In the Meantime.....I humbly submit the following procdure for place pipes along a surface profile:
Civil 3D process for Matching Pipe Run Profile to Any Surface
Create Pipe Run Alignments using Featurelines
Use the Grading>>Edit Feature Lines>>Elevations From Surface
To set feature line elevations from a surface
Click Grading menu Edit Feature LinesElevations From Surface.
In the Set Elevations From Surface dialog box, select a surface.
Select the Insert Intermediate Grade Break Points check box to insert intermediate grade breaks where the entity crosses surface TIN lines. Elevation points are created at these locations.
Click OK.
Do one of the following:
Select the feature line or other object.
Enter Multiple. Then select multiple objects.
Enter Partial. Then define a portion of the feature line to assign elevations to.
The feature line is given the elevations of the underlying surface. To edit these elevations, see Editing the Elevations of a Feature Line.
See the Help File Entry for the following for working with Feature Line Elevations.:
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 User's Guide > Dialog Box Reference > Grading Dialog Boxes >
Elevation Editor
Raise or lower the Feature line elevations as required. Such as at major grade break points, or to match design station and invert elevation. Note the option to insert the intermediate Grade Break points used above may then warrant the use of the Weed vertices's function of Feature Line Editing.
To weed vertices's
Click Grading menu Edit Feature Lines Weed.
Do one of the following:
Select the feature line or other object.
Enter Multiple and then select multiple objects to weed.
Enter Partial and then select the object and the portion of the object to weed.
The vertices's of the object(s) you selected are highlighted with green triangles and the Weed Vertices's dialog box is displayed.
Select the check boxes for the weeding factors that you want to apply and specify the values to use.
When you specify a value that will delete a vertex, that vertex is highlighted in red in the drawing, and a message is displayed in the dialog box indicating how many vertices's will be deleted. After you change a value, press Tab to update the message and the drawing display.
Points selected for weeding are highlighted in red
See Help File Reference for:
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 User's Guide > Dialog Box Reference > Grading Dialog Boxes >
Weed Vertices's Dialog
Then use the Create Pipe Network From Object. Your Pipe Rules can be set how ever they are mostly ignored during this process, This suggest your rules begin with:
Min Depth (As Required) Max Depth (As Required)
Min Slope 0% Max Slope (Design Max)
To create a pipe network from an object
Click Pipes menu Create Pipe Network From Object.
In the drawing, select the object.
NoteYou can enter Xref to select an object from an Xref.
You may be prompted to reverse flow direction. Press Enter or click OK to keep the current flow direction. Click Reverse to change the current flow direction. Flow direction arrows indicate the direction of the flow.
In the Create Pipe Network From Object dialog box, specify a name for the pipe network.
In the Description field, enter an optional description for the pipe network.
In the Network Parts List field, select a parts list or accept the default parts list for this pipe network. For more information, see Part Catalog and Parts Lists.
Your Parts List MUST contain a Structure; even though you may want to use Nulls at all pipe connections
In both the Pipes To Create and Structures To Create fields, select the types of pipes and structures to be used.
NoteYou must select both a pipe and a structure type. After creating the pipe network, if desired, you can delete parts you want removed.
To view or change the default layers that will be assigned to various pipe network parts, click Layers to open the Pipe Network Layers dialog box.
To reference a surface and/or an alignment, select the item in the list, or click to select a surface and/or alignment in the drawing.
If you want the originally selected object to be removed from the drawing automatically, clear the Erase Existing Entity check box.
Select the Use Vertex Elevations check box if you want to use the elevations of any vertexes along the selected entity to set the elevations of the pipes created in the network.
NoteFor 3D entity types, this option determines of the 3D vertex elevations are honored by the pipes created. When checking this option, rules are not applied as they would likely be in conflict with the vertex elevations.Click OK in the Create Pipe Network From Object dialog box.
The new pipe network is displayed in the drawing, and the pipe network name is displayed in the Pipe Networks collection on the Prospector tab.
Delete all unwanted structures from the network prior to drawing the Pipe Network Parts in the Profile Views.
