I've been using Eagle Point for DTM and quantity calcs since the mid-90s. I had planned to squeeze a couple more years out of them, but the modules quit working when I switched over to Win7 last summer. I've been limping along with TBC, but the surface modeling capabilities of TBC seem very primitive to me.
The Switching Cad Software thread encouraged me to download and install a demo of Carlson Civil Suite today. I'm still trying to resolve some problems with AutoCAD 2012 crashing, but I think I can get beyond those eventually. However, when I loaded a drawing and tried to create a surface, I didn't get very far -- the commands under the Surface pulldown don't seem to suggest a way forward that's familiar to me.
I need a little push to get going, thus my question: what Carlson commands do I use to take a collection of 3D nodes and 3D polylines and turn them into a surface?
Thanks!
> Check here Jim.
I had looked through the movie titles earlier and watched the one that seemed most applicable ("Tips and Tricks for Preparing Drawing for Surface Model Building in Carlson Software"), but it was about tweaking someone else's drawing in preparation for building a model, and didn't actually show how to create a surface.
I dug a little deeper, and though I didn't fine a straightforward "How To Build A Surface Model," I did find one that showed me what I was misinterpreting. After that I was able to make it work without trouble.
Thanks!
For the sake of future visitors to the thread, the Surface -- Triangulate and Contour routine would be the command to run along with these common settings for starters:
- Triangulate Tab - Enable "Write Triangulation File" toggle
- Contour Tab - Enable "Draw Contours" and "Draw Index Contours" toggles
- Labels Tab - Enable "Label Contours" toggle
For persons currently running Eagle Point, I had developed a Surface Modeling command summary at the Carlson Knowledgebase and a quick overview of the process is discussed/shown starting at 21:50 mark of the From Field-to-Finish to Design-to-Field webinar.
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Ladd Nelson
> For persons currently running Eagle Point, I had developed a Surface Modeling command summary at the Carlson Knowledgebase and a quick overview of the process is discussed/shown starting at 21:50 mark of the From Field-to-Finish to Design-to-Field webinar.
Thanks, Ladd -- that's very useful.
Unfortunately, Carlson is currently very unstable on my Win7 64-bit system. Today, following a cold boot, all I did was issue the Qsave command and AutoCAD crashed. I'm also running into a ton of Carlson command shortcuts that conflict with my own custom AutoLISP functions.
It appears that Carlson has set itself up to run whenever AutoCAD does. How can I change that so Carlson only runs when I want it to? I can't get any work done with all the crashes.
To launch into a purely AutoCAD environment, find the AutoCAD short-cut on your Desktop and right-click the short-cut to expose it's properties. Add the "Profile" switch (/p) to the end of the "...acad.exe" to instruct AutoCAD to use the "<>" as summarized below:
> "...acad.exe" /p "<>"
(insert a space before and after the /p switch as shown below):
Launch AutoCAD-only sessions from this icon.
To remove the various Carlson "quick keys" that might be superseding your own customized routines, save the following content to file with a QKS extension (e.g. C:Carlson ProjectsSettingsMyKeys.qks):
>QKS
>Quick Keys Sourc File
>---------------------
>3
>ZC
>_.ZOOM _C|Zoom - Center
>ZPT
>(C:ZOOMPNT)|Zoom - Point
>ZE
>_.ZOOM _E|Zoom - Extents
From the Settings menu, click Quick Keys and then Load (browse to the file you just created above). All of short-cut keystrokes offered by default within Carlson (except for the three samples cited above) would be removed and should allow your custom LSP routine commands to run in their place.
In an effort to help diagnose and treat the stability problems you are encountering, I'd suggest a call into the Carlson Technical Support Staff. They should be able to determine what is going on and get you a solution.
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Ladd Nelson
> To launch into a purely AutoCAD environment
That sort of worked. The application title bar still says "Carlson 2012 with AutoCAD," the Carlson menu bar is loaded, and I get the Carlson license reminder box at launch. However, it doesn't muck with the screen arrangement nearly as much as it did before.
> To remove the various Carlson "quick keys" that might be superseding your own customized routines, save the following content to file with a QKS extension (e.g. C:Carlson ProjectsSettingsMyKeys.qks):
That seems to have done the trick.
> In an effort to help diagnose and treat the stability problems you are encountering, I'd suggest a call into the Carlson Technical Support Staff. They should be able to determine what is going on and get you a solution.
I've been corresponding with them via email, but no solution yet.
Thanks again!
> That seems to have done the trick.
On the other hand, maybe not. Is there a distinction between Quickkey shortcuts and native Carlson commands? I have a QKS file loaded that has only one definition (ZC). (I included that shortcut only because I didn't know if Carlson would acknowledge an empty file.) However, when I issue the command CL, which is an AutoLISP function I use to change the last entity created to a specified layer, I'm asked to select a centerline file or polyline.
I guess this also means I still have Carlson running, and that the profile change isn't really giving me pure AutoCAD.
>However, when I issue the command CL, which is an AutoLISP function I use to change the last entity created to a specified layer, I'm asked to select a centerline file or polyline.
I'm not sure what type of functionality the "CL" routine is trying to launch and suspect it is some type of function remnant that never made the light of day. I've dispatched an inquiry into programming to see if the command alias for that command can either be renamed or removed from the mainstream product. Until that occurs, you might find value in the Edit - Match Properties command.
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Ladd Nelson
> I'm not sure what type of functionality the "CL" routine is trying to launch...
I've been informed the CL routine is Carlson's transparent "CenterLine Snap" (useful for locating points or polyline vertices at a given station/offset to a centerline). It cannot be renamed.
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Ladd Nelson
