Hi There:
I'm trying to put together a list of the different drawing entities in C3D (Lines, polylines, etc.) and the different properties of each, in order to give to drafters. With the different C3D entities (each with different properties) it makes it hard for a new drafter (or LDD drafter) to figure out how to create a nice drawing. For instance, survey figures have elevation, but won't generate special linetypes very well.
Here is a brief description of properties that I am aware of. If you can add anything, please do. If you know where a better description of these things are, please let me know. Help wasn't very helpful (at least not on specifics).
Note: for the following, it is assumed that OSNAPZ is set to 0. If OSNAPZ is set to 1, then the resultant elevations would be 0.
Line – grabs elevation at both ends of the line on a straight-segment – does not allow for linetype generation. Layer controlled.
Curve – grabs elevation from points at both ends of the curve, but not point(s) on curve - does not allow for linetype generation. Layer controlled.
Polyline – grabs elevation for all segments from the first point picked. Allows for linetype generation. Layer controlled.
3d Polyline – grabs elevation at all points. Allows for linetype generation.
All straight segments – no curves allowed. Layer controlled.
Feature Lines – Grabs elevation at all points. Non-tangent curves require manual editing to make the look correct. Does not allow for linetype
generation. Curves are allowed, but hard to manipulate. Not layer controlled. You can match attributes from another Feature Line or change the style to get it to look the way you want, but just changing the layer linetype and color won’t work.
Survey Figures – Very similar to feature lines – typically gets automatically imported through points. Grabs elevation at all points. Non-tangent
curves require manual editing to make the look correct. Does not allow for linetype generation. Curves are allowed, but hard to
manipulate. Not layer controlled. You can match attributes from another Survey Figure or change the style to get it to look the way you want, but just changing the layer linetype and color won’t work.
Thanks,
Paul
You can set your Feature Line and Survey Figure Styles to ByLayer, and get layer-based control over them that way.
That definitely seems to be the best choice for Survey Figures. We typically use only one Survey Figure style, set to ByLayer. (We also have another garish-looking one that is set as the default, so it gets used for figures that are missing from the Figure Prefix library. The idea is to call attention to it, so we can either add the missing code to the Figure Prefix library, or fix the code in our data if it was mis-coded.)
From the nature of your question, though, it sounds like you're going down a troublesome path with C3D... With C3D, it becomes pretty difficult to have low-level "drafters".
The basic idea is that C3D is a design tool, and the drafting falls automatically out of the design. The old paradigm, with "Engineers that don't do CAD" + "Drafters that handle CAD without knowing Engineering" kind of falls apart. If you try to use C3D the way you may have used older software, you tend to have a very rough ride.
Thanks Sinc. You're right about the by layer thing. Its funny, but when I setup figure styles in C3D 2009, I swear that once they got their properties by layer (all my figure styles are setup by layer), that I couldn't just change the layer itself and have the figures update. It definitely works now though. Maybe I was drunk. 🙂
