Lisps for civil 3d from carlson

#1 · August 2, 2024, 5:43 am

In the past I’ve been able to help folks with some other old pacsoft items and I hope it is reciprocated. I’m at a new company and they use civil 3d. I ran Carlson survey for years and I’m woefully behind where I’d like to be. Does anyone have some useful lisp routines they wouldn’t mind sharing? Some bread and butter ones I’d like are calcoff (calculates offsets at selected point numbers between two user defined point numbers), plreport (gives bearings, distances, acreage and shows miscloure in a separate window) et cetera. Anything that you find super handy that I don’t know about would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance

#2 · August 6, 2024, 9:41 am

Quote from blitzkriegbob on August 6, 2024, 9:41 am
I'm a C3D guy. I won't be able to help you with any lisp routines, mostly because I don't find myself doing either of these things as part of my work activities. I can however, make a suggestion or two regarding the first request.

I will start with a short answer. Is getting offsets like this something you would do often, using the same two points as a baseline? If so, just make an alignment out of the two points and you can get all of the offsets you want at any time.

If this is just something you might need on occasion, not necessarily using the same two points, I can suggest a workaround. In the Home ribbon, there is a Draw section in the middle of the ribbon. In the second row, on the left, there is a flyout for best fit entities. Select Best Fit Line from the flyout. The next box will give you options. For what you would like to do, the default selection of From Cogo Points would work. You will go back to your autocad screen, and select your two baseline points, along with any points you would like to have offsets. When you are done, you will get a toolspace that shows your points, along with a linear regression solution. Exclude all of the points except for your two baseline points by checking the exclude box for each. All of the other points will now show their offset to this baseline. When you are done with your "inquiry", just close the toolspace without saving the solution.

Be wary of your left and right sides. I think when I tried this out, I picked my left baseline point first, and the right baseline point last, and most of my offset points were on the right side, yet those show as negative (left) values. Maybe I didn't pick them in the left-right order. Assuming I manage to upload screenshots, I picked the two points adjacent to the ends of the orange line as my baseline, and the offsets are for all the trees on the south side, and I also picked a couple of points on the north side.

If I can figure out how to upload some screenshots that I took, I will do that. Haven't uploaded anything since the site switched to this current format and I'm not seeing a button to do that. I was able to figure it out. Seems like we can't upload image files, so had to convert to PDF files.

I'm a C3D guy. I won't be able to help you with any lisp routines, mostly because I don't find myself doing either of these things as part of my work activities. I can however, make a suggestion or two regarding the first request.

I will start with a short answer. Is getting offsets like this something you would do often, using the same two points as a baseline? If so, just make an alignment out of the two points and you can get all of the offsets you want at any time.

If this is just something you might need on occasion, not necessarily using the same two points, I can suggest a workaround. In the Home ribbon, there is a Draw section in the middle of the ribbon. In the second row, on the left, there is a flyout for best fit entities. Select Best Fit Line from the flyout. The next box will give you options. For what you would like to do, the default selection of From Cogo Points would work. You will go back to your autocad screen, and select your two baseline points, along with any points you would like to have offsets. When you are done, you will get a toolspace that shows your points, along with a linear regression solution. Exclude all of the points except for your two baseline points by checking the exclude box for each. All of the other points will now show their offset to this baseline. When you are done with your "inquiry", just close the toolspace without saving the solution.

Be wary of your left and right sides. I think when I tried this out, I picked my left baseline point first, and the right baseline point last, and most of my offset points were on the right side, yet those show as negative (left) values. Maybe I didn't pick them in the left-right order. Assuming I manage to upload screenshots, I picked the two points adjacent to the ends of the orange line as my baseline, and the offsets are for all the trees on the south side, and I also picked a couple of points on the north side.

If I can figure out how to upload some screenshots that I took, I will do that. Haven't uploaded anything since the site switched to this current format and I'm not seeing a button to do that. I was able to figure it out. Seems like we can't upload image files, so had to convert to PDF files.

#3 · August 7, 2024, 9:52 am

I use the best fit line routine - err .... routinely. But I had never thought of using it that way. Very clever.

#4 · August 7, 2024, 3:24 pm

Thanks. I had never done that previously (I also use it routinely) and will probably never do it again, but after initially thinking I had nothing to offer, I had a " What if I..." moment.

#5 · August 15, 2024, 5:05 am

Guys, that’s a slick routine that adds and deletes points pretty easy and you can swap up pretty easy. Not what I had in mind but that won’t take long to learn at all! Thanks very much!

#6 · August 15, 2024, 7:40 am

So this is way slicker than I thought. The orientation is neat. It runs left to right. You put the numbers in you want and the first is the furthest left point and the last is the furthest right. Exclude all in the middle and the offsets are right there. The sign is reversed from what you’d expect but I can work around that. The reload command quickly clears it and allows for new entry.

It’s not quite calc off but it’s damn close and may even be better once I get it down. Thanks guys. This was huge putting lines back down and wanting to know how the fence is as you’re calculating. Truly, thanks.