Thanks to everyone for attending my webcast. Below you will find a brief recap of my presentation along with the answers to the questions that were asked. You can also click here to watch the on-demand recording.
During my presentation, I looked at line, curve and table styles and then demonstrated some nuances of labeling lines and curves in a typical Civil 3D drawing.
The webcast covered the following topics:
- Exploring Line and Curve Label Styles
- Exploring Parcels Line Label Style
- Exploring Segment Table Styles
- Labeling & Repositioning Labels
As well, I demonstrated:
Demonstration of Label Styles
In this demonstration I showed where the various line and curve tables are located in the Civil 3D Toolspace on the Settings tab. For general lines and curves they are grouped under the General branch, however there are specific labels for parcel lines and curves which are grouped under the Parcels branch.
The line, curve and segment table styles are housed under the Parcels branch; there are no general tables styles.
I generally recommend using style templates to facilitate the distribution and management of styles across Civil 3D drawings. If styles are referenced, they cannot be edited in the host drawing. But styles can be copied to create a new style with all the settings, or one can create a new child with the original style being the parent, or the styles can be deleted (purged).
However, upon reopening the drawing, the purged styles will re-emerge if they are from a reference template.
I also discussed the various tabs for creating or editing label styles:
· General Tab
· Layout Tab
· Dragged State
And then looked at some of the nuances of table styles and how to sort the tables on specific columns if need be.
I also demonstrated how to create new expressions, which are calculations based on the particular Civil 3D object that can be used in labels and tables.
Demonstration of labeling exercises
I demonstrated using various line labels styles:
- Bearing OVER Distance
- Bearing AND Distance
- Distance Only
- Bearing Only
I then moved the labels along the line and moved them off the line to form leaders. There were different styles of leaders, one splined and the other linear. I added and removed vertices and then returned the label to it original position (stepping backwards).
Finally, I showed how to create a line table of various labels and pointed out how it was sorted on the first column.
Q&A
Below are some questions that came up during the webcast:
Q: It would be great to be able to FLIP a bearing NE to SW without having to use a separate Style. Can you show how to do this?
A: When you right-click when a label is selected (or form the contextual ribbon), you can select Reverse Label which will change the direction of the label by 180 degrees.
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Q: Is there a way to add a leading zero to bearings?
A: Yes, in the component editor of the Bearing, disable the Drop leading zeros as shown. (Thanks to Lee and Bernie in the audience for pointing that out!)
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Q: On the as-composed dragged state, can you change the location of the leader relative to the text, so it comes off the left or right side of text instead of the bottom or top?
A: No, you cannot. That is why I recommend using the Stacked Text option for the Dragged state, for that will change justification properly when dragged from one side to another.
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Q: How do you control what coordinate system the label displays? i.e. State, decimal, etc.?
A: In the label style you can pick if the coordinates are listed as Northing / Easting, Grid Northing / Grid Easting or Lat / Long, but you cannot change the coordinate system per label style. That is a drawing wide setting.
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Q: Label Styles - If you create a child of a reference style, does it act like a local copy, or does it get overwritten when the drawing is opened again?
A: If the referenced style of the parent changes in a reference template, the child style will also change accordingly if that option is not already overridden in the Child style.
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