Label those Feature lines

[MMccall]

Hi,

I just wanted to share something that I found useful while grading, and that is to label the feature lines with elevations and slopes. I find it much more relate-able than using the elevation editor panorama. The quick elevation edit is better, but it will only show you one item at a time. Labeling them allows you to see all the information on the screen and right at its location along the feature line. You can see right away how the edit you just made affects grades and slopes in the surrounding area.

The labels are two simple line and curve labels. Each labels the beginning Z, the end Z, the slope/grade, and a flow direction. The location of the line and curve Z values coincide to keep the screen clutter to a minimum. (provided your line is tangent to the curve) The flow direction arrows are set with an expression that tests the grade of the line and then returns the correct rotation for the the arrow. I set the contents of the labels to a non-plotting layer.

[MMccall]

Attached is a picture of what I use. The hot pink items are only shown in model space and only for my use in visualizing the elevations and slopes along the feature lines. The light green items are surface labels used for the printed plans.

[jpaulsen]

We have six label styles that we use that are very similar to this. Three for lines and three for curves. We have one for start elevation, one for end elevation and one for slope. I like your idea to combine them all into one style for curves and one for lines. I also like the you justification for the elevation text. (We were using middle center).

One thing I really like about your style is the slope arrow on the curves. How did you accomplish that? For the lines I used the Direction Arrow component with the angle set using the expression "IF({General Segment Grade}<=0,0,pi)". There is no Direction Arrow component for a curve.

[BlackBox]

One thing I really like about your style is the slope arrow on the curves. How did you accomplish that? For the lines I used the Direction Arrow component with the angle set using the expression "IF({General Segment Grade}<=0,0,pi)". There is no Direction Arrow component for a curve.

It is very stange that Civil 3D doesn't come with this natively. *shrugs*

For General Line and Curve Labels, I just use a Block component with my 'Flow' arrow Block, and assign a 'SlopeDownhill' Expression for the Block component's Rotation Angle:

IF({General Segment Grade}<=0,0,pi)

Also, for reference: http://blog.civil3dreminders.com/201...ade-label.html


Cheers

[MMccall]

@jpaulsen: I hand-built an arrow by placing two line items above the slope# with a standard arrowhead block at the end of of the lines. I couldn't get a single line to rotate around its midpoint so I broke it in two, one goes left, one goes right, and used the rotation expression to rotate them about their common start point. The arrow head follows one of the lines. Flipping a flow arrow block as Blackbox does might have been an easier approach.

Having one label style for lines and one for curves allows the use of the multiple type labeling option to label the entire feature line in one click. Adding intermediate elevation points to the feature line will appear like they'er being labelled on the fly, however they're being done so at the expense of labels further down the line. I wish there was a default labeling style that could be set in a feature line style.

@Blackbox: Agreed, they should have included this. At the very least they should have put something like this in the tutorial files for grading.