Carlson F2F - Utility Pole + Anchor

The only way I could think of how to do that would require 4 shots.
Maybe make a new line thing like "GW" for guywire.

shot 1: GW +7 (start line - at the pole)
shot 2: UP (the pole)
shot 3: GA (the anchor)
shot 4: GW -7 (end line - at the anchor)

Since Carlson doesn't care about inter-mixing stuff while a line is going on, it would work.
E.

My main issue is making sure the anchor cable is going to the correct pole. When you run into a spot with multiple poles and anchors it can get messy. I don't mind rotating the guy symbol to a drawn line. (There is a way to enter a rotation angle, but I haven't done that yet.)

To draw the poles, anchors and guy lines, you can do this:

Point No. North East Elev. Desc.

100 OHE PP
101 GUY JPN 100
102 OHE PP

And so on. This will draw the overhead line, the power pole symbol, the guy anchor symbol and the guy cable to the correct power pole. At some point between the Power Pole shots take a shot for your overhead utility types directly under the line , "5E-4C". This will keep track of your wire counts and allow you to place a label on the overhead line.

For the power pole, which obviously has to be on an offset: PP MN3

For the anchor, which has to be rotated: GUY SW (meaning the guy is hanging to the Southwest from the pole)

If the whole site is tilted (not oriented in a cardinal direction), take two shots aligned with the features and call both North. All of the move or rotation points will be moved or rotated based upon that alignment being a pretend north. When done, Unnorth.

> My main issue is making sure the anchor cable is going to the correct pole. When you run into a spot with multiple poles and anchors it can get messy. I don't mind rotating the guy symbol to a drawn line. (There is a way to enter a rotation angle, but I haven't done that yet.)
>
> To draw the poles, anchors and guy lines, you can do this:
>
>
>
> Point No. North East Elev. Desc.
>
> 100 OHE PP
> 101 GUY JPN 100
> 102 OHE PP
>
>
> And so on. This will draw the overhead line, the power pole symbol, the guy anchor symbol and the guy cable to the correct power pole. At some point between the Power Pole shots take a shot for your overhead utility types directly under the line , "5E-4C". This will keep track of your wire counts and allow you to place a label on the overhead line.

I've been wondering this same question. According to the Carlson Manual, the "JPN" code does not have a space between it and the shot number you want to join the current shot to. For instance, "JPN100" instead of "JPN 100".

I've never used this code, so is the manual correct, no space?

No space between JPN and the point number is correct.

> No space between JPN and the point number is correct.

Ditto. Good clarification.

I use a custom dynamic block with a "polar stretch" action. You simply grip edit the end of the guy and drag it to the pole, and the "anchor" rotates with it, without rotating the label.

Peter

Great responses, thank you very much for your time. I'm thinking how I want to do it is either wrong, or there isn't a way to do it, yet.

Although about a third the way up from the bottom, Carlson almost seems to be poorly describing something like what I was looking for. Try as I might, cant seem to get that to work, I can easily get the coords within the block for the symbol, but having them correlate with a point description escapes me.

Symbol Points: Two Point Symbol Drawing

http://files.carlsonsw.com/mirror/manuals/Carlson_2014/source/Survey/Survey/Field_to_Finish/Field_to_Finish.htm

> I use a custom dynamic block with a "polar stretch" action. You simply grip edit the end of the guy and drag it to the pole, and the "anchor" rotates with it, without rotating the label.
>
> Peter

Intriguing. I have "Googled" this a little.

Do you feel like offering a step by step to me on how to convert my basic Guy Wire (GW) block to one of your fancy "custom dynamic block with a "polar stretch" action"?

Sure, it's a bit of a process but here goes. I like to replace the basic Carlson SPT... blocks with my custom blocks while retaining their attributes, but that isn't necessary.

I use AutoCAD Map 2008 but I think the process is basically the same . . so first:

type: _bedit and select the block you want to modify.

Then once you're in the block editor:

From the "Parameter Sets" tab select: "Polar Stretch" then use the base point, same as the block insertion point and the end point at the end of the guy furthest from the "anchor" (that creates a "distance" parameter).

Then from the "Actions" tab select "Polar Stretch Action" and select the distance parameter you created.

Use the "Second Point" to associate with the action.

Then define the element(s) you want stretched. Presumably a window only including the pole end of the guy wire.

for the "objects to stretch" duplicate that window selection.

Then select objects to rotate. Presumably this will be the guy wire and "anchor" used in the block.

place the action location somewhere near the second (or pole end) of the wire.

Then close the block editor and save your changes.

Back in the drawing when you highlight the block you'll see a dot near the polar stretch point. Grip edit it over to the pole and it should stretch the wire and rotate the anchor.

If you're using attributes with this block, just exclude the attributes from both the stretch and rotate functions if you don't want them rotated or stretched. If you want the attributes to rotate and stretch be sure the attributes have the "lock position" property set when you include them in your action and rotation selections.

Blocks that I use these dynamic functions on are spot elevations with a leader from the dot and I can stretch and rotate the attribute label with a grip edit in busy areas. Similarly a culvert block inserted using the pipe diameter as the scale factor allows me to grip edit the other end of the culvert to achieve the correct orientation width and length. Other useful dynamic functions are trees where you can adjust the trunk and canopy size, bar scales with visibility functions. Be aware any dynamic block that does change will become an anonymous block, that does have its limitations, though there is a "unanon.lsp" function that will make them regular blocks again.

Or you could send it to me at peter dot hughesdavies at gmail dot com and I'll fix it up for you.

Good Luck,
Peter

Oh my lord, amazing. I love this place. I will give it a go when I get back to the office. If I fail, I will email ya.

Thank you !

> > I use a custom dynamic block with a "polar stretch" action. You simply grip edit the end of the guy and drag it to the pole, and the "anchor" rotates with it, without rotating the label.
> >
> > Peter
>
> Intriguing. I have "Googled" this a little.
>
> Do you feel like offering a step by step to me on how to convert my basic Guy Wire (GW) block to one of your fancy "custom dynamic block with a "polar stretch" action"?
>
>
>

Ditto!!!!

Here goes. Assuming pt#1 is a utility pole and pt#2 is a guy anchor use the following description: GUY ROT1

This tells F2F to rotate the symbol for pt#2 toward pt#1. You have to be sure to use an anchor symbol like spt179 where the anchor is on the right and the wire extends to the left otherwise the rotations are incorrect.

Edit: After I re-read your post I realized you were trying to do this a different way. Based on what I read in the 2-point and 3-point sections I don't think you'd get the results you want because the anchor portion of the symbol would be scaled up or down depending on the distance between the pole and anchor. However as they show in their examples it would be great for drip lines and other symbols that need to scale to real sizes.

With my method above, if you wanted it to be fully automatic you could use a symbol that only contained the anchor base and set GUY up as a line code then code it like this:

#1 PP Guy1
#2 GUY1 ROT1

Carlson will draw a pole symbol on pt#1 then connect pt#1 and pt#2 with a line and draw rotated anchor symbol on pt#2.

What about a pole with two anchors?

NO SPACE between the JPN and point number. I had this typed strung out to fit under the headers I put in, but when I entered the post it did it's own thing with the spacing.
The ONLY time you need a space in the code is when you have 2 sets of alpha characters in the code.

#1 PP GUY1 GUY2
#2 GUY1 ROT1
#3 GUY2 ROT1

EDIT: The above is if you're using the second method I outlined in my post above where the symbol is only the anchor and you're using the coding to draw the line from the pole to the anchor. If you're using the method where you just want the symbol inserted and rotated into the pole, then extend the line yourself then use this:

#1 PP
#2 GUY ROT1
#3 GUY ROT1
#4 PP
#5 GUY ROT4
#6 GUY ROT4
#7 GUY ROT4

ETC.

Stephen, you got me on the right track!

It is a combination of the two methods, ROT code and Two Point Symbol Drawing.

#1 PP
#2 GUY ROT1
#3 GUY ROT1

Using the Carlson symbol CG91 and setting the Symbol Points as follows:
"Point 1 X=-1.080 Y=0 Z=0"
"Point 2 X=0 Y=0 Z=0"

Now my new problem, if one guy is further away than another, ie. PNT 2 is 10ft off the PP and PNT 3 is 15ft off, the guy for PNT 3 is scaled larger... so close! If there was a way to setup a percentage scale in the y axis for the symbol, it would look better (skinnier), ie. if the guy is 9ft off the PP, the X scale of the symbol is 9.00 and the Y scale could be 3.00 or something similar.

My CAD guru buddy had an idea that was more or less mentioned before and works as well. I created a symbol for just the anchor/hook and used ROT to rotate it to the pole and just had the points draw a line between the pole to anchor for the guy. This takes quite a few point descriptions and don't really care for it, but draws the guy and anchor perfectly...

#1 PP GUY1 GUY2
#2 GUY1 ROT1
#3 GUY2 ROT1

The above coding would work with a symbol that was only the anchor with the line between the pole and the anchor base being drawn automatically. If you do a bunch of these or similar situations you could choose single letter codes and change the Rot code to just an "R" to shorten things up.