CIVIL 3D template but I am not sure which one.

Thank you

[ODO18]

This does not solve the issue.  Even when a template is made from scratch using NCS, you will still have feature line corridors disappear if you change the feature line in any way.  This issue is related to all of the other posts if you google "Civil 3D - Feature lines disappear".

Autodesk if you are paying attention, this is not a solution.  It does not solve the problem.

[jameshitt]

To be honest, even using a template based on the Civil 3D Imperial template as I now do, I still don't even bother using feature line baselines for any corridors anymore, because I simply have no trust whatsoever that they won't bug out. (Your comment bears that fear out.)

Translation: @Anonymous Civil 3D Team, you guys really need to look into the problem. And the same old line, "we can't reproduce it, we need you to send us examples" just doesn't cut it. And if you can't fix it, then--if you have integrity--you should stop touting it as a feature of the program. Because it isn't a "feature" any longer, its a bug, and a big liability for any poor ignorant soul who stumbles into a big project using these new feature line baselines thinking they're just great, only to have it all bug out right before their eyes.

[merci.martin]

I've now had two heartbroken team members who've lost a huge amount of hours of work because of this bug, it's ridiculous that Autodesk have done nothing to fix the issue. I've personally not used the feature line as baseline component simply because I like to be able to control vertical alignments better. Just putting it out there that this still hasn't been fixed and I'm looking at a seriously grumpy co-worker right now 😞

@Anonymous Civil 3d team time to fix it!

[ODO18]

So I finally got around to trying the "Feature Line on Site None and Corridor on Site None" recommended solution and it appears in 2021 this issue may be resolved.  I have thrown everything I can at the thing, creating PVI, deleting PVI, moving them, obscure angles, etc. and I have only gotten one error on an audit and after several audits and closing out and getting back in the feature line or surface have not disappeared.

I am still going to give it some more testing (I forgot to try breaklining the feature line) before I say this may be a solution under 2021 (this did not work under 2019 as people suggested in the past).