Point Creation Tools - Point Groups

[mmichel6UEHA]

Add a parameter where it puts the points you are creating into a point group you can create or a point group that exists within the create points menu > parameters. This would allow the survey crew to put the points in the point group, date, initial, and export their points that they want to stake for the day.

They are using some layer wizardry that none of the engineering staff likes to untangle. This would ease the pain of manually selecting the points you want to include in the point group. 

 

[TimYarris]

Thank you for your idea. It's been a while since I've used Description Keys, but would that be a workflow that might accomplish what you're asking for?

[mmichel6UEHA]

I absolutely love description keys, I just set up the survey databases for civil 3d for my company and I am very familiar with them. The description key set essentially assigns a point label style and point style to the point. I think you mean to use point groups to pick up the points and automatically assign them to the point group.

Here is the problem though:

We work a lot in the private side, so things change. i.e. you can't just have a point group picking up all the BOC points, because we need a record of what changed and when if it got staked. Plus, if a revision was pushed though that did tweaks to some curb grading, we are not going to simply right click all the BOC points and select a surface elevation. We need a record of the points if they got staked. 

the amazing part about point groups is the right click > export points. No need to sift through hundreds (or thousands) of irrelevant points.

The easy way to do it is just throwing all the points that you want to stake in a point group with a date. Dating points is a waste of characters, we are not going to date points.

What the surveyors do is control all of this using multiple layers, instead of point groups, because, well, you can specify a layer for the point in the point creation tools. that's the easiest place for them to make their points differentiated from a previous iteration. All I'm asking for is that same thing for point groups. If you are creating points, allow the technician to create and specify a point group for the points that he is creating. The problem with using layers is when you as the engineer go into the drawing expecting the point groups to work, then layers that you didn't create are preventing you from seeing the point groups, i.e. the points. 

The second he is done creating the points, RC > Export on the point group and he is walking away to go stake. The points can be easily filtered using the properties and functions of the point group properties, where you can display the styles based on the order of the point groups. We have an invisible style that is usually second when trying to so you only see the points in the point group that is above the invisible style. 

Hopefully this current workflow makes sense, if there is any part that you don't understand I probably didn't explain it well enough. I'd be happy to elaborate. 

[TimYarris]

Thanks for clarifying.