One of the great things about AutoCAD Civil 3D is that there are lots of ways to get things done. One of the worst things about Civil 3D is that there are lots of ways to get things done. The power of the Civil 3D Data Behind, the Clout of Style, and this dichotomy is often exemplified by how (well) we employ annotative Label Style.
Substance and Style
Both the data behind substance and the nuance of Civil 3D Style property definitions can be and are important. We need to learn leverage these. However, we must admit that sometimes any of us can also suffer from ED. No, not that. Here I mean - Expert’s Disease. We know too much and miss the forest for the trees. It helps to keep in mind that in model-based software there is always a process - a workflow going on.
Substance, Style, and Workflow Matter More
We can overthink and/or over-engineer our solution. The solution to our problem may be processed-based. The data is fine, our Style is mostly Ok, but how we go about getting to the result we want needs minor adjustments. Not too long ago I did a post on Child Label Styles, Label Style Floaties, and some ways you might employ these slightly different and nuanced devices inside Civil 3D in your project publish process. I won’t repeat all of that. God forbid.
By the term Floaties I specifically mean Label Styles constructed to float to Feature layers by the Layer property definition of the Label Style set to our old AutoCAD friend Layer 0. The post understandably drew some requests for video training help.
The example below uses Floaty variations of Point Label Styles to produce more Layer granularity (separation of labels to different layers) without a major process redo. Basically, we change the Layer assignments of few identified Styles in a copy of a drawing to produce a radically different published result. Isn’t that– Intelligent Publish on Demand?
Methods to Sort Exported Point Labels in Civil 3D
Dave? Can our Civil 3D templates and Civil 3D styles do that?
Old friends like the AutoCAD VIEW and LAYTRANS commands can still be the fast, customizable, and yet sustainable thing to do in AutoCAD Civil 3D.
How many Point Label Styles do you need? It’s in there…