Topic: Civil 3D: create a profile from a 3dpolyline OR create alignment with elevations

[alanjt]

The other day, I had to create a profile from a single 3dpolyline and I could find no way to easily do this. What I ended up doing was offsetting the 3dpolyline (convert to featureline, offset, explode) on each side, so I could have 3 lines to create a surface. From there I ran an alignment down the middle 3dpolyline and created a profile from a surface.

I did come across this link later on. The curious thing was how, when you brought the xml back in, the alignment had elevations assigned to it, but I cannot figure out how you can assign elevations to an alignment.

I did notice there's a 'project objects to profile view' command, but that only works if you already have a profile, whereas I'd like to just be able to select my 3dpolyline or alignment with elevations and create a profile from it.

I was attempting this in c3d2011.

Thanks, guys.

[huiz]

You can create a quick profile based on the 3D poly,  then it becomes a projection.


Else you need additional software (I wrote an application to generate profiles from 3D poly[size=78%] lines)[/size]

[alanjt]

You can create a quick profile based on the 3D poly,  then it becomes a projection.


Else you need additional software (I wrote an application to generate profiles from 3D poly[size=78%] lines)[/size]

The quick profile isn't bad, but I'd like something more permanent.

The biggest thing that puzzles me is why when you xml the alignment back in (from the link I provided above), it has elevations assigned to it. How can you assign elevations to an alignment?

[huiz]

It creates a profile and an alingment.

[Jeff_M]

.... but I'd like something more permanent.

This is something included in the Sincpac-C3D package.

[BlackBox]

You can create a quick profile based on the 3D poly,  then it becomes a projection.

The quick profile isn't bad, but I'd like something more permanent.

Quick Profiles in C3D are crap... Quick Profiles in Land Desktop were just that an normal Profile generated Quickly, and were permanent.

Civil 3D should support the legacy style Quick Profile (permanent normal Profile per default Styles, etc.), and a Quick Profile View which instead of inserting an Entity in Model Space, generates the 'Profile View' via Object Viewer.

Put simply, any entity inserted into Model Space, that can be manipulated after-the-fact should _NOT_ be a temporary entity.

I've tried pointing this out to Autodesk, and the only feedback was (and I paraphrase) "We designed it this way, see the help documentation."