Express Yourself

Expressions are one of those tools in Civil 3D that are greatly underutilized.  I was asked recently by a BDM to help a client who was looking for a surface label that would shorten the labels to the left of the decimal place to only show 55.1 rather than 1155.1 as seen in the screen capture below.

After thinking long and hard about the issue, I decided to use the TRUNC expression to accomplish the task.  The TRUNC variable removes anything right of the decimal place.  In order to end up with a label that only displays the ones and tens value, I determined that I would need to divide the elevations by 100, and then truncat it so the resulting value would be the thousand and hundreds place, respectively.  I finally mutilple the resulting value by 100 to give the ones and tens place a value of zero.  I finally subtract the original surface value from the new to generate my label. 

  

The expression above essentially is 1155.1 - 1100.1 = 55.1

  

Here is the resulting label created from the expression.  Expressions allow us the ability to create labels that currently don't exist within the software.

Whats New in AutoCAD 2012

While there are many new features in AutoCAD 2012, I have chosen to highlight a few of my favorites:

AutoComplete Command entry is a new option that will help you find the appropriate command if you can only remember part of the command name.  You can also use wildcard characters to improve your search.

Content explorerer is a new tool that allows you to search for objects, text, and files on local and network folders.  If you right-click and select open and find to text, this will allow you to locate any text within a given drawing.

The final feature I will discuss are the new grip funtions.  As you can see in the capture below, the arrow grip allows one to change the landing distance within the leader itself.

The following link will take you to the Autodesk webiste where you can see further videos on even more new features.   AutoCAD 2012 New Features

Keeping Civil 3D Styles Out of the Wrong Hands

I have been teaching the past couple of weeks, and one question that has come up several times is how we protect our styles from being used by others.  I believe this concern has to do with the amount of time and effort that firms put into creating their corporate template.   There are a handful of options for submitting drawings without including our Civil 3D styles:

1.    The first option I will discuss is the export to AutoCAD command.  The option will essentially take our Civil 3D drawing to a mere AutoCAD drawing.    You can type AecExportToAutoCAD2010 or select export from under the file menu.

2.    The second option is to submit drawings in either dwf or pdf form.  Lots of agencies are now accepting data in electronic form, and this is an excellent way of submitting plans.

3.    The third option to consider is giving an xml file.  If they are only asking for data, the xml file will allow you to provide surface or pipe data for example, while not providing the accompanying styles.  The export command can be found under the file menu as well.

4.    The last option to look at is to simply delete all unused styles.  This can be very time consuming.  It should be noted that if a style is in use, you will not be able to delete it.

Using one of the methods described above should keep you from seeing your name in the created by box next time you open another firms drawings.