Topic: Civil 3D - Label Justification

[Dinosaur]

As I get further into using labeling styles I keep finding problem behaviors that I have ignored up to this point because of more pressing issues but are now just unacceptable.  The current problem annoying me is the justification of multiple line labels when I have to drag them from the default location.  There is no problem if I drag to the right side of the object but if I must position the label to the left, the justification reverts to that inane AutoCAD default of right justified mtext for leaders positioned to the left.  I know there is an override available now to correct this when making leadered notes, but I can not find a way to do this with Civil 3D labels.  Are there any words of wisdom concerning how to make these labels look like they were done by a conscientious professional?  At this point I am either turning off visibility for the offending labels or making the layer no-plot and replacing with correctly justified mtext.

[Cannon]

Make a child style, stack the text via the components, and set the Dragged state to as composed. Without a picture, I'm guessing, but I think you'll find that close to your desired result.

[Dinosaur]

Thanks James, something must have not translated through my original style.  I was 6 months beteen uses and was not certain that I had solved this problem.  Apparently I had because I found an archive copy of a drawing where it does behave correctly.

Since we are here, do you have any suggestions for forcing the leader to start somewhere other than the middle of the stack of text?  I have also turned off the leader visibility because of this placement.

[sinc]

Thanks James, something must have not translated through my original style.  I was 6 months beteen uses and was not certain that I had solved this problem.  Apparently I had because I found an archive copy of a drawing where it does behave correctly.

Since we are here, do you have any suggestions for forcing the leader to start somewhere other than the middle of the stack of text?  I have also turned off the leader visibility because of this placement.

Could it possibly be controlled by the options in the QLeader command?  (Start the QLeader command, right-click or hit return to get into the QLeader settings, and make sure the "Mtext" box is checked, then the "Attachment" tab should appear.)  I've noticed a couple of places where new C3D stuff seems to fall back on old dimstyle stuff...  (ugh!)

[Cannon]

Since we are here, do you have any suggestions for forcing the leader to start somewhere other than the middle of the stack of text?  I have also turned off the leader visibility because of this placement.

Does get over it count as a suggestion? You're fighting the software for no real reason. Leader location is an aesthetic concern and has really little to do with communicating design intent. I'm pretty unsympathetic to those sorts of things as John can attest.

You've used up a lot of billable time fighting it, and then time redoing leaders, all for some holdover drafting convention that probably didn't make much sense to begin with. Let it go....

[Dinosaur]

Does get over it count as a suggestion? You're fighting the software for no real reason. Leader location is an aesthetic concern and has really little to do with communicating design intent. I'm pretty unsympathetic to those sorts of things as John can attest.

You've used up a lot of billable time fighting it, and then time redoing leaders, all for some holdover drafting convention that probably didn't make much sense to begin with. Let it go....

Sure it counts . . . even though it is not what I want to hear.

I was a draftsman many more years than I have been a designer and about 14 times longer than I have been been using Civil 3D.  That 30 years has evolved a personal style to my drawings that I have managed to maintain and sometimes enhance since I transitioned from the drawing board to the keyboard 15 years ago.  I have held my nose and accepted some departures from the way I want my plans to look but these compromises do not come easily, only at the end of a long search.

And for any of my clients who might stumble into TheSwamp - I only wish my personal time was billable,  A company computer goes home with me each night so I can spend my evenings trying to bend Civil 3D to my will.  Much of this time is spent wrestling with styles and building templates.

Could it possibly be controlled by the options in the QLeader command?  (Start the QLeader command, right-click or hit return to get into the QLeader settings, and make sure the "Mtext" box is checked, then the "Attachment" tab should appear.)  I've noticed a couple of places where new C3D stuff seems to fall back on old dimstyle stuff...  (ugh!)

Thanks sinc, that was my best guess for a starting point.  I do remember at least in 2006 having to make a special dimstyle to keep current for Civil 3D to use for some things.

[MMccall]

After reading through this post I took a moment and popped open the style for one of my label styles.  I noticed on the Dragged state tab that there are settings there for the leader attachment point, 5 different options. These would only be available when the display style is set to 'stacked text'   I also noticed a value for Leader Justification  ( I had to go to the help system for a description of what this does)  The default setting is 'true' and it changes the justification from left to right as you drag the label from left to right of the object it's labelling.  Setting it to false holds a left justification regardless of leader location.

'07 could be different than the  '06I'm using so this info may be worthless.

[jpostlewait]

Since we are here, do you have any suggestions for forcing the leader to start somewhere other than the middle of the stack of text?  I have also turned off the leader visibility because of this placement.

Does get over it count as a suggestion? You're fighting the software for no real reason. Leader location is an aesthetic concern and has really little to do with communicating design intent. I'm pretty unsympathetic to those sorts of things as John can attest.

You've used up a lot of billable time fighting it, and then time redoing leaders, all for some holdover drafting convention that probably didn't make much sense to begin with. Let it go....

" John can attest"--- Attest.

The real impediment to progress is ,in my opinion, the reviewing agencies.
Back in the hand drafted days most of the rules of plan drafting were set in stone, or granite, with a bow to Dana, and we have been bending around the software in order to comply with things, while based on reason when first written, no longer apply.

But, if I may play Devil's advocate  for a moment, the reviewing agencies can't change their standards as often as Autodesk or Bentley releases product. And as long as no one shows the reviewing agencies that they are indeed costing themselves money, they will continue what they have always required.

And until Civil 3D drives a bigger install base than currently exists, then I think we are stuck complying with the rules.

But I have been wrong before.

Ya just can't let it go if it doesn't get approved, no matter how noble the argument.
We are going to give it a shot however.

[sinc]

The real impediment to progress is ,in my opinion, the reviewing agencies.

...and there's still the issue that the signed, printed copy of the plans still count as the document of record.  Sometimes we can't even get electronic files at all.  But when we do, they always come with a disclaimer saying that if there's any difference between the electronics and the printed plans, the printed plans hold.  And if we don't get electronics, we have to go through the painful and more error-prone procedure of recreating the plans ourselves, which is horribly inefficient.

Not to mention, the printed plans typically have more errors and omissions than the electronics.  This may start to change as people start using products like C3D more, but in Land Desktop et al., people tend to use lots of copy-and-paste for labels, etc.  That means labels are often wrong, even though the linework may be right.  If we have the electronics, we can often determine the correct data, even if the label is wrong (assuming the plans weren't created by one of those really bad CAD techs who change labels and dimensions without changing the linework, of course...)

Of course, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the time when we submit an electronic model to a regulatory agency instead of a set of plans...   

[Cannon]

OK, so what does the reviewer have to do with the decisions that are 90% driven by inhouse habits.

While some review agencies do specify, many are fairly flexible and just want good plans. It's easy to blame "those damend reviewers," but it's really just lazy, and not wanting to tell the PM that his little insistence on a three line retaining wall is just killing efficiencies. The same thing applies to things like three sided note boxes, or thick-thin polylines for leaders.

Unless it's written in the reviewers code, throw it out, let your mind be free of convention, just detail the damn things and go!

[Dinosaur]

. . . I'm not holding my breath waiting for the time when we submit an electronic model to a regulatory agency instead of a set of plans...   

We are almost there sinc.  We still send out all of the hard copy but included in the submittal is a complete drawing file saved in some preferred version format.  When this was first required around here the city was even so cheeky as to send us a copy of their standard layer names, line types, colors and pen weight standards that the submitted file must comply with. 

. . . The real impediment to progress is ,in my opinion, the reviewing agencies.
Back in the hand drafted days most of the rules of plan drafting were set in stone, or granite, with a bow to Dana, and we have been bending around the software in order to comply with things, while based on reason when first written, no longer apply.

But, if I may play Devil's advocate  for a moment, the reviewing agencies can't change their standards as often as Autodesk or Bentley releases product. And as long as no one shows the reviewing agencies that they are indeed costing themselves money, they will continue what they have always required.

And until Civil 3D drives a bigger install base than currently exists, then I think we are stuck complying with the rules.

But I have been wrong before.

Ya just can't let it go if it doesn't get approved, no matter how noble the argument . . .

AND

OK, so what does the reviewer have to do with the decisions that are 90% driven by inhouse habits.

While some review agencies do specify, many are fairly flexible and just want good plans. It's easy to blame "those damend reviewers," but it's really just lazy, and not wanting to tell the PM that his little insistence on a three line retaining wall is just killing efficiencies. The same thing applies to things like three sided note boxes, or thick-thin polylines for leaders.

Unless it's written in the reviewers code, throw it out, let your mind be free of convention, just detail the damn things and go!

I can stamp my feet up and down, screaming to the heavens that this is the format our new software provides and I just can't get it to display the passing and stopping <sight> distances for that vertical curve, but that argument is not going to fly very high or far.  Whatever their reasons or lack thereof, I have to find a way to derive that information.  I have seen a few cases where the client was able to go to the reviewer's supervisor and trump a comment if there is a compelling reason, but the next project through him by that client or even our firm for a different client has a very eventfull journey.

James, I would pay money to see your interactions with Johnson County Wastewater through a full plan submittal process . . . Heck, I would do the drawing work for free if I could also be around for all 3 or 7 rounds of comments for the flipping AS-BUILTS for them.

[Cannon]

You're missing the point, Dino. I'm not talking about the stupid crap we all do to amuse a reviewer that has some requirements that are hard (and in some cases, almost impossible) to meet with C3D out of the box. I'm talking about things like justification on text, three line retaining wall, noteboxes with three sides, etc. These are the things we did to make our plans "unique" and "nice," and to waste money.

You're creating construction docs, not the Mona Lisa. This is where the original "get over it" suggestion came from. You don't like the justification of certain text elements, and I say they don't matter. The information is still there, and the plans will likely meet the reviewer's criteria, in spite of not looking just like they always did when you did then with Leroys and a parallel bar.

I"m very sympathetic to the issues of reviewing agencies. You're not a snowflake, every CE in the world has to deal with at least one agency that's a PITA. If you can get rid of the hurdles in your own office, it makes dealing with the outside ones much easier.

All right, I'm done. Turkey day is approaching, and I'm tired of tilting at windmills. Have a pleasant weekend everyone!

[Dinosaur]

Many of these comments though, do have a solution hidden somewhere in customization or even in some obscure setting in the OOTB product and whether I find that answer to please my own aesthetics or the reviewer's, once it is discovered the same or similar procedure may work for the other.  Actually, this chasing around styles and settings is the fun stuff of Civil 3D for me, the rest is just work.  That is how I can justify packing this stuff home at night and turn my back to the television all evening.

I am more a craftsman than an engineer - my degree is a BA in history who never took math beyond college algebra.  I just happened to work for an engineer who was too lazy to do all of his own work, so I learned how.  Now that it is stable (well, you know what I mean) Civil 3D gets me past the design phase even faster and keeps me from the constant reworks when the design changes.