Topic: C3D: Line bearing/distance labels and cardinal bearings

[alanjt]

Is it possible to have C3D line labels display cardinal bearings (North, East, South, West) as the actual text, rather than N 00°00' 00" E, etc?

[mjfarrell]

yes
just set up your style

[alanjt]

yes
just set up your style

Is it set at the style level (can't find anything except setting precision) or is it in the feature settings general labels?

[sinc]

Don't you still have to do an elaborate hack setup as detailed below?

http://blog.civil3dreminders.com/2008/01/using-north-east-south-and-west-in.html

[alanjt]

Don't you still have to do an elaborate hack setup as detailed below?

http://blog.civil3dreminders.com/2008/01/using-north-east-south-and-west-in.html

Dear lord, that's insane. Is that really the only way to accomplish putting cardinal labels? Even after opening his example drawing, I couldn't figure out how he changed from one component to another. Plus, if you drag the label, the drag state displays ALL possible components.

[Dinosaur]

Is absolutely zero way for me to check this, but I thought there was a choice in Ambient Settings to show Cardinal Directions spelled out and by using an appropriate precision setting the label would show what you require.

[mjfarrell]

Don't you still have to do an elaborate hack setup as detailed below?

http://blog.civil3dreminders.com/2008/01/using-north-east-south-and-west-in.html

yes amazing; is it not?

[sinc]

Is absolutely zero way for me to check this, but I thought there was a choice in Ambient Settings to show Cardinal Directions spelled out and by using an appropriate precision setting the label would show what you require.

As of the 2011 release, I see no such option...

[Dinosaur]

Thanks sinc ... Like I said, there is no way for me to confirm and has been a long time since I fired up C3D with intent to bill time.  I know I managed the effect at some point and it may have just been a simple text label on the line but I thought it was more involved than that.

[mjfarrell]

To help clear up any confusion; the Ambient Settings tab of the Drawing Settings has absolutely nothing to do with Label content or Formatting.

The Ambient Settings is simply establishing an agreement with C3D as to what and how you and the software will call certain things, and how they will be displayed on the Command Line.  One will also find certain instances where the Ambient Setting do hamper ones ability to key in data past the established precision settings for certain values like grades or slopes.

[sinc]

Umm...  That's something of a confusing statement.

True, you can change the Ambient Settings, and it won't have any effect on already-created Styles.  But the Ambient Settings define the defaults that are used when you create new Styles (well, unless you have an override set at a lower level in the Settings tree, which is also possible).

So yes, there should be a setting for "Use Cardinal Directions" in the Label Style Composer, but there should also be such a setting in the Ambient Settings.  But this feature is completely missing from C3D.

It might be added at some point, but it could take a while.  After all, it took Autodesk *7* releases to add delimiters to large numbers.  For years, they seemed to think that their nasty hack solution (involving Expressions and tons of different Styles) was adequate, and it took FOREVER to convince them that it wasn't.

[mjfarrell]

Umm...  That's something of a confusing statement.

For Clarity then; Ambient Settings have no impact on labels at any point.
The user will need set units and precision for each new label style they create irrespective off any setting in the Ambient Settings tab.

Try it; set anything for direction and or angle, then go configure a label style, notice the style still offers you format, precision, and units options other than those set at the Ambient level.


Another way to 'prove' this to yourself; open a new drawing from the standard Metric template, go to Drawing Settings>>Ambient settings and LOCK the distance units measure at METERS.  Then go to a general line label, and edit the style, notice that one can still choose units other than metric within the style?

[sinc]

Try it; set anything for direction and or angle, then go configure a label style, notice the style still offers you format, precision, and units options other than those set at the Ambient level.

I use this feature all the time.  And just to verify nothing has changed, I just started up 2012 and verified it still works.

When you create a new Style, it uses the Ambient Settings.  (Well, unless you've overridden the Ambient Settings at a lower level, of course.)

For example, in Ambient Settings, set precision for Elevation to two decimal places.  Go create a new Cogo Point Label style (do not copy an existing one; create a new one).  It will have Elevation set to two decimal places.  Now go change the Ambient Setting for Elevation to three decimal places, and create another new Cogo Point Label Style.  This one will have Elevation set to three decimal places.  (Unless, of course, you've applied an override at the Points level, i.e. in Settings -> Points -> Edit Feature Settings.)

[mjfarrell]

it may have the setting @ two decimal places, and it can even be LOCKED, however nothing prevents the user from chosing another setting, right in the style without any edits to the Feature Settings...or command settings...

[sinc]

Yeah, that's by design.  It's the hierarchy of settings, where you can change settings at each level, down to the individual Style.  And settings can be changed at any level, by changing the settings there and propagating the changes to all children by removing all children's overrides.

The thing that doesn't quite mesh is the contents of a Label (i.e. the stuff inside the Label Style Composer).  This is probably because the labels are designed so they can theoretically show multiple values simultaneously...  For example, you might want to show both Feet and Meters.  So when you cancel overrides in the Style hierarchy, the impact doesn't trickle down inside the text components.

That was actually why we added the GlobalLabelSettings command to the Sincpac-C3D...  It lets you globally apply settings to digit grouping, drop leading zero, and drop decimal for whole numbers, digging down into the contents of each Style.  This makes it much easier, for example, to upgrade an old template or drawing to 2011, turning on digit grouping, without needing to edit the contents of each Label Style one at a time.