There is no doubt that the increased complexity of Civil 3D Point Display Resolution has been a good news and bad news problem since the initial release. In a tongue and cheek fashion I like to tell people that Autodesk lied to us from the get go. They named things in the Civil 3D Ribbons to make us believe the objects we are dealing with are something like the old school CAD objects from days gone by.
We discover they are not. Case in point…
A Point is Not a Point
There are four basic parts to Civil 3D Point display resolution. If you want to manage the Point Label Styles by Description Key Set assignment, you will often get more complication not less. That is not what we might expect based on what we did in the CAD past.
Here are the four essential Point display resolution parts with the reminder that within each part there are nuances:
- Point Data
The Codes in Descriptions drive our customization - Description Key Set Stack
The order and the Key assignment of Point Style and Format drive the published results - Point Style
The referenced block and other Point Style mechanics produce the graphics - Point Group managed Point Label Style
How we collect the resolved data by Codes is driven by the purpose of the published result
My goal here is not to rehash all of Point Display Resolution. If you are interested follow the links…
Four Part Series on Point Display Strategies
Everything you want to know about Civil 3D Point mechanics, but you were afraid to ask.
- Description Key Size and Number in Civil 3D
- The Data Points of Civil 3D In and Out
- Civil 3D Point Display Override Strategy
- Civil 3D Point Display Priority Strategy
The good news is that points became much more flexible, adaptive, and useful in Civil 3D.
The bad news is that editing the all parts in some coherent fashion can become very problematic.
The Civil 3D interface makes getting to each of the Point display resolution parts easy enough. Perhaps the Style edits are debatably too easy. We can way too easily end up chasing our tails.
How To Manage and Perform Civil 3D Point Edits
Now that you’ve been liberated, you are now responsible to be an accountable citizen. You have both personal and corporate accountabilities. I talked about these in the recent Civil 3D Change Management Matters post.
Plan Do Check Assess
If you are silly enough to attack Point Edits without a list, a plan, and a process you will get what you deserve…more unmanaged chaos – something the Civil 3D diva is famous for.
The latest release of the Framework for Civil 3D 2019 hit the streets.
For a limited time we also made the Framework for Civil 3D 2018 to 2019 upgrade even more affordable.
Doesn’t less chaos sound better?
Innovation Beyond the Code
Get the Framework of Civil 3D