Civil 3D 2018 New Feature: Introducing Relative Feature Lines - Pt. 1

in this session we'll explore the new relative feature line option made available in civil3d 2018 now generally speaking a relative feature line is one whose elevations are dynamically linked to a surface let's take a look we'll start with an abstract example as you can see I've got a drawing open on screen I am viewing that drawing in two different views on the Left we are seeing this as a top view and on the right we are viewing the geometry using a southeast isometric view such that we can see the elevational differences let me come back to the view on the left and we'll take a quick tour I started by creating some feature lines up at elevation and then I used these feature lines to define a surface called eg just for a second I'm going to select that surface and I'll bring up the object viewer and if I orbit you can get a rough idea of what that surface looks like let's close the object viewer and I'll press escape I have also created a polyline down at elevation 0 now I would like to convert the polyline into a feature line and I would like the elevations of that feature line to be based on this existing ground surface to do that I am going to come up to the create design panel on the Home tab I will open the feature line menu and I'll choose create feature lines from objects I will then select my polyline and I'll press Enter for this example I'm not going to use a sight I'm not going to name the feature line we'll keep the default style I would like to erase the existing entities and I'd like to assign elevations let me click OK I'd like the elevations assigned from the existing ground surface I would like to insert intermediate grade break points this will sample a surface elevation every place where the feature line crosses a triangle then I would like to make this feature line relative to that surface at elevation 0 that means no matter what happens to this surface this feature line will always be as though it is spray-painted along the faces let me click OK and you can see the change let's zoom in I will then select the feature line I'll select the surface will bring up the object viewer and as I orbit this you can see how that feature line is draped across that surface let's close this I'll press escape now let's make it change to the surface I'm going to do that by clicking one of these defining feature lines I'll pull this end down maybe I'll click this one and I'll pull it I'll deselect then I'll select the surface and the feature line will bring back the object viewer and you can see how that feature line is maintaining a dynamic vertical link to the service let's close this and I'll press escape next we'll take a look at the properties of this feature line I'll do that by selecting it and then in the contextual ribbon in the Edit elevation panel will bring up the elevation editor notice that in civil 3d 2018 we have this new relative to surface menu if I open this I can select the surface that I'd like my feature line to be relative to I could also release that relative link by choosing none if we move over to the left we can see the actual elevation of all of those PV is along the feature line moving further to the left is a new relative column showing me how those elevations correspond to the surface currently these are all set to zero if I wanted I could click at each of these PV is and change that relative elevation one vertex at a time in this case I'd like to change the feature line globally I'm going to come up and click the set increment button to expose my increment value here I will then click the up arrow and we'll bump this up to maybe 10 feet at this point my feature line is relative to the surface with a 10-foot offset let me click the X to close the panorama I will then select the surface we'll go back to the object viewer and as I orbit you can see the difference now even though it has a 10-foot offset it is still dynamically linked to that surface let me make a quick change here I will select the two objects I'll click the object viewer and you can see how that ten-foot vertical offset is maintained once again let's close this up I'll press escape and we'll go back to the properties I'll select the feature line and we'll bring back the elevation editor now let's say I'd like to restore the elevations of this feature lines such that they match the surface exactly a quick way I can do that is by clicking this button at the top elevations from surface I would like to set the elevations to the existing round surface will insert intermediate grade breakpoints and I'd like those to be relative at elevation 0 let's click OK I'll close the panorama and you can see the change one more time we'll go back into the properties note that we have a granular setting over here on the right I can set each of the PV eyes to be relative to the surface or if I open the menu I could set them to an absolute elevation now I could do these one at a time or I can do them in bulk let me drag this back to the top I'll select the first station and I'll come down to maybe station one plus zero nine I'll hold my shift key to select all of those PBIS and I'm going to set those to have an absolute elevation so everything at the beginning of this feature line is going to be static but once we get to station one plus fourteen it will be relative to the surface from that point on let's close the panorama I will make a quick change to the surface I'll grab this feature line in the middle maybe we'll pull this one down and then we'll take this feature line on the end I'll pull this down as well I'll press escape we'll select the surface and the feature line and I will orbit this and you can see that the beginning of the feature line is maintaining that static absolute elevation but as soon as it gets to station one plus 14 it is now dynamic to the surface from that point on when I'm finished reviewing the feature line I'll click the X to close the object viewer and then I'll press escape to deselect now that we understand how the relative feature line option works we're ready to try it out using a practical example and we'll do that in the next session would you like to explore other Autodesk infrastructure ideas and workflows if so please visit the civil immersion blog by scanning the QR code or by following the URL listed below

Channel: Jeff Bartels

Views: 30,220

Keywords: Bartels, akn_include, Autodesk, Civil 3D, 2018, new, feature, line, relative, tutorial, how

Id: mPL86TJs9xU

Length: 5min 56sec (356 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 15 2017