Below, you will find a list and links for all the posts I wrote on the Civil Solutions Blog. I won’t repost them here, as Google tends to fault you in the search results if it finds duplicate content, and I just think it would be better ethically to send you where the posts were originally published. So with no further ado, here they are:

• Label Curb Elevations the Easy Way In Civil 3D – 2/16/2011
• Upload, View, and Share DXF Files in Google Docs – 2/23/2011
• Get Rid of Those Pesky Contour Label Lines – 3/2/2011
• Getting Started with Civil 3D Reports – 3/9/2011
• View Civil 3D Drawings in Other Applications – 3/15/2011
• Customize Your Civil 3D Reports – 3/18/2011
• Protecting Your Civil 3D Styles – 3/21/2011
• Discover Topobase Tools Within Map 3D 2012 - 3/22/2011
• Life is Suite! Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suites are Here – 3/22/2011
• The Civil 3D 2012 Version Comparison Matrix – 3/22/2011
• The Map 3D 2012 Version Comparison Matrix – 3/22/2011
• Pipe Network Staking in Civil 3D – 6/19/2011
• Pipe Network Staking in Civil 3D – Part 2 – 6/16/2011
• Change Parcel Area Units – 6/23/2011
• Civil 3D Subassembly Composer All Grown Up – 7/7/2011
• AutoCAD and Civil 3D Updates and Hotfixes – 7/14/2011

The 3 methods for generating your survey staking file covered in this post will include copy/paste plus cleanup from the Panorama, using the Pipe Network Alignment for generating a point file for just the horizontal data, or taking the extra step to include pipe/structure invert vertical data utilizing Feature Lines. All these will be covered in addition to several differing options available along the way. That makes this quite the novel of a blog post, but the process can be quite simple if you just pick out the method and options you prefer.

First things first, go ahead and draw your pipe network in the project if you haven’t already.

With the pipe network created, use the Civil 3D alignment tools to “Create Alignment from Network Parts.”

Select the first and last structures in your pipe network (or any and all structures that bound the network) and hit to create the alignment. Define the alignment however you wish with whatever styles and naming options apply for your standards.

When you are done, select “OK” and it will bring you directly into the “Create Profile…” dialog. From here, sample the proper alignment and surface to create the profile for the pipe network. Select “Draw in profile view” and choose the options within the profile view creation dialog that apply to your standards (creating the profile and profile view are unnecessary for the purpose of creating a survey staking file, but is included as an assumed step most will take during design).

With all the items sampled and style options chosen, place the profile view in your drawing. Even without the profile, we can already use the alignment created to generate Civil 3D COGO points based off of the alignment geometry or vertexes for the structure locations and rim elevations.

As an alternative, it is possible to use the structure and pipe information within Civil 3D to create an NEZ point file without having to generate COGO points. The following steps will explore this opportunity, but it will be up to you to determine if it is a worthwhile or preferred process.

From the pipe network layout tools, select the “Pipe Network Vistas” button to open up the Civil 3D Panorama.

From the structures tab of the panorama (and subsequently the pipes tab for invert information), highlight all rows of information, right-click, and select “Copy to clipboard” from the short cut menu.

Open up Microsoft Excel and paste the copied information into the spreadsheet. From here you can remove any columns and rows that don’t contain coordinate or elevation information.

With the spreadsheet “cleaned up” you can save it out to a .csv file for uploading to a data collector. (Alternatively, you can save it to any number of available formats, so long as it is a compatible file type.)

When the file is saved, you can open it in Notepad to review the results and check the accuracy. It should look like a standard NEZ point file as does the example below.

Regardless of using alignment geometry to generate COGO points in Civil 3D for export or copying and pasting structure information from the panorama, you should get the desired results for coordinate information for staking. If you don’t copy the invert coordinate and elevation information from the panorama, however, we still have to explore how to do so within Civil 3D using intelligent objects and automated point creation.

First, create a feature line along your pipe network. You can create it from an alignment (as I’ll show) or use the “Create Feature Line” option to draw the geometry. Using the alignment automates the process a bit upfront, but requires some cleanup on the backend. Drawing the feature line geometry is a more manual process, but eliminates the need to remove extraneous vertices (otherwise known as PI’s for feature lines).

For creating the feature line from an alignment, define the feature line styles and settings.

Make sure to set any weeding factors (if any at all) and select “OK”.

With the feature line created (whether from the alignment or manually drawn geometry) select the pipe network profile view and choose the “Project Objects To Profile View” option from the contextual ribbon.

Pick the feature line from the drawing space.

Confirm the projection style for the objects. This is mostly irrelevant as we are just using the feature line as a guide, not for displaying on construction documents.

If you produced the feature line from the alignment with a dynamic link, make sure to go into the feature line properties dialog and uncheck the box for “Dynamic Link”. This will allow you to adjust the elevation of the feature line separately from the alignment.

If you generated the feature line from the alignment and applied any weeding factors, you may still have some cleanup on the feature line. This isn’t entirely necessary, but will reduce the amount of manual editing you’ll have to perform to remove the COGO points that would otherwise be created between structures. In that, select the feature line and select the “Delete PI” icon from the contextual ribbon and follow the prompts at the command line and remove the intermediate vertices between structures.

From the example below, you can see what the feature line looks like once it has been modified.

With the feature line vertices limited to just the structures, pan down to the pipe network profile view and select the feature line (which should line up with the existing grade elevations of each structure).

Begin grip editing the feature line within the profile view to match the invert elevations of the pipes. If there is a drop in the influent and effluent inverts and you want that to be represented within your pipe staking points, you will have to add PI’s to your feature line to accommodate enough vertices within each structure to account for the pipe inverts.

Once the feature line elevations have been adjusted in the profile view, go to the “Create Points” toolbar or the points dropdown within the “Home” ribbon tab and select the “Automatic” point creation method within the “Miscellaneous” category.

You will then be prompted to select the geometry you want to generate the COGO points along, which in this case will be the feature line we have adjusted both horizontally and vertically.

After the feature line has been selected, you will be asked to give the COGO points a description. Type the raw description within the command line and hit several times until that description has been applied to all the COGO points generated along the feature line vertexes.

With the points created, make sure they have been added to a point group or create a point group to include these pipe network points. These could be combined into the same point group as COGO points generated from the alignment geometry to represent the structure locations and rim elevations.

Reviewing the pipe invert points in the drawing, you can see from the image below that the elevation of the structure invert is several feet below the existing ground elevation directly next to the structure. This is a quick visual check to ensure that the point was generated properly.

After all structure rim and invert points have been created, select the point group from the Prospector tab of the Toolspace, right-click, and choose “Export Points” from the shortcut menu. You will now have a pipe network staking file for uploading to your data collector.

There is a lot of great content in the issue and it was created and submitted, at least in part, by other drafters and designers like yourself.  If you feel you have something to offer for the next issue, don’t hesitate to contact AUGI and create your own article to be considered for inclusion.  You may not get paid anything for writing content for them, but you get a lot of industry visibility, gain experience in writing for a widespread publication, and receive some recognition and consideration that could help attain other endeavors such as technical writing opportunities and instructing at AU or at AUGI CAD Camps.

I hope you enjoy the read and you consider helping out AEC/EDGE with some content of your own.  It is a new resource from AUGI and I’m sure they would appreciate the help in making it a long-lasting success.

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Please join Indydrafter.com in expanding and strengthening the Autodesk product community by visiting the site and participating in the comments and discussions. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to our future endeavors!

Bryan Tanner
Owner/Contributer – Indydrafter.com