Drafting question

Lot boundary - 0.7mm solid

Adjuacent/abutting bdys - 0.5mm dashed

Easement bdy - 0.35mm solid  

@jimcox Thanks Jim. I will do some playing with that this weekend. I been working and crunching numbers till 8 to 10 pm every night this week. I have finally figured out how to make my text and layers and blocks all match civil3d to TBC and back and forth. Some of the line types don’t always work correctly between the two by layers option but I am slowly tweaking them. Getting my field fxl. To match as well. The symbols i have not figured out yet they do not have the ability i have found yet to scale them once in TBC without adding an attribute in to do it in the field. So i been using blocks which allow me to manually scale in x y z. But the text functions in TBC have a lot of power and very easy to manipulate rotate scale and stack to fit in a spot. I have plan sets setup and also use tye smart text a lot to label buildings. And other items. Playing with almost got it to work where the crews add 1 story brick w/basement and try and automate that i can pull it from the collector by smart text easily but would be nice it just adds it and i can center rotate etc. The line thingy will once i get it right be nice. In what little drafting i have the things i have learned so far i can go head to head with civil3d. Love the quick function to just hit properties on a set of text click in the bearing then choose the line or whatever i want it aligned to and bam all done. Labels and text once set up is nice feature.  A few things I wish it would do is have a solid arrow for text leaders. It has them for dimensions and some labels. Thanks again. I am just rambling. Long day.

@olemanriver 

Linetypes are a bit of a nightmare - TBD and Access can do things there that autocad can't and vice versa. So only some linetypes can be carried in a dxf.

Easiest here seems to have two separate definitions - one in TBC, one in Autocad.

Then when you get your data into Acad/Civil3D, reset the linetypes to apply the local definition. Some of this can be done with Templates, but there is still a manual bit to it. Helps to have colour etc set 'byLayer'

@jimcox yeah i am learning that. We have a project small boundary and i have been copy catting everything the true drafter has done but in TBC. Text placement hatching which is not exact either but no different in what it’s meant to accomplish. So far other than a few linetypes and the thickness thing as they do theres in cad through a color I believe. And the leader arrow in TBC is open vs solid not a nickel’s difference. In final product. What has surprised us is the things everyone sais can’t be done easily in TBC like rotating text making text oblique or stacking a long line of text to be on top of its self. Well TBC can do that with grils and the ctrl and or shift key very quickly. No rotate command etc. oh in cad if i am typing text and want +/-  but the plus directly over the minus its like %%. I have not figured a way to do that in TBC but it drives one of the surveyors nuts he likes that look. But those are little things that should not brake the bank. Learning the whole extra functionality of text at those ctrl and shift keys with the different grips is a time saver. And yes setting up a template in TBC with layers plan sets pre loaded smart text for drawing title block info to add and it pull from when starting a new project is nice. Of course all my other settings like datum units etc are little time savers as well. Maybe one day i will have time to learn civil 3d but so far its all i can do to manage projects and comps and make sure we meet scope and contract requirements. Add protect the bosses seal as he is busier than a one legged man in a tater sack race. I told him i was gto have to find a entry level ad position to work for someone else in order to learn cad. So that is all i have to do. . But tbc is not hard and i can make almost any final plat look ok. I still have not got that eye look the purdy part down yet well in his idea of what should go where and how. But I don’t miss much in details so just getting to that art side of my brain to work. Also practicing writing legal descriptions and trying to get tbc templates for that saved. To aid in speeding some of it up a bit. Study wattles now.

0.70mm for the boundary of the subject parcel

0.35mm for right of way lines. Sometimes 0.50mm, typically when the job is to determine a right of way.

0.25mm for adjacent lots and "scenery"

Thinner lines don't scan well, so are rarely used. 

Dashed lines for easements and vacated boundary lines. Long/short dashed line for centerlines. I've used dotted lines on occasion to non-legal lines 

Lineweight and text size proportioning is important to a good look. There is a reason that Technical pen sets and Leroy guides came in certain sizes. 

@norman-oklahoma hey thank you. I appreciate it all. I figured everything i can learn about the little details will help me get a good eye for this. I have a leroy letter set and manual drafting sets. Just been so long and now in the digital world trying to get these things looking good and purdy. I like your font on the notes.  It doesn’t take away from the other information and easily read. Someone should make a seminar just on this stuff lol.

Someone should make a seminar just on this stuff

I believe that our friend Jon Payne has been doing just that. 

My previous partner was an artist and his knowledge and approach taught me a lot. Placement, white space, alignment, scale and size of text, line weight and types. Wow it is a lot.

@norman-oklahoma oh wow. I need to get with him for sure. Maybe an online crash course. I need as much beat into my brain for all this as possible.

@gary_g  see thats the knowledge i know i need but trying to get that is tough. I was in meetings about 3 different projects and still had 3 other projects to keep going today. A building got moved almost 2.5 ft in cad and i was going over it and said that bldg is not aligned to the easement . I checked my side and it sure enough got moved. The face of a bldg was the easement line and only monument we had so i had to hold it. Cad grip rotate accident I reckon. I have actually moved some comp points in TBC on purpose and a big red flag comes up and (MOVED) added to the point number automatically.  So once I confirm everything i then correct it and all is good. I have not had enough time in cad to know what to watch for so i am learning.

This may be a little off topic but I use lisp routines and keyboard aliases extensively in C3D.  Drafting almost exclusively ByLayer with a standardized color table, I have a couple routines that help manage layer linetypes and color very quickly - LCO and LLT; "LayerCOlor" and "LayerLineType".  Happy to share if desired.  Also SCC; "SetColorColor (?)" which sets your current layer and color to the entity selected.

@dave-o Well I am so ignorant that I have only barely herd of LISP Routines. I hardly get any seat time in Civil3d. We mostly use that as a company but I have not had the training yet, I spend most of my time on graphing paper and a hp calculator and Trimble Business Center processing and doing adjustments. On my own I have taught myself how to get drafting done in TBC as I am more familiar and show it to my boss when he has time. I will look at a finished project from a cad deliverable then do it all in TBC. So far he asked some things how I do them and watches me and is like you can do that in TBC. I have some plats now that I will be putting out end of the month all in TBC and a few things I am trying to get the LOOK right line thicknesses and a few leaders options. So far TBC on leaders from Text is an open arrow no solid like cad has.  Then the whole +- with + directly on top of the minus. in cad they say its a command %%  so mine in either + or - or +/-  a few little things like that. When I am reviewing a cad file from a drafter for accuracy I often emulate in TBC as I can see what he did but not the commands when on video chat. I can usually keep up and I have all the raw data in TBC so I can see if he did some move by accident. I do want to be a good drafter but most of my time is in the technical and planning roll. As my boss likes to say You protect my seal. Don't let nothing out the door that's wrong. I will maybe if I get civil 3d time get those lisp routines from you but I would not even know how to use them at all. Thank you a bunch though. I am an old man in a young mans game trying to relearn and learn as fast as possible.

@olemanriver good on you, OMR.  I wish we could just trade parts of our brains so I could even start to get up to any speed with TBC.  Right now watching videos, playing with the chopped trial version a bit, hoping to gain even enough understanding at some point to put in the 30 day trial our VAR gave me a couple months ago and use it on a project...

Then find a way to give em $3500 😐

In Autodesk speak, %%c is a diameter symbol Ø, %%d is a degree symbol °, %%p is ± and I sometimes use <alt>188 = 1/4, <alt>189 = 1/2 and <alt>190 = 3/4

@dave-o Well I am with you on the what you call chopped up videos. I call big picture training but its the little details that make you proficient. Some I have found by accident some by asking people in the big yellow castle I knew years ago. For Drafting and surfaces and contours dont look for a surveyor in that software. The Surveyors all draft in civil 3d or carlson etc.  PM me and I will give you someone I have used and he knows the shortcomings on the drafting and functionality side computations etc. He is not a Least Square guy or Surveyor but I have leaned little hidden tricks like wrapping text from grips and some other scaling of text. The cad side and if you do any site modeling and such know one better he is great. has several plug in tools if you want to buy some i would love to have. His training cost are not bad we have piece milled it as TBC is only supported for qa qc not drafting or surfaces in our company. But when a product needs finished and thats what I had I made it work. I am getting more proficient everyday and the more I use it the more I like it. All data traceability in all processes in production at my finger tips. I am sure Civil3D is awesome in what it does but I am a truck guy. I can go to church to the fancy restaurant and then to the farm it doesn't matter. Now my wife Honda car rides better and does that better gets better gas mileage But she cant check cows on a muddy day or sling a calf into the bed etc. I kind of look at TBC that way. It has its short comings but I am catching up to cad techs slowly in the drafting cad side of production. Comps is so easy and I never have to worry about accidentally moving a point by grips and not knowing it tells me when I do. Not perfect but Its all I know and that's not much LOL. I have taken 10 to 15 key strokes from cad folks yes I am one of those guys that counts and has scratch paper and times myself. And spent a couple hours figuring out different ways on my own time doing it in TBC down to a few strokes. I am a believer in fixing the little things and taking off a minute or 2 here and there vs looking at the big picture and trying to knock out the 30 minutes in one fail swoop. The little things right or wrong always add up I just want the positives to add to the P statement in P&L and quality. Also I am no expert but I am always available to show what little I know and such anytime.