Difference between 2009 and 2010 Civil 3D Creating Multiple Section Views

[jmoore.218473]

I’m trying to create multiple section views the same way that I was creating them in 2009, but 2010 seems to be missing an important piece.

In the “Group Plot Style – Plot All” their was a selection in the Array tab in 2009 that allowed me to select the number of sections allowed in a row/column, but now in 2010 I don’t see the option. Has this moved to another location that I’m just not finding, or has the option completely gone away?

Any information on the subject would help?

Thanks,
Jon

[sinc]

This feature was apparently deemed by Autodesk to be unnecessary, much to the dismay of many users. I've seen a number of posts about it, but I haven't seen a good solution yet.

[jmoore.218473]

You got to be kidding me! That was actually one of the few features that I actually liked.

That being said, does anyone know how to use the plot by page? I thought that might be a good way to get away from the above. I tried playing around with it yesterday, but the problem I kept having was, it would put all of the (86) sections in one spot (one on top of the other). Does anyone have a solution to this?

[sinc]

Do you have a Sheet Style created, using a properly-sized page size?

It looks like the way it's intended to work now is that you setup your sizes for everything, and then C3D "auto-fits" as many sections as possible onto each page, based on your style settings. But in order to do this, it needs to know the size of your finished page, and this gets taken from the Sheet Style setting in your Group Plot Style -> Plot Area tab.

The Sheet Style lets you select the finish-page sheet, such as Arch D or whatever you are using. It also lets you specify the page margins, which define the box where sections are allowed to appear. Then C3D fits as many sections into the allowed space as possible, taking into account your settings for "Space between adjacent section views" from the Group Plot Style -> Array tab.

[WScottAllenPE]

I agree with you. This elimination wasn't very convenient, especially since I had everything set up to create a single vertical column, and it constantly wants to redo it to horizontal.

Here's how I've worked around it for those who may review this thread later.

In your Plot window, create a single page as wide as a single column of section view, but as tall as your plotter setting will let you. Mine is set at 250 wide by 2400 tall. Save this "Page Setup" under a descriptive name.

Create a style for "Section View", "Sheet Style" with your "Page Layout" as the page setup you just created.

Create a style for "Section View", "Group Plot Style" with arrays by column, and "Plot Area" "Plot by Page" as your "Section View - Sheet Style". Also check that under the "Summary" tab, the "Plot Area" "Sheet Style" was changed. I've had this be one style, when I've changed it on the other tab.

In your section view group properties, set the group plot style as the one you just created.

Make sure to refresh, or it may continue to show them stacked on top of each other.

If you have a lot of section views, you may have two or three columns of forty section views tall, but I think it is better than forty columns of three tall.

[sinc]

If you can figure out how to get everything setup correctly, you should be able to get the sections to print exactly the way you want, with the right number of sections in the right number of columns. You should not end up with a stack of 40 sections.

It looks to me like this change was made so that one Style can be reused for any size paper, rather than creating new Styles for each sheet size. That makes sense, although since most people only print to one size of paper, it may be a change that doesn't help many users. If you only ever print sections to, for example, 36x24 pages, then you may simply be annoyed that Autodesk changed the way all this works.