offset by slope and grade

[Hammer.John.J]

Are these lisp routines from ldt incorporated into C3D someplace or were they left behind with the abandonment of ldt?

I'd wrather not use feature lines or contours, we work with lines and arcs for non-corridor/offsite grading.

I just want to offset my lines and arcs so that they offset by horizontal and vertical based on a slope and a grade, like ldt used to do so simply.

thanks for any help on this!

[brian.hailey933139]

Not necessarily lines and arcs but the stepped offset command does work on polylines.

[Hammer.John.J]

Not necessarily lines and arcs but the stepped offset command does work on polylines.

that makes no sense though because traditionally you get polylines from joining lines and arcs or converting them?

so just to be sure, do i need to make everything a polyline and then use the stepped offset command to do what was a simple command in LDT?

how is it productive to convert my lines and arcs to polylines just so i can offset them? I think I'll see if a lisp from the old ldt can be found or recreated maybe??? probably a better avenue for the use right?

thanks again.

[sinc]

One might as well ask "How is it more productive to use lines and arcs, as opposed to tools like Feature Lines?"

It sounds like you are pretty well stuck in a rut of "We did things this way in LDT; we want to do them exactly the same way in C3D". Meanwhile, there are different procedures that would have you working MUCH faster than you are used to in LDT, they just require substantially-different procedures, and an ability to change your procedures to take advantage of the new, more-powerful toolset.

True, this can be easier said than done. We've developed lots of checks into our existing procedures, and when changing procedures, we must also be sure to develop a corresponding set of new checks. And that can take time, thought, and maybe even (unfortunately) an occasional error. But once new procedures are developed and in-place, you can do things significantly faster, better, and more-reliably than in the past. It may not be easy, but it's worth it.

[mhildenbrand]

Ok, so back to the offset by grade or slope. Where is the stepped offset in the menus or toolbars?

Michael

[Hammer.John.J]

Well, it definitely is far more complicated than it needs to be, but that is probably because i am not using it as it is intended to be used??? I read the tutorial here http://www.augi.com/publications/hotnews.asp?page=1564 but i cut to the chase and didn't make the surface or any of that.

I think the thing to do is get a lisp routine made or figure out a way to extract it out ldt. When LDT is abandoned and we only install C3D vertical... people who use those simple tools will be somewhat left behind, no?

doesn't seem right, making a surface to do grading is unneccessary for 2D plan drawings.

[brian.hailey933139]

In <2009, it's under the grading menu->Edit Feature Line Geometry or under the survey menu->Edit Figure Geometry.

In 2010, it's on the modify feature line tab, the modify parcel tab, or the modify survey tab. Click on edit geometry and there it is.

[brian.hailey933139]

doesn't seem right, making a surface to do grading is unneccessary for 2D plan drawings.

Using a computer in any way, shape, or form is unnecessary. For a lot of things, it is a lot faster though.

In your situation, it may be faster to simply draw your lines and arcs to create your contours but for me, it is far more efficient to have a surface.

[sinc]

Well, it definitely is far more complicated than it needs to be, but that is probably because i am not using it as it is intended to be used???

That's difficult to say. It could be some of both. I think many people would agree with you that grading in Civil 3D is on the weak side, with lots of problems, and that Civil 3D in general is more-complicated than it needs to be. But you could also be going about things in a difficult way, when there's another route you could take that is much simpler and faster. That's difficult to say, without actually working with you directly.

And it could also be that Civil 3D is simply ill-suited to your company, and some other software may suit your needs better. It is pretty difficult to create an application like this where "one size fits all". I agree, there are certain tasks and applications where Civil 3D's models are little more than giant unnecessary time sinks. But there are other tasks and applications where Civil 3D's models save incredible amounts of time.

For some, the application of models is obvious, and brings immediate value. For others, it may take a radically different set of procedures to get anything out of the models, but once procedures are changed, the benefits are worth it. And for yet others, the models serve little purpose. Unfortunately, you have to determine for yourself which category you fit into.

[Hammer.John.J]

It's great for corridors and utlitities and engineering, no dispute here, we are embracing and endorsing C3D. It seems that C3D wants you to use a work flow that creates a surface and then contours, even though you "can" do the reverse from 3D polylines and feature lines, you're still editing a tin, generally... everything seems based off the site, the t.i.n., feature lines, 3D polylines, etc.

we use a workflow that:
Trace->scan->lines/arcs->output (paper/pdf/plt/etc) we generate surfaces from polylines that get drafted. We don't generate contours from surfaces, that takes way to long to get all the points and slopes in correctly for the tin to be accurate enough to out put contours that match the reverse workflow.

This is why we're so frustrated that these grading tools are gone.

This feature line offset is similar, but to me offset slope/grade seems like a simple command such as move copy rotate, etc.... i just can't figure out how to do the same thing w/c3d.

Autodesk abandoned LDT so to keep on subsciption and up to speed with other verticles you really are forced to move to C3d, which is fine, except that good tools such as this were left behind or I'm not finding the new method in the platform.

thanks again for the help.

[gandocadguy]

If you don't need a surface and are creating 2D drawings then why does it matter what elevation your contours are at? Unless they are at 0 you no longer have a true 2D drawing.

For smooth contours I'll draw a polyline use the stepped offset and add it to my surface if the job has/needs a surface. Otherwise they stay at 0 elevation for a 2D drawing.

[Hammer.John.J]

that is a very good point...

we draw them at elevation so that when you label the contour using our lisp routine it automatically takes the elevation of line or arc and assigns it to the attribute of the block being inserted as the contour label.

This is also helps the drafters know what elevation they are drafting and one less step for the engineers to make a surface... it was no loss of time for us really because of the offset by slope and grade.

I got some more insight into this feature line and it seems our workflow will be copy our lines and arcs into a surface drawing and convert them to feature lines. We do a similar workflow now where they take our contours to make polylines and then a surface.

thanks again for all the input, I'm learning quite a bit from the discussion.

[gandocadguy]

we draw them at elevation so that when you label the contour using our lisp routine it automatically takes the elevation of line or arc and assigns it to the attribute of the block being inserted as the contour label.

I suspected something like this as we do something similar in our Microstation projects for site design.

With C3D the grading can be frustrating at first. After you pick up a few tricks and do it a few times it's feels better.

[brian.hailey933139]

I got some more insight into this feature line and it seems our workflow will be copy our lines and arcs into a surface drawing and convert them to feature lines. I would probably just convert the lines and arcs into polylines rather then featurelines. If you are drafting contours, featurelines won't offer much more advantage then polylines plus you could run into site issues. A lot of the feature line editing tools will work on regular ol' polylines plus ALL of the polyline tools will work on polylines. :)

If you have a lot of lines and arcs that you need to convert, check out the drawing cleanup tools in Civil 3D (not available in AutoCAD Civil).

[jpaulsen]

I agree with Brian. I would use polyline contours and only use the more powerful feature lines to define grade breaks where each vertex has a different elevation.

[Hammer.John.J]

I agree with Brian. I would use polyline contours and only use the more powerful feature lines to define grade breaks where each vertex has a different elevation.

for now we are going to try and do as much grading with the corridor and daylighting sub assemblies, leaving the rest to lines arcs-> polylines

thanks again.

[Hammer.John.J]

So the stepped offset command in civil 3d is extremely close, the only thing i need it to do is recognize lines and arcs...

any ideas?

[gandocadguy]

So the stepped offset command in civil 3d is extremely close, the only thing i need it to do is recognize lines and arcs...

any ideas?

Change them to feature lines.

[Hammer.John.J]

I'd rather not... I just want the command to understand line and arcs, land desktop did this with virtually the same command you know?

I've gone so far to find this, but it's missing some important parts to make it "work"



(SETVAR"cmdecho"0)
(SETQ OS(GETVAR"osmode"))
(SETVAR"osmode"0)
(SETQ DIST1(CV_XLATLSPGETDIST(CV_XLATLSPPHRASE 61902"Contour increment")"""ER"0 0 NIL))
(SETQ VAR2(CV_XLATLSPGETDIST(CV_XLATLSPPHRASE 61901"Grade")"""ER"0 1 NIL)VAR3(/(ABS VAR2)100.0)DIST(/ DIST1 VAR3))
(IF(< VAR2 0.0)(SETQ VAR1(- 0.0 DIST1))(SETQ VAR1 DIST1))
(WHILE(SETQ ENT1(ZZ_ENTSEL"AecCivilBase"0 0 NIL(CV_XLATLSPPHRASE 61904"Contour line to offset")NIL))(AEC_CONV_LW_TO_2D(CAR ENT1))(SETQ ENT(ENTGET(CAR ENT1)))(IF(OR(AND(=(CDR(ASSOC 0 ENT))"POLYLINE")(<(BOOLE 1 8(CDR(ASSOC 70 ENT)))8))(=(CDR(ASSOC 0 ENT))"LINE")(=(CDR(ASSOC 0 ENT))"ARC"))(PROGN(SETQ PT1(CV_XLATLSPGETCOORD(CV_XLATLSPPHRASE 61900"Side to offset")"""ER"0 1 NIL)PT2(CADR ENT1))(COMMAND"_.offset"DIST PT2 PT1"")(COMMAND"_.move""_l"""(quote (0.0 0.0 0.0))(APPEND(quote (0.0 0.0))(LIST VAR1))))(ZZ_MPROMPT"AecCivilBase"0(CV_XLATLSPIDFORSTRING 61903"\n2dpolyline, arc, or line not selected. \n")))(REDRAW(CAR ENT1)1))
(SETVAR"osmode"OS)
(SETQ PT1 NIL PT2 NIL ENT NIL ENT1 NIL DIST NIL DIST1 NIL VAR1 NIL VAR2 NIL VAR3 NIL)
(PRINC)

[brian.hailey933139]

So the stepped offset command in civil 3d is extremely close, the only thing i need it to do is recognize lines and arcs...

any ideas?
Use the MPEDIT command to convert them to polylines. You can then use the C3D commands on them. You don't have to join them if you don't want to. If you don't join them, you essentially have lines and arcs but instead you have single segment polylines.

[Hammer.John.J]

I thought about that, i'm being picky here only because the command exists, only in a different verticle. not to be cynical but it's like everything else lately.... a workaround lol.

I guess we just couldn't fillet them unless we explode, seems like it could get into a lot of converting and exploding which is annoying.

thanks for helping!

[brian.hailey933139]

But you can fillet a polyline. In fact, it's a lot easier to fillet polylines then a bunch of lines.

http://screencast.com/t/MTM5M2Vm

[Hammer.John.J]

But you can fillet a polyline. In fact, it's a lot easier to fillet polylines then a bunch of lines.

http://screencast.com/t/MTM5M2Vm

honestly, i didn't know you could do that... i still like lines/arcs better, it's hard to explain but you'd understand if I could show you why... you end up with 0 radii after offsetting and it's just a pain. i know, i know, i know.

[brian.hailey933139]

Well, explain your concerns. We'll help if we can. I've known companies that redefine the LINE command to the PLINE command because the plines are more versatile then lines.

[sinc]

The thing I don't like about them is that you can't use LENGTHEN DYNAMIC or Line/Curve From End Of Object on polylines. So while I prefer polylines for many things, I often find myself exploding them, performing edits, and rejoining the components, which is kind of annoying.

Also, trying to FILLET two polylines together is often an exercise in frustration. Meanwhile, explode the polylines, and the resulting objects will FILLET just fine.

And then there's the troubles with C3D Parcels created from polylines... There are also benefits to creating C3D Parcels from polylines, so I often do it, but it can cause lots of little problems, such as Parcels and labels that reset themselves.

[sinc]

Also, if you have Civil 3D (and not Civil), you can use the Map Drawing Cleanup command. I rarely use MPEDIT.

The Map Drawing Cleanup command can even convert Circles into Polylines.

[Hammer.John.J]

what sinc said...

for this specific task, i really just need to get lines and arcs to offset by given contour interval and the % slope.

polylines are nice for many things, i agree, but in this instance they become aggrevating very quickly.

[chris805_1996]

what sinc said...

for this specific task, i really just need to get lines and arcs to offset by given contour interval and the % slope.

polylines are nice for many things, i agree, but in this instance they become aggrevating very quickly.

You could always utilize Lisp, VBA, or .NET and create your own tool that does what you want.