Recently I have been talking with some programmers who are thinking about building an add on tool for Civil3d. This tool would have a grid, similar to Excel running inside CAD allowing the user to type in distances & bearings, angles, curve data, existing point numbers etc. After the data is entered the user would use a button to draw the linework and create points based on the data in the grid.
The idea is still mostly a concept at the moment and I'm not allowed to get into details. The question is how Land Surveyors would use it and what it needs to do to suit your purposes. Personally I see it as a tool for recreating old plans, and as a tool for analyzing how the plans fit the surveyed evidence.
Civil 3d already has a way to enter bearing and distances and curve data in, and it draw as you enter commands in. Don't really see a need for this add on.
The thing that seems to evade Autodesk programmers is the ability to inverse a horizontal bearing/distance between 2 points in less than a dozen mouse clicks and keyboard strokes.
Take a look at the cogo editor.
At the command line, enter the command: COGOEDITOR
It does exactly what you are describing; a simple, horizontal inverses with some graphics too.
Mark,
Set OSNAPZ to 1. Then you'll get horizontal distances. The one subtle distinction is that your Distance Command will get you horizontal distances with Osnaps, but if you use Transparent Commands ('PN, 'PO), you'll still get slope distances.
Dave
Steve, All programmers live to program. Even though something already exists, there are guys that spend hours writing LISP routines for their AutoCAD C3D.
There are at least a dozen software packages out there right now that will do what you propose. There are also ways to already to do what you want in AutoCAD and in Carlson, easier and faster.
It boils down to this: there appears to be no need for another package as you describe, unless it has some awesome and amazing side features and sells for next to nothing.
They are already aware of the cogo editor. The question is more about what is missing, what do Land Surveyors want to see added to make something better than the existing tool. Perhaps data entry using rods, chains, and other survey units? Railway boundaries using rail spiral definitions? Better tools for balancing and analysis of old plan data? Something else?
These are some pretty good programmers, so ask for the moon - it might just be possible.
Steve,
Holy Grail #2 for surveyors would be dynamic coordinate conversions, like being able to switch between ground and grid.
Dave
Data entry using rods, chains, etc?? Have you looked at Carlson? Another feature already available. B-)
> Data entry using rods, chains, etc?? Have you looked at Carlson? Another feature already available. B-)
Aside from using the C&G module within the Carlson survey module, I do not think that you can enter ground distance scaled down to grid on the fly. "Input scale factor", that feature is not available yet as far as I can tell.
MicroSurvey does it very well. Just input whatever factor you want and go. Carlson (aside C&G) seems to want those define lengths that you mention above.
What C3D really needs is an easy way to create a table style that will list station and offsets of points to an alignment like every stinking ROW surveyor has to do everyday stinking day. Sincpac helps with this but it is convoluted.
One groovy tool would be able to perform a least squares best fit of series of points from one coordinate system to another. C3D has a best fit line and curve solver but that's not what I mean. This tool would be used to best fit found or measured corners/evidence to record or calculated positions.
I know there are stand-alone programs that can do this but they do not run in C3D.