Phi, Fi, Foe, Fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make me bread. Like a lot of well-remembered fairy tales, this fantasy giant chant from Jack in the Beanstalk – aka Jack the Giant Killer - tis a bit creepy. Say whot? Ok. If I quoted Shakespeare’s take in King Lear, you’d be equally lost.
What does the growth of magic beans, ancient Gaelic war chants, and phi have to do with Autodesk Civil 3D?
Turns out that as a Civil 3D User, you too have been a crudely oppressed folk. In modern speak - Blame the Lousy Machines. Eheh.
Get the Liberty to Work in a Better Civil 3D Today
We released the Point Offset Label Style AddOns for Civil 3D 2021 and Civil 3D 2020.
The upcoming Release 8 of the Framework for Civil 3D 2022 includes these magical beauties too. Arrrgh.
Point Offset Label Style Expression Set AddOn Choice
What if someone managed to help us produce more consistent, robust, adaptive, and standardized Offset Label Styles in Civil 3D?
That might make the annotation of Plan and Profile sheets a whole lot faster and improve readability at the same time.
No way. Oh. Yes way.
The Label Style and Expression Set approach is to select from multiple Label Style Library choices exactly what a project demands and still allow for the diverse preference demands of production work, QAQC display requirements, and multiple publishing display representations. Each such selection may differ.
Point Offset Label Style AddOn Resources:
- None of the new resources overwrite or replace any previously supplied resources
- Parent and Child Label Style resources for Existing Point labels
- Parent and Child Label Style resources for Proposed Point labels
- Parent and Child Label Style resources for Current Layer Point labels
- Parent and Child Label Style resources for NoPlot Layer Point labels
- Parent and Child Label Style resources for in-line, split-line, and stacked Label Style formats
- Child Label Styles collections for each supplied Parent Label Style employ
the 8 standard forms of rotational representations
in 45-degree increments (0,45,90,135,180,225,270, 315) - Support for 8 levels of scaled Offset display
- Supplied Parent and Child Label Styles honor Civil 3D Feature and Label Style Type Label Style Defaults, Civil 3D hierarchy rules, and Parent Child component inheritance
- Separate stand-alone +ALWAYS IMPORT OFFSET Expression Set Style resource drawing to easily allow the construction of customized Label Style resource drawings
- Separate Point Offset Expression Set documentation in ASCII text files
- Separate example Point drawings are supplied for testing of Style resources drawings
Framework Expression Set Label Style collections assume most customization will include the standard practice of deleting unwanted Parent and/or Child Styles in production and publishing templates.
Point Offset Label Style Type Codes
Register and see the on-line Documentation and Help >> Labels in Civil 3D section for Label Style Expression Set naming conventions for details.
Point Offset Label Style Conventions
Label Style collection resource drawing names and Label Style names include Condition type (Current, Existing, Proposed, NoPlot), Offset Type and Level name. Many common Point Label Style variants of the above are supplied.
All supplied Label Style collection resource drawings are supplied in the typical Framework Style collection STB format. Label Style resources may be employed in CTB templates and drawings without issues.
The Label Style name convention for NOPLOT versions is intentionally different
(These include a (Qa) and NP separator to make user Label Style identification easier)
Label Style collection supports Point Number, Elevation, and both Raw and Full Description codes in various offset Point Label formats. The Raw and Full Description codes may be based on any customer, client, or project requirements.
The Label Style Layer routing conforms to common Current (CL), Existing (Ex), Proposed (Pr), and NoPlot (Qa) NCS 6.0 Layer Standard Label defaults (e.g. NODE-LABL). These Layer routing defaults also support the AIA large-building layer scheme.
Layer routing for Label Styles can be easily modified and customized to other Layer Standards by the AutoCAD Rename command or by an applied Rename Script.
See the Framework Layer Standards Spreadsheet Tools and help found in the Members section on the website.
Label Styles may be supplied that include visible Markers (-M). These may be employed to reduce the number of Styles assigned to Point Label by setting the Marker Style to <none>.
All Parent Styles may be easily modified to turn OFF Line display in Child Styles. By default, a visible Line is drawn from the insertion point to one end of the Offset Point Label. Stacked Text is employed for Dragged States.
All the supplied Rotated Child Styles employ modified component structure arrangements to produce consistent readability results for those Child Styles that employ one Label Style Text component.
Marker components are employed to location the Label resolution appropriately.
If you copy and edit the Parent Styles, be careful to check and update the structures of the rotated Child Styles for the appropriate behavior and readability.
Offset Expressions
A set of 8 Expressions control the Offset distance from the Point location to the Text component in the supplied Label Style collections.
Adjustments are automatically made for the current Annotative Scale by the Offset Expressions.
The 8 supplied distance adjustment values are based the Golden Ratio (phi) and are therefore a selected list of appropriate Fibonacci numbers.
If you find the values and scaling to be inappropriate, the supplied distance adjustment values can be customized by editing the supplied Offset Expressions,
A choice to employ even or odd numbered Label Styles with Offset Expressions produces two separate three level standards of offset from the entire range.
Construct a Label Style Expression Set Resource
See the on-line Documentation and Help >> Labels in Civil 3D section for Label Style Expression Set updated drawing resource construction methods and details.
Based on the project demands and requirements select the appropriate levels of offset required. The choice may vary by Label Style Type.
Fixed offset levels of Expression Set are simple to implement and require no specific Civil 3D User interactions with the Expression Settings in daily production use.
Label Styles Can Be the Magic Beans That Grow
Now I hope you get it about the magic beans and phi. Let’s face it, the magic of the Golden Ratio and the arrangement powers of Fibonacci numbers are impressive and can be quite unexpected. I did change the original Fee-FI-Foe-Fum chant to include phi. Eheh. Math humor.
The first millennium Gaelic reference in Fee-FI-Foe-Fum is arguably arcane. Blame that on my name. But that reference does make the point that some historical human problems go round and round with sadly predictable results.
A fairy tale is always an offset fable from reality to help us easily recall not to repeat the gasps in the past.
The Liberty to Make Civil 3D Work
Get the Framework for Civil 3D Release 8