Pipes in plan production

[jmartt]

Esteemed Brethren,

I am trying to show existing culverts along an alignment. Some culverts are crossing the alignment and some are alongside. I've created a pipe style for both. My workflow has been to draw a feature line, which is on a _NOPLOT layer, between survey shots whose nodes are at actual elevations that denote inverts of these culverts. Then, I "Create pipe network from object" and pick the feature line. If the culvert is a cross culvert, the style is defaulted to this type, so I "Draw parts in profile view" and it comes into the profile view fine. If it is a culvert that is alongside the alignment, I have to change the pipe style, but then I "Draw parts in profile view" and those come into the profile view fine as well. (I then merged all like culverts, which are all separate "pipe networks" into two major pipe networks, one for crossing and one for parallel, but I've tested enough to know that this step isn't the problem.)

So, thus far, I was thinking I was pretty clever. The culverts looked perfect in plan and in profile. But then I tried plan production. Once the new drawings and profiles are created, (and I tested with identical styles and settings in both the source and destinanation drawing files), I find that I have two problems. The first seems to be almost random. The second may be systematic and a flaw, (maybe one that has been documented, although my browsing research led me to believe that 2014 SP2 solved this and I'm using 2015, so I dunno).

Problem 1: Sometimes the cross culverts show up looking almost like the pipes are drawn with a dashed linetype. (They aren't. I know about the profile view toggle in the display tab in the pipe properties dialog.) And the parallel culverts' end lines almost always stop halfway. You can see in the screenshot that the parallel culvert has the end line from the invert to the centerline. The crossing culvert, in red, is drawn okay in this case, although that's not always true and I don't know why not. (My fancy corrugated linetype on the paralle culvert isn't the problem, I don't think. I've tested with a style that has just continuous linetypes for the parallel culverts.)

Problem 2: Although the crossing culverts show up in the profiles, the parallel culverts do not. They are there in the drawing and the profile view, but the style of the parallel culverts revert back to cross culverts and I have to pick them ONE AT A TIME to change the style back to parallel culverts for them to show up in the views. I've got hundreds of these things. This ain't good.

I'd really appreciate help on this. And if anyone has a completely different workflow that works better for adding existing culverts, I'm all ears.

Thanks so much.

[jmartt]

I found a fix for Problem 1: If I delete the null structures, the pipes look correct in profile. No half lines for end lines.

So, for Problem 2: Is there any way to get the pipes to retain their assigned styles through the plan production process? If I assign the style of parallel culverts in the source drawing, they revert back to cross culverts in P&P and I have to change them back to parallel to have the pipes show up in profile.

If there's not a way to do this, how do I change many pipe styles at once? In the panorama at the bottom of Prospector, I can highlight all of the pipes in a network, (the network of parallel pipes that I've created), but I can not change the style of them all at once. If there's a way to do this, I may live with the hassle of opening each drawing to swap styles. It sure would be better if the pipes remembered what style they were.

[jmartt]

Found out how to change styles of more than one pipe at a time:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-civil-3d-general/changing-structure-style-globally-for-pipe-ne...

Now, if only I could find a way to have the P&P drawings remember the assigned pipe styles to begin with, I wouldn't have to go into each drawing and do this....Anyone?....Bueller?

[annw2]

Didn't read through all the details, but you set the pipe style to normal in plan view, then in the profile view click the over ride toggle and change the style to crossing.

[jmartt]

Where is the override toggle?

My culverts all look the same in plan. And that's fine. I Just want to see crossing and parallel culverst in profile. Which I can. Until I produce plan production sheets. Then the style for all culverts revert back to crossing culverts, making the parallel culverts disappear since the crossing culvert style doesn't show pipe walls, just crossing pipe walls.

Thanks!

[Jay_B]

The overrides toggle Ann mentions can be found on Pipe Networks Tab of Profile View Properties.
If the overrides column is not checked when changing the styles they do revert as you've described.

[jmartt]

Thanks so much for helping me. I hadn't thought of editing the list of pipes through the profile view. That works much better than trying to edit them in that panorama!

It didn't work quite the way you seem to have indicated, though. Let me try to explain: The production drawing files that I produced from the source drawing contain profile views, (created by plan production), with the parallel culverts reverted to cross culvert style, which I don't want. You can't see them with that style because they don't cross the alignment. If I select just one profile view and highlight all the pipes in the parallel network in the propertioes dialog box, (because they all show up whether they're in that particular profile view or not), I can change all of them at once to the parallel style. All the pipes in all the profile views change styles and I can see all the parallel pipes. That's wonderful! But if I try to do this with style overrides, it LOOKS like it works, but the pipes do not change outside of the one profile view that I selected.

I wonder if this is supposed to work better? I'll have about 20 production dwg files. With what I've been able to do with your help, I'm still having to open up 20 drawing files to change the pipe styles. Granted, I don't have to pick every last profile view, but still. I suppose if nothing ever changes in the design, it'd be alright, but...try to stifle your laughter.

Seeing that both of the gracious repliers to my post agreed that style overrides were the way to go and I found a way NOT using style overrides, I worry that I'm taking the long way around here.

Is there a way to set the styles of the pipes in the source drawing and lock them in so that they display that way in the production drawings?

(I've tried every combination of style overrides in the source drawing and profile view production settings that I can think of to produce this and haven't been successful.)

Regardless, what you've pointed me towards helps tremendously. Thank you again. Sorry I write so much.

[Jay_B]

Yes the overrides toggle is a Profile View specific override.

I'm not aware of any way to apply the overrides to multiple Profile VIews.

Do you have any Service Packs applied?

I'm not sure if it will help in your case but the readme for 2015 Service Pack 1 states "An issue has been resolved where data-referenced gravity pipe network styles were reset when the source model was updated and the network was synchronized."

Service Pack 2 is also available and addresses several Pipe Network issues.

[troma]

The profile view override is for displaying on a different style from plan view to profile view. Very handy, but not necessarily what you need since you have two styles set up looking the same in plan view, different in profile view.

My only suggestion is to expand your network pipes in the prospector, select all the pipes in the network and right-click on the column header for 'style'. Here you can set the style for all the pipes in the network.
Still needs to be done for each drawing individually though. Sorry I can't think of another way.

[troma · Accepted solution]

...unless...
If the pipe style is set up as a default for that 'part' in the network settings (this is buried somewhere) there might be another way.
In the parent drawing with the pipes, click on a pipe, right-click, swap part. Click OK.
This refreshes the part. It might refresh it onto the right style, I don't know. Save, and open up a child drawing to see if it worked.

[jmartt]

Thanks, everyone, for the help.

Troma, that worked! You're now my favorite person in the world.

[troma]

Great! Glad it worked!