Chapter 03 – AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Essentials – The Essentials and Beyond

hello my name is Eric Chappell author of
autocad civil3d
essentials 2013 and this is the
additional exercise for Chapter three in
this exercise we're going to continue
configuring civil3d so that it can
display property information so we're
going to be looking at description keys
and figure prefixes and other ways of
automating the the collection and
drafting of property features so we'll
get started with description keys so
what we need to do is go into the
software and configure a description key
for right-of-way and a description key
for an iron pin so to do that I'll go to
the settings tab and expand points and
then description key sets we're going to
right click this essentials description
key set and edit the keys here and I'm
going to add a new key it'll be ro W
star for right-of-way and we're kind of
given all the information we need here
the style is going to be called bound
point label style will be default format
is dollar sign star and the layer wide
in this column a bit is going to be V
node boundary there it is right there
create another new description key this
is for the code prop which is a property
corner
the style is going to be iron pin point
label style will be default code format
will be dollar signs star and once again
we'll use V node boundary I do want to
point out that there were some
duplication between the two description
keys you can right-click and copy and it
will bring down all of the same
information and so if you've got a lot
of things that are the same from one
description key to the next you can use
the copy trick and and save yourself a
few keystrokes the next thing we're
going to do is set up a few figure
prefixes so that we can handle the
drawing of line work for the
right-of-way and property lines so to do
that I'll go to the survey tab and find
my figure prefix database called
essentials and I'm going to right click
that and say manage figure prefix
database and what I'll do is scroll down
to the bottom right click I'm sorry
actually we're going to hit the plus
sign here to create a new figure prefix
this is going to be our o W it's not
going to be a break line it is however
going to be a lot line layer will be V -
RW a Y for right away style will be
basic and I can choose that from a list
and my site will be survey site so just
kind of going through what we're doing
here this is the code in the field is
our Oh W this isn't contributing to the
building of a surface model which you'll
learn about later so it's not a break
line it is however going to contribute
to being property information so we'll
treat it as a parcel segment also
something that you learn about later on
but we're basically designated
designating it as a legal property
boundary which is fitting for a
right-of-way what layers are going to
come in on what style is it going to use
you've learned all about styles
survey figures have Styles too and then
something we haven't talked about yet is
a site but a site you can think of as a
collection of objects that interact with
one another so I'm going to add another
one for that prop code for property and
these are case sensitive so be careful
with that again it's not a break line
but it is a legal boundary or a lot line
the layer this time is going to be V
prop boundary style will once again be
basic and the site will be survey site
so the two new figure prefixes that
we've created will take care of any line
work that's drawn utilizing the ro W or
the prop codes for the next item we're
going to set up a point group that will
accept these property points the prop
and the ro W points and put them in a
group that we can manage a little more
easily so I'll switch over to prospector
right click point groups and say new
this new group is going to be called
property corners and I'm going to
include based on a raw description of
prop or right-of-way these are coming
out of my description keys that I'm able
to just check on or off default point
label style is going to be point number
and description and the point style
doesn't matter because that's being
handled by the description key so that
takes care of a new point group called
property corners
the next thing we'll do is actually
import the property survey data which is
been given to us in the form of a text
file so I'll go to the Home tab and
click import Survey data and I want to
import this into my essentials 6
database so that's what I'll choose I'll
go out and find that property survey
file just like before this is going to
be PN e ZD comma delimited and if
everything works properly I want to make
sure I'm using the essentials line work
code set and essentials figure prefix
database and I can see that the
information has been drawn so if
everything worked right then step four
has been done of imported the data now
step five is to check that everything
looks the way it should so it's saying
that we should have right-of-way lines
drawn along the road on the right-of-way
layer so let's check that we'll click on
one you can see that it's coming in it's
coming in on layer zero but the style of
the of the survey figure is what's
showing it as a right-of-way notice the
purple color compared to the the other
lines we should also have square markers
marking the right-of-way looks like
we're good there property lines drawn
around the project you can see those
here these black lines and the circular
symbols marking the corners you can see
those here and we should also have a
brand new parcel created because we we
check the option to use it to make lot
lines out of these survey figures it
created a new parcel and we can see the
label in the center here and in fact
part of step 5 is to select that go to
parcel properties and change the style
of the parcel
from basic to property and that will
give it a different look along the edges
you notice the change the color to this
magenta and change the style of the line
to a broken line so it look like looks
like everything worked perfectly because
of the description keys we've got some
different symbols here for the points
because of the figure prefixes we've got
certain figure Styles being applied here
and giving the stylization of the lines
that we need and because of the point
groups these points are being labeled
differently they have point number
elevation and description whereas the
other points in the drawing or using
different label styles or none at all in
the case of the X markers for the for
the spot shots so everything worked and
that concludes the additional exercise
for Chapter three