Survey figures a quick Hack to edit a Survey Figure with Line and Curves (Curbs)

[michael.perryDM5CX]

Disclaimer: Maybe most have solved this long time ago, but if you haven't thought of this it

could make the cad tech a wee bit faster. I believe that Autodesk changed the way survey figures

are handled in this version C3D 2023. Before it wasn't an issue, but is now.

Problem: Imported Survey Figures editing and working with curves and tangents.

Solution below: (Unless you have a Brillant Survey Party Chief that can code perfectly)

The example: A survey figure is a typical parking island after adding the curves.

The cad tech would edit this and not see the tangent line. 

Now we can fix it by adding a duplicate point to start a tangent line. It won’t affect the surface this way.

I tested to see if it would make the surface correctly, I worked fine.

Now we could use Curve Break and you get this:

As you can see a lot of warnings going on. Yes, it will look good visually (see below)

The former solution at the top of this is a cleaner workflow.

My biggest issue with either solution is that the surface contours don't follow the survey figure curve of the curb. (Engineers love that).  Maybe Autodesk will add that feature. Yes, one can add vertices to the curve, but that

cost time, many of us can't afford. Just saying. 

[tcorey]

Thanks!

[LucasHicks]

You should really be using some supplementing factors when adding your survey figures to a surface, especially chord distance.  That adds exactly what you want and doesn't take any time.

[michael.perryDM5CX]

I would like to know what those supplementing factors are you are referring too. Personally, I think Survey Figures are just glorified Feature Lines. By exploding a survey figure you get a 3d Polyline. Then you can convert that to a Feature line. Feature lines allow you to easily add vertices along the slope of the feature line. That is what I would prefer to do rather than using a Chord distance. Again, it is overhead to have to change what goes into a surface. I can make a surface that actually follows the curb line. Regardless, if you have an idea of another approach, please explain. 

[LucasHicks]

If you add survey figures to a surface you get the dialog attached which results in the example show.

So you've added two steps that aren't needed at all.  Creating 3d polylines and then feature lines.  Totally not needed for making an accurate surface.

Using my methods adds the vertices along the survey figure automatically, which this is how the software is intended to work when creating a surface from survey figures.

[michael.perryDM5CX · Accepted solution]

Thank you for pointing that out, but my post wasn't about that aspect with working with Survey Figures. 

I'm aware of using that workflow and do use it. My point was to so that in using Survey Figures in 2023 C3D was that when the survey figure was brought in that it needed to be edited. I noticed that the program changed, and one might have to use the step I have shown to fix it. I agree with what happens afterward when you make a surface to make it generate an accurate surface you have shown. I didn't use your method for this post as I was making it as simple as possible. I'm glad you brought up the next step on how to make the surface follow the survey figure. Editing survey figures is something that happens frequently. That subject importing survey figures that do Not need to be edited is a beast all to itself. My point with feature lines is that I wish survey figures were feature lines so that we could edit them if needed. That process is easier than fussing with survey figure edits. 

[Cadguru42]

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@michael.perryDM5CX wrote:

Thank you for pointing that out, but my post wasn't about that aspect with working with Survey Figures. 

I'm aware of using that workflow and do use it. My point was to so that in using Survey Figures in 2023 C3D was that when the survey figure was brought in that it needed to be edited. I noticed that the program changed, and one might have to use the step I have shown to fix it. I agree with what happens afterward when you make a surface to make it generate an accurate surface you have shown. I didn't use your method for this post as I was making it as simple as possible. I'm glad you brought up the next step on how to make the surface follow the survey figure. Editing survey figures is something that happens frequently. That subject importing survey figures that do Not need to be edited is a beast all to itself. My point with feature lines is that I wish survey figures were feature lines so that we could edit them if needed. That process is easier than fussing with survey figure edits. 

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When I used to work with survey data much more in the past I found that it was easier to edit the point code to add the end of curve code and just reprocess the linework. Editing survey figures has never been user friendly and is very cumbersome. Editing the point codes to get the figures to process the way you want is faster and has the added benefit of being able to be reused in other projects if needed. 

If Autodesk would get their head out of the cloud(s), then they would update the survey data process to be more user friendly. Survey is the red-headed step child of Civil 3D and hasn't had any updates in what, over a decade?