Stop import points from changing existing point styles when merging duplicates?

[Anonymous]

One of the most powerful features of AutoCAD Civil-3D for our company was the ability to export COGO points with large quantities of general and custom information, batch manipulate that information in Excel, and then import the information back in using the 'Merge' option for resolving duplicate point numbers so that all of our labels would update accordingly.  After switching to Windows 10 this no longer worked, as instead of the COGO points retaining their set point style, the default point style was applied.  All of the points have their style set in the properties, so the styles are not being governed by a point group, neither is using point groups to apply styles a solution for us.  The properties however are being overridden when the points are imported.

Does anyone know a way to prevent the COGO point style and label style properties from being modified when importing points from a CSV file and using the 'merge' option for resolution of duplicate point numbers?

[Jeff_M]

Make sure the option to Disable DescriptionKeys is True?

[rl_jackson]

I can say that I personally haven't use the merge in a while but would expect the results you are exhibiting because of the workflow of picking the points and changing them in the properties. Points and there labels should be controlled by Point Groups or Point Group Overrides or alternately Description Keys in the case of common descriptions having a certain style (where overrides could also be applied). Not only do they expedite the process of collecting points together for display purposes that you describe, but also can be used to control the visibility of certain points based on there group hierarchy.

[Anonymous]

I tried that but unfortunately no.  I don't understand why this worked fine for so many years and now does not.  Its as if in the past AutoCAD did not consider merging points to be points creation, and did not apply settings from the 'Create Points' command for existing points, then when we updated to Windows 10 all that changed and now it considers merging points to be points creation (which doesn't make sense to me), so it applies the label style defaults.  Of course since the command is for points creation, it would make little sense to have a 'Use Existing Label Style' option, yet this is precisely what we need.  I can write yet another C# command using the API but I really would prefer if I could figure out how to make it function as it used to.  

[Anonymous]

We are not fortunate enough to have common label styles for points with common descriptions, it also depends on the location of the point relative to other objects and the wims of the client.  To use point groups we would need to create a point group for each label style, and manually add points to those point groups since for us there is no way to determine the label style that is needed based on properties of the point alone.  This is somewhat irrelevant however because the merge option with replace the <default> setting in the point properties with the default label style.  I guess we could always then select all and change back to default but this overriding behavior just seems unintended.

[rl_jackson]

If you set the Style / Label Style of the group it would OVERRIDE the default style.

[Anonymous]

Not after using the merge option.  This only works if the value for 'Style' and 'Point Label Style' are set to <default> as shown below.

After running the merge these values get overridden (see below) to the default point styles for creating points, and point groups will no longer override the values.  

After merge all points could be selected and the properties set back to <default> so that the point groups again control the styles.  However we have 30+ label styles for points so having a point group for each style is not really feasible.  We already need quite a few point groups for manipulating other properties, building surfaces, etc., so this is a moot point anyway.

[rl_jackson]

By all means please provide a sample data set and your merge or adjustment data set with a template and version. I'm just not fathoming the issues your having doing gas lines unless there is an underlying issue with the workflow. One of which I see just in the description your providing in the description of the point itself. The angle before the object way wrong here. 

[Anonymous]

I was asking if anyone knew a way to prevent COGO point style and label style properties from being modified when importing points from a CSV file and using the 'merge' option for resolution of duplicate point numbers.  If there isn't a method to do this then I will write an application extension using the .NET API.  Our company and our clients have worked directly with AutoDesk to create a better workflow process than we currently have in place, and have sought assistance from US CAD and CAD Masters but were not given any alternatives.  Respectfully, we do not need our workflow critiqued.  However I think it should be obvious that something changed in AutoCAD considering the merge operation worked great for us for 4 years in Civil-2015 and Civil-2017 (on over 20 drafting machines) and only ceased to work after upgrading to Windows 10 and Civil-2019. 

[Jeff_M]

@Anonymous , have you applied all Service Packs and hotfixes for C3D 2019, AutoCAD 2019, and Map3d 2019? I have them installed and have tried to duplicate the issue your are experiencing. All of my tests have shown the point styles and label styles to remain as they were prior to the reimport/merge of the edited points. This is the expected behavior, correct?

[Anonymous]

Yes I make sure that all machines have the latest service packs.  Because of your post I tried to create a before and after drawing but I noticed that the problem did not appear on a fresh drawing.  However I am really confused now, because the error is no longer reproducible in 2019 Civil-3D, even on the exact read-only drawing that I was using.  I was going to create a before and after drawing but the error has mysteriously disappeared.  I frantically ran around to check on other computers and the same drawings they were having issues with now no longer cause problems, and it appears they do not.  I can still reproduce the problem in 2017, but only on our working drawings.  I tried to prepare one to attach but after purging everything the problem no longer persists.  I waited several months before creating this post and attempted many, many different work-arounds.  For it to somewhat solve itself now is baffling.  I have seen Windows updates affect AutoCAD but that has been extremely rare.  I guess for now we are fine and if the problem re-appears I will just write the application extension, because I cannot figure out what is causing the issue.  

When I have more time I am going to slowly purge out items in the drawing that still has problems until I get to the root cause and I will come back and post it here.

[Anonymous]

After purging the drawing last time, I went back and downloaded the original to purge a few items at a time to see which item was causing the problem.  However even on Civil-3D 2017 I could not reproduce it.  I have never seen a bug work its way out of software before, but somehow that seems to be the case.  Now when I import points and use the 'merge' option for resolution of duplicate points, everything works as it did before.  Sorry I wasted everyone's time.  Thanks so much to all who replied.

[Geoffrey.Preston]

I was having the same issue using a point file with the raw description column stripped out (PNEZ). Despite using the 'merge' option, C3D still evaluated the existing raw descriptions on import. This undid a large number of manual changes that were made to styles and layers after the initial import.

The workaround was to delete the Description Key Set before importing points, then drag and drop it back in from a copy of the drawing using Toolspace.

For reference I'm using C3D 2021 with all the updates.

[rl_jackson]

This is an old post, but why on earth would you delete your Description Keys.

[Geoffrey.Preston]

Temporarily removing the Description Key Set was the only way I found to prevent C3D reevaluating descriptions on import. A quick drag-and-drop restored the description keys for future use.

In my case, I needed to perform a one time update to the elevations of every COGO point in my drawing (>1000). This couldn't be done with a datum shift as the deltas varied. I assumed the additional step of setting 'Disable Description Keys' to true (settings>point>commands>create points>point creation) would have the desired effect, however it reset the layer and styles of all points to default.

Yes this was an old post before I reanimated it, but hopefully someone finds it useful as the glitch is still occurring.