ASCII Point Elevations are Crazy ?

[nightNday]

I have been wrestling with this for the better part of an hour. The scenario: surveyor brings in data points from the field. We are using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009 and ArcEditor 9.3.x. We have been connecting them using the toolspace, but they were consistently coming in at the wrong location, so we have switched to using Points>Import Points, which has been working. Until now. Today when I imported the points the are coming in with some sort of multiplier error. The elevations are off by a division of 12 and the northing and eastings are off by a division of 3 (i.e. if you take the correct elevation and divide by 12, that is what is displaying and if you take the northing and easting and divide them by 3, that is what is displaying). If it were 12 for both I would think it was a feet/inches issue and if it were 3 for both I would think it was a metric issue. I don't know if there is something I'm just not seeing? If anyone can give me a little insight I would be much obliged.

[sinc]

This sort of question is generally much easier to answer if you post a drawing. Otherwise, it generally ends up becoming a game of 20 questions. (Or 30 questions, or more...)

[nightNday]

I've attached the offending drawing. As you can see the points are labeled with a number, a manhole number and the elevation (the middle number). These are the numbers that are off by a multiplier of 12. If you look at the point information table you will see that there are northing and easting values. These are the numbers that are off by a multiplier of 3. If you need me to post the corresponding data/asc file, I will.

[nightNday]

Here is the attachment.

[brian.hailey933139]

First thing that comes to mind is your units are set to inches. Type INSUNITS and you'll see it's set to 1 (inches). Set it to 2 (feet) and try again.

If that doesn't help, post up the ascii file as well.

[Jmurphy]

Check you drawing setttings Units and Zone also, the dwg you posted has it units as inches. Your point file may have elevations as feet and the NE as meters or visa versa, elevations in meters while NE is in feet.

[nightNday]

Thanks guys! Upon your suggestions I went ahead and opened a completely clean, new drawing, set the units to feet and re-inserted the points. Same problem. I did previously check the units, I just wanted to make sure.

I have also tried to insert the points into already established drawings (that also contain asci survey points), hoping that they will 'stick' but they don't.

Augi won't let me upload an asci file, is there another format I can convert it to so that you can access it?

As a note, if I didn't post this earlier, when I load the asci file into Arc, it works fine.

[Jmurphy]

Zip the ASCI file and upload that way.

Files that can be uploaded/attached:
Valid file extensions: 3ds bmp ctb cui cuix dcl doc docx dvb dwf dwfx dwg dwt fbx gif jpe jpeg jpg lin lsp ma mat max mb mns mnu pat pdf pgp png psd rfa rft rte rvt shp shx stb txt xls xlsx zip

[nightNday]

Okay. I'm not really familiar with these files, so I just grabbed everything in there. Let me know what you think....

I really appreciate your time!

[Jmurphy]

Start a new dwg and go to the drawing settings from the toolspace. Setting tab > right click on the drawing name > Edit drawing settings. Set the units to Feet and the coordinates/datum as show in the attached. These are as per the RAW file and XML file you have.
Then import the points using the ASC file. Use the PEND space delimited format and see what you get.

[brian.hailey933139]

Set the units to Feet and the coordinates/datum as show in the attached.
I think you may have forgotten the attached...

[nightNday]

Okay, I did that. I cannot use PEND because it is not available- I have tried almost all the options, but PNEZD is what we have been using, with comma delimited. It will not work with space delimited. I have attached what I came up with (it is coming out the same).

It is good to know that I can go in and change the setting from the toolspace, however when I went to units of the drawing, it wasn't changed there. Should it have been?

[nightNday]

I think you may have forgotten the attached...

If the attached was showing me how to do it, I figured it out.

[Jmurphy]

I think you may have forgotten the attached...

Opps...
Here it is.
:mrgreen:

[Jmurphy]

I meant the PNEZD format just missed typed.
The units in the DRAWING UNITS dialog box that you see when you use the UNITS command is for the units used when you insert that dwg into another dwg or vise versa. You need to set it up in the dialog from the toolspace.



Okay, I did that. I cannot use PEND because it is not available- I have tried almost all the options, but PNEZD is what we have been using, with comma delimited. It will not work with space delimited. I have attached what I came up with (it is coming out the same).

It is good to know that I can go in and change the setting from the toolspace, however when I went to units of the drawing, it wasn't changed there. Should it have been?

[nightNday]

Oh Man! It was that International Feet Setting. I think I actually corrected that on the Engineer's computer a while back and somehow mine reverted to it...?

Thank you guys so much, I know it was just a setting, but it was really making me crazy!

Is it possible to set this to a default?

[Jmurphy]

Oh Man! It was that International Feet Setting. I think I actually corrected that on the Engineer's computer a while back and somehow mine reverted to it...?

Thank you guys so much, I know it was just a setting, but it was really making me crazy!

Is it possible to set this to a default?

Set it in the template (dwt) that you use to start a new dwg with should do that.