IMAGINiT Civil Solutions Blog

Change Parcel Area Units

One question I often receive in reference to automating the creation of parcels in Civil 3D is how to change the unit of measurement for parcel sizing in layout tools from the default of square feet to acres. This short and simple tutorial will answer that question for you.

The Problem

We are often confronted with situations in which the default settings in Civil 3D doesn't accommodate the design standards in which we are held to. This can range from colors, linetypes, fonts, sizing, and even units of measure. When working with parcel creation in Civil 3D (or any design software for that matter), there may be several different units in which we must design. It depends upon national, regional, local, and/or municipal standards, but you might need to work on parcels in a project by square meters, acres, or hectares. By default, Civil 3D is set to measure parcels in square feet as shown in the image below.

The Solution

Once you have determined which unit of measure is required for your design, you'll want to modify the default settings in Civil 3D to work for you. First, go to the Settings tab of the Civil 3D Toolspace and expand the Parcels category. Then expand the Commands folder underneath Parcels and double-click on CreateParcelsByLayout.

This will take you into the Command Settings dialog specific for creating parcels within the layout toolbar. Expand the Area section and click on the Unit cell under the Value column. You will end up with options to change your units of measure to those listed in the image below.

Pick the proper units of measure from the drop down list and select OK to close the dialog. Now whenever you go to the Parcel Layout Toolbar (Parcel Creation Tools), your parcel areas will be defined by the previously chosen units. In my case, I changed the default from square feet to acres.

I hope that you've found this helpful and it leads you to explore the multitude of additional command settings that can be changed within your template in order to streamline your design and drafting processes. If you are interested in additional topics like this, please respond in the comments section below and we'll consider other posts, white papers, or future YouTube videos to be placed on our channel.

Pipe Network Staking in Civil 3D Part 2

In part 1 of this topic you were instructed on how to utilize Civil 3D feature lines in combination with a Pipe Network to generate COGO points to be exported for staking. It was a detailed tutorial and the application of this process can be used for many other scenarios aside from pipes and structures. In this post, however, we will explore an alternative that may have more appeal, although that will be subjective to each user.

Start With a Pipe Network

If you haven't already, create your pipe network, position the horizontal structure locations in plan view, and adjust the invert and sump elevations in profile view. With that taken care of, we are ready to move onto this exercise.

It's a Copy and Paste World

Select your pipe network from the drawing and select "Edit Pipe Network" from the contextual ribbon tab. On the Pipe Network Layout toolbar, open the "Pipe Network Vistas" option.

This will bring up the Pipes and Structures tabs of the Panorama. Highlight all rows of information from the Structures tab, right-click, and select "Copy to clipboard" from the shortcut menu.

Paste this information into Microsoft Excel (or some other spreadsheet software capable of export to a .CSV or ASCII .TXT format). Do the same thing for the information on the Pipes tab.

Cleanup the spreadsheet to remove all extraneous columns of information so that only the northing, easting, and elevations are left. This could include the rim elevations of the structures, sump elevations, pipe invert elevations, or all of the above (if you copy the structure coordinates accordingly to accommodate multiple elevations at each structure). With the spreadsheet formatted properly, perform a Save As and choose "CSV (Comma delimited)" from the Save as type drop-down. Save the file within your project directory with an appropriate name and pick "OK."

Navigate to the file and open in with Notepad to review the results and check for accuracy. It should look like a standard NEZ point file, but can easily be augmented with point numbers and descriptions to format it as a PNEZD point file.

Well, what do you think? Any easier than the exercise from last week? Let us know in the comments section below and make suggestions on other topics you'd like us to post about.

As an additional option to what I've discussed in this 2-part series, and if you are comfortable with editing code, check out Christopher Fugitt's post on Using Pipe Sample VBA end up with similar results.

Pipe Network Staking in Civil 3D

Without any automated tools for generating a survey stakeout point file for Civil 3D Pipe networks, it is more than a little frustrating. However, with some creative thinking and taking advantage of other basic functionality within Civil 3D, we can create Pipe Network points for export without too much additional effort.

But First, A Few Options

If all you are looking to do is create and Civil 3D COGO points structure rim locations and elevations, this post isn't really for you. Placing manual points at structures is quicker and easier than what is discussed here.

This will be a 2-part post. In this first post, I'll cover how to generate COGO points along Pipe Networks for the stakeout of pipe alignments, structure locations, and invert/sump depths. In the second/follow-up post, I'll be covering an alternative method utilizing the Panorama and a spreadsheet.

Starting Out

Draw your pipe network in the project if you haven't already.

 With the pipe network created, use the Civil 3D alignment tools to "Create Alignment from Network Parts."

Select the first and last structures in your Pipe Network (or any structures that bound the network) and hit Enter to create the alignment. Define the alignment however you wish and select "OK" when you are done. This will bring to you to the Create Profile dialog where you will sample the alignment and surface to create a profile for the Pipe Network. Choose "Draw in profile view" when you are done.

Choose the options within the profile view creation dialog as necessary for your company/client standards. When completed, pick the location of the profile view and you'll end up with something similar to the image below.

Take Advantage of the Power of Feature Lines

First, create a feature line along your pipe network. The easiest way is to do so is to "Create Feature Lines from Alignment."

Define the feature line styles and settings making sure to de-select "Weed points" and "Create dynamic link to the alignment" (checking these boxes isn't the end of the world, but will require more work on your part after the feature line has been generated to delete unnecessary vertexes and manually removing the link to the alignment). Select "OK" when you are finished.

Now that the feature line is created, select the profile view containing the Pipe Network. Choose "Project Objects To Profile View" from the contextual ribbon tab and select the feature line from your drawing.

Confirm the projection style for the feature line (mostly irrelevant as we are just using it to base our COGO points off of) and select "OK." If you didn't remove the dynamic link between the feature line and the alignment, now would be the time to do so, as well as deleting any extraneous PI's from the feature line that were a result of weeding.

With the feature line placed in the profile view, you should see each vertices lined up perfectly with the center of each structure.

This will be what we want if only the sump elevation of our structures is needed for stakeout. However, if you also need invert elevations, add any necessary PI's to the feature line to accommodate the number of inverts for each structure. Only sump elevations will be shown in this example, but the process for generating invert stakeout points in exactly the same, but with more vertexes (which also means more points).

Adjust the vertical adjustment grips of your feature line to match with the sump depths of your structures.

Creating COGO Points Automatically

Now we have the basis in which to generate Civil 3D COGO points quickly and easily. Got to the "Create Points" toolbar (or the points drop-down within the Home ribbon) and select the "Automatic" method from the "Miscellaneous" category.

You will then be prompted to select the geometry you wish to create the points along. Pick your feature line from your drawing. You'll be prompted to give the COGO points a description, so type a raw description that can easily be separated from the rest of your project (either in a list or point group).

You'll have to hit Enter several times until the description has been applied to all COGO points generated from every vertexes of the feature line. Now that the points are created in your drawing, go ahead and zoom in on a point and compare the point elevation with the surface elevation around it to confirm it has been place properly at the sump/invert elevation.

Export the Pipe Network Survey Points

All that is left to do is pick the point group from the Prospector tab (or a list of points from the preview pane) of the Toolspace, right-click, and choose "Export Points" from the shortcut menu. 

You will now have a pipe network survey staking file ready to upload to your data collector.

Although this is a lengthy tutorial, the process is pretty methodical and shouldn't take much time after you understand the concepts and tools. Stay tuned and come back for Part 2 of this topic where I'll discuss utilizing the Panorama and a spreadsheet to get identical results to this exercise (perhaps in fewer, easier steps. You'll just have to wait and see!).