Label Street Names

[ToddRogers-WPM]

Anyone have any hacks or scripts that will label my streets in Infraworks 2014?

[tcorey]

Hi Todd,

I don't have a hack or script, but I do have a workflow.

I create the labels using a text font that has width (arial, for example.)

Then Explode (Express Tools Explode Text) the text objects, clean up the resultant linework, and use extrude to convert to 3d Solids.

Use FBX to send those objects to InfraWorks.

It's all pretty fast except the cleanup of the exploded text. My way gets the job done, but I am interested if someone has a faster way.

Tim

[tcorey]

Here's an example in Infraworks.

[ToddRogers-WPM]

Oh wow Tim. That actually looks pretty good. I will try it out when I get to the office. Thanks for the input!

[ToddRogers-WPM]

I did figure out another method yesterday. Create a POI with a tooltip. In the properties of the tooltip you can specify a proximity distance. Works great when creating videos.

[tcorey]

That's a lot faster than my method, but my method makes cool 3D text objects that can cast shadows. If someone's customer wants to pay the extra for the 3D text, use my method. If they want the text placed quickly, use Todd's!

[ToddRogers-WPM]

I definitely like yours method the best!

[Anonymous]

Tim,

Is this text georeferenced? In other words, if my Infra model is in state plane coordinates, should I place the text in Civil 3D at the correct location (in state plane coordinates) prior to exporting to FBX?

Thanks,

Ryan

[Karsten.Saenger]

Hi @Anonymous

if the text is placed at the correct location in Civil 3D and exported as FBX it will be placed at the same location in InfraWorks.

Please note that you might run into geometry issues with the FBX file depending on the coordinate range you use, see:

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/article/When-importing-a-FBX-file-the-geometry-is-degraded-and-has-bad-quality

Regards,

Karsten.

[Matt__W]

To label things like roads and buildings I prefer to use POINTS OF INTEREST, apply a proximity distance value and make them extremely small. @John_DeLeeuw created a nice little video that shows them being used to label roadway alignment stations but the same could be applied to show just the street names or building names. The nice thing about using POIs is that they eliminate the need to rely on another program to create 3D text. Also, when you place the 3D text in your model it can only be read from one direction. In other words, if you go down the road then turn around and look back at where you started, the 3D text will appear backwards. POIs don't care which direction you're facing.

This Screencast shows how you can quickly select all of the POIs in your model and change their size, like John mentioned in his article, so that the actual POI isn't visible, but the tooltip will still show up.

[Anonymous]

I figured it out. If I am trying to label an object at a certain elevation in Civil3D, I just have to modify the Z-elevation in Infraworks.

I saw the tutorial video for this method, but modified it by not drawing the labels at 0,0. Instead, I placed the labels in the location of my site and then imported the FBX into Infraworks and placed them using the local coordinate system and not interactive placement. Once the text came in, I just manually modified the z-elevation of the text in infraworks. 

Is there a way to assign the exploded  and extruded text and elevation from surface in Civil3D prior to exporting to FBX?

Thanks,

Ryan

[Karsten.Saenger]

Hi @Anonymous

in Civil 3D maybe before the text extrusion -  via the detour of converting the Poly-Outlines to Feature Lines and assigning the elevation of the surface to the points?

You will then need to adjust all points in the Feature Line heights table to have the same elevation. Explode the feature line and you will get 3D Polylines with heights.

Now extrude the text outlines.

In InfraWorks you can also use the "set heights" option in the data source configuration and bring everything to either a specific (manual) height or the surface height.

Regards,

Karsten.