Pipe Labels

[MMccall.83699]

As I was running through the tutorial projects for pipe networks I wandered off into formating pipe labels. I wasn't happy with the pipe label 'description' for concrete pipe as being "## inch Concrete Pipe" I have two issues with it. One, I rarely have room for that much text in a combined label including pipe length, slope, pipe class, and Ex. or Prop., Two how and where do I define the pipe class. I did a little digging around and found a couple of XML files.

AeccCircularConcretePipe_Imperial.xml held the pipe description which I changed from "inch Concrete Pipe" to "''"

AeccSharedPropertyList.xml Held the listing of material types. Here I added some new materials, "RCP CL. III", "RCP CL. IV", and "RCP CL. V"

Now I had the pieces I needed. From here I went to the Pipe Network Parts List and made some new pipe sizes and appended the materials property to these new sizes. Now I have series of concrete pipes with different material types, all automatically named with their material types. Formatting labels the way I want them is very easy now.

Solving the different wall thickness for different classifications is a project for another day as it looks like it will require creating new pipe structures for each class.

[quiggle]

Great to hear of someone making progress with Civil 3D, congratulations.
I will offer a word of caution though on trying to create a new structure with the parts builder . . . the Autodesk Civil 3d discussion group has this

http://discussion.autodesk.com/threa...sageID=4852250

thread stopping just short of discouraging its use until further updates. It is apparently quite volatile and prone to lose access to the module interface forcing a reinstall of the program. I would think it prudent to try it only on a non production machine where the program can be trashed and reinstalled without interrupting production while learning.

[MMccall.83699]

Thanks quiggle!

Partbuilder solved my pipe classification/wall thickness issue. Everything I needed access to was there to make my own pipes. Using the partbuilder was much cleaner manner than editing XML files directly, although I did still have to edit the XML to get my pipe labels right. The partbuilder put a space after the pipe size and the " (inch) symbol. (+ had to use two apostrophes)

Now I'm on to structures .... I'm sure they're going to be more complex than a simple pipe.

Hmmm, new pipe thought ... a perforated pipe in a stone filled trench .... would need trench dimensions and pipe location within trench spec'd ..... dual pipes? .... dual pipes in stone trench?!?!


.... brain fry ....